“If I knew it was gonna be this long, I would have brought my homework. You sure about this extortion ring?”– Robin, Batman: The Animated Series “Robin’s Reckoning” (1993)
DC Collectibles is churning out their Animated figures faster & faster now that they’ve conquered the early QC concerns.
Eight figures have come out these last few weeks and that’s not to mention the recently released Batmobile! I was already behind, having not reviewed a few figures from this summer, and with six more figures coming soon (Harley should drop this week) I decided it was time to get that stack reviewed up, hopefully between three to five of them this week.
I wanted to start with Robin because he’s another pleasantly surprising figure. I was always fond of the original Animated Robin figure even though it was terribly out of place. One of my favorite Robin figures was basically one that shouldn’t exist, Marlon Wayans as Robin. The actor was cast & fitted for his Robin costume in Batman Returns, but didn’t make it into the film. The figure still made it out though and was pretty cool.
Then the body got reused, completely inappropriately for the Animated Robin figure. Here was this line with all these great on-model sculpts and then here was Robin with this abs of steel. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t right. They did give it a new head, so that was something. I laugh now that Gentle Giant is about to canonize it again in their 12” Jumbo line.
And while I’ve kinda of wished that DC Collectibles would spend a little more time trying to homage the old toys, Robin is one figure where that’s not the case. He just needs to finally be straight from the show, like he walked off the small screen. And the best part about the figure? He’s pretty much exactly that.
The sculpt is terrific, again one of my favorite in the line so far. It’s funny to me that I would enjoy both Robins so much after not caring for the old toys. In this case, it is probably finally getting that animated accurate sculpt, but I also love the head sculpt. It looks great and it somehow looks young and like Dick Grayson is having fun being Robin. That’s always an important aspect to his tenure as Robin for me. Continue to Page 2…
Great Review for a very cool figure.
It’s another one that lets me wish for more funds and space to collect the line 😉
(Not a fan of the New Adventures in style and characterization, but I like the classic series so much …)
Robin was always one of my favourites in the show, as was the Tim Drake version in the comics, so the blend worked really well for me.
I dunno, in some shots it looks like he has really long arms… 😀
At time he appeared in the show think was around the 20 mark in Tim Drake’s solo.book so I did find that odd but, liked it as liked the suit more than the classic. On my get list as I hope to get a couple of these before my LCS is closing. Dick was enjoyable and fun in the series even as Nightwing (learned about that during Knightfall/Crusade/Quest) so easily a buy yet news of Harley and she’s a must. Missed Joker though 🙁 saw and was just shirt or he’d been a first.
Okay got off track so back on. Great review and hope to find and await this week indeed.
I was seriously impressed by DC Collectibles Batman: The Animated Series toyline for a while, and Robin ALMOST made me get into the line, but it would take the Batmobile being at my LCS to finally break me.
Your remembrance of the vintage figure that was just a reuse of the Batman Returns body with a new head is pretty spot on to how I remember things. “Why is Robin so ripped compared to everyone else!?”
This one being so exact to the cartoon is great and yet somehow the silliness of the old figure is still a very fond memory of my own. I wish I actually still had all my Batman: The Animated Series toys, but they all got thrown out during my “Too old for toys” phase.
Are you positive that Marlon Wayans was actually fit with a costume? I know it’s long been an urban legend amongst toy collectors that the Batman Returns Robin figure was supposed to be him cause of the flat top, but surely if such a costume existed there would be some kind of evidence by now?
I actually met Marlon Wayans briefly when he was shopping for old toys at Meltdown, the comic book store on Sunset in Hollywood. And I flat out asked him about him playing Robin and he said “No, nothing ever got filmed.” I wasn’t specific about him testing for a costume but he was pretty quick to shoot down any rumors that he had anything to do with the movie. This was in 2003 by the way.
(He then purchased a very expensive boxed original Japanese Go-Lion set….man, it must be awesome to be a movie star and toy collector!)
I have both of those Robins, and finding out Marlon was supposed to be in the movie (as “naw man, Jay!”, not Robin!) explained so much so many years later.
I need to track down this guy. I got a coupon from old shop on Hallowe’en, but there’s a chain store net to a new haunt I should probably check first. and that Riddler. (tonight’s Gotham tho!!)
Man I’m mad I just found out about this line… But I just pick all the figures. Cool review!
That Figure was simply the first figure of the Tim Drake/Neal Adams Robin costume, Marlon Wayans was originally going to be in the first batman, not returns, but nothing happened with it, (Burton wanted to distance his Batman from 60’s Batman as much as possible) but at the time returns came out, Robin debuted in that costume, so they included a figure of it. It is actually completely unrelated to the movie, if you look, it’s a perfect representation of Adams’ original design of the costume. So… yeah… BUT… both are still nice costumes and figures. I love this line so much