{"id":24240,"date":"2013-07-29T02:40:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T07:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=24240"},"modified":"2013-07-29T02:51:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T07:51:58","slug":"batman-classic-tv-series-batman-robin-2pk-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=24240","title":{"rendered":"Batman Classic TV Series
Batman & Robin 2pk Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>One of the bigger surprises DC & Mattel were able to pull off this last year was working out the rights to the Classic Batman TV Series. I\u2019m not privy to what the exact stumbling blocks have been all these years, but you can\u2019t get the series on DVD and if you\u2019ve wanted any merchandise beyond replicas of the Batmobile, you were pretty much out of luck\u2026 until now. <\/p>\n

Warner Brothers has let loose with the Batman license this year. Mezco has some cool new Mez-Itz featuring the classic designs. NECA has a gorgeous quarter-scale figure coming soon. Hot Toys has gorgeous Batman & Robin sixth-scale figures on the way (and a sixth-scale Classic Batmobile to boot). And Mattel has\u2026 well, Mattel has figures too. <\/p>\n

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I enjoy the old show. I enjoyed it more as a kid, some fifteen to twenty years after it originally aired and like most things I enjoyed as a kid, I usually want some action figures to keep those childhood memories alive. When Mattel announced, I was excited at the prospects. A 6\u201d scale classic Batmobile! A Caesar Romero figure with a molded-on, but unpainted mustache! Multiple Catwoman! A Frank Gorshin figure (he put Riddler on the map, if you ask me)! Burgess Meredith! Egghead! King Tut! Bookworm! Louie the Lilac! I have no idea how deep Mattel would go with the line-up (other than not deep enough), but it was really fun to think about. <\/p>\n

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I put in pre-orders for everything as soon as they came up and that included the 2pk being reviewed today. It featured the Dynamic Duo with a wall-mountable building fa\u00e7ade that they could \u201cclimb\u201d up. The set looked fun with opening windows and, hey, it\u2019s also the only way to currently get Robin. I was excited when it came in (seemingly early) and I was excited when it shipped. I was pretty much ecstatic right up until I opened it.
\nThe set and I got off on the wrong foot right away. That was truer for Robin; whose leg had been pretty badly warped by the package. The real problem for me was the paint QC on both figures, particularly the faces. Batman featured a lot of slop on the right side of his mask and a scratch in his symbol. Robin had fuzzy lines on his mask and hair, and a big paint glob on his lip. It was difficult to really have fun with the figures due to the sloppiness. I pretty much boxed the set back up and left it until it was time to work on the review. Not exactly what I had planned when I got the e-mail that the set was shipping. <\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve been trying to look past the QC to get excited about the figures. While I don\u2019t feel like all the articulation is working well in concert with the sculpts, I think the sculpts are nicely done overall. The Adam West is the better likeness of the two (in that I don\u2019t really see much Burt Ward in the Robin head sculpt). The real success on his head sculpt is the separate cowl piece. It does a great job; giving much needed depth to the mask and letting natural light & shadow give the figure a great feel. <\/p>\n

Beneath the mask, I\u2019m still getting used to the non-heroic proportions, but the figure does match up pretty well to the show. For some reason, I can\u2019t \u201cunsee\u201d the bicep swivels \u2013 and while I almost always favor articulation, but I kinda wish they weren\u2019t there. Those Ghostbusters ball-elbows might have worked well on this figure where the aesthetics seem a little more important than they do on the comic-based-fare.<\/p>\n

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While Robin\u2019s head sculpt is as sharp as Batman\u2019s, I think some of it may be do the paint. The head is molded red and painted in that gloopy fleshtone (I know because mine got a \u201cbloody\u201d lip after I removed that paint glob). I think that\u2019s making the sculpt appear a little softer than it might normally be. The rest of the figure\u2019s sculpt looks fine and the costume details do a better job of hiding the bicep swivel. I did have an issue with my Robin\u2019s wrists though. The two parts aren\u2019t as flush as they should be and a small, but noticeable gap is there on both arms. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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There is one other thing that figures do have to overcome for me personally. I hate, hate, loathe, hate cloth capes. I just don\u2019t like \u2018em. I get why we need them in light of the Batmobile, but mixing cloth and fabric as this scale just never looks right to me. This particularly true here with the cape strangely sandwiched between parts of the collars on each figure and because of the cheap material. It\u2019s kinda Super Powers esque in that it doesn\u2019t appear that toy cape technology has advanced all that much in the last twenty-five years (though the tags do say it\u2019s an all-new material).
\nSpeaking of those tags, they\u2019re gigantic. Ridiculously huge. Mattel Legal cracks me up. I\u2019ll be happy to cut those tags out after the review is done. Finally, the capes have a wire running through them for posing, but I difficultly getting a lot of use out of the wires. Maybe I\u2019m just doing it wrong. <\/p>\n

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The articulation is the usual Mattel complement. Ball-joints at the neck (good range on Batman, not as much on Robin) & shoulders, swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs, hinges at the elbows, knees, and ankles, an ab crunch and the \u201cMattel\u201d hips. Other than Robin\u2019s head, everything seemed to work pretty well. I would\u2019ve like to see the ankles in particular done a little better simply because of the included stand. The figures can get into some decent poses on it, but the ball-ankles would\u2019ve greatly improved the figures. I would also be okay without the ab-crunch on Batman and the bicep-swivels. It\u2019s so weird to hear me say that, but it\u2019s true. <\/p>\n

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Batman includes his classic blue Batarang accessory and he can hold it well. It\u2019s also got a nifty little spot to run a small string through to help replicate the \u201cclimbing\u201d scene while posing the figures. <\/p>\n

That scene is mostly taken care of with the included base. The base is nice and it looks like if you had money to buy multiples you could get a full wall going, but I\u2019m not sure on that. The piece is wall-mountable (and I took the pick here with the wall vertical, not hortizontal like on the show). Mattel didn’t or couldn’t provide any rope or string, but there is a black paper twist tie that does great fill-in work. The cool factor here is that the windows open, but the downside is it\u2019s hard to get a figure back there to pop out of the window if it\u2019s hanging up. Heck it\u2019s hard to get a figure through the narrow window anyway. Still, it\u2019s a neat peace and leaves me wanting a Sammy Davis Junior or Dick Clark figure. Oh, and curtains. Where are the curtains? <\/p>\n

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Anyway, so the sculpts are okay, the articulation is okay. I\u2019ll get over my aversion to cloth capes so I can stuff these guys in the Batmobile. But I\u2019m still just ho-hum about the figures overall. Is it just the really poor QC on the paint? Is it that maybe I just don\u2019t love this iteration of Batman enough? <\/p>\n

In contrast, I\u2019m not the biggest Predator fan, but I\u2019ve bought three versions of Dutch this year! I can\u2019t see the need for buying different iterations of the Adam West Batman, at least not with this line. And that combined with the bad QC had me cancelling all my pre-orders. I\u2019m not leaving the line in the dust for sure just yet, but I definitely need to find the figures at retail to survey the paint QC and make sure I\u2019m not going to end up with anymore like these two. <\/p>\n

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Overall, if you\u2019re a huge fan of the original series. If you\u2019ve been waiting decades for these figures. I think you\u2019ll be happy with these, warts and all (though hopefully you’ll find better paint than mine, yeesh!). I imagine it\u2019d be the same for me if we got a Zauriel figure or Classic A-Team figures that weren\u2019t exactly great. I\u2019d take them and I’ll probably not complain too much. That said, I hope Mattel gets a little better with this line. The likenesses need to be sharper (and that means not painting the faces with the gloppy skintone mix). The QC needs to be better. If we’re all as crazy for ’66 Batman this year as it seems, Mattel could do well with this line. They just have to look like they’ve put a little more love into it than we’re used to lately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t

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