THE TOYS OF SPRING: Batman ‘66 Haul

 

Stately as fuuuuuck!

OK, so it’s been like six weeks, because things have been non-conducive to photographing, compositing, and posting. If you know why you know why, and if you you don’t you needn’t concern yourselves. 

Also, while I did have a tone of shit show up in April, and some more in May, it all showed up in like the last week of the month. So it was May before I got around to shooting it, and then suddenly it was June and a bunch of other shit showed up last week of May and I had to clear THAT off the boards to make way for June’s preorders all shipping in the first week.

So let’s start with the MOST FUN. The vast array of Batman ‘66 stuff that finally shipped from Target, the most important of which is Stately Wayne Manor, which, as Batman 66 playsets go, really goes above and beyond.

There’s been a clear evolution of these playsets. The Batcave was a little less solid, with lots of molded plastic batcomputers and equipment that you just placed haphazardly as your space allowed. The Villain’s Lair was more solid, but wasn’t a constant presence in the show. Wayne Manor, however, is a dead on, rock-solid interpretation of a set in pretty much every episode, and throws in a sliding bookcase feature to boot. Really, the only thing missing would be a battery/LED built into the desk so that the red phone would light up, but that’s not really what Mcfarlane is doing with this line.

MORE VILLAINS! The deeper-than-expected dive on the villains continues, with King Tut and Two-Face. King Tut is amazing. Maybe my favorite figure in the line so far. The likeness is dead on, the cape is cloth, he’s got two staff thingies, and it makes me not care that he doesn’t move from the waist down. Normally, “can’t fucking sit” is a big strike against a toy for me, but here I’m giving them a pass.

Two-Face was never in the series, but there is a whole line of ancilarry Batman ‘66 canon for them to work off of, including a couple of animated movies and a comic book, so I’ll let it slide. Because it’s not based on a specific actor/outfit from live action, it’s a little more cartoony than the rest of the line, but not wildly out of place. Plus, giant prop coin!

And finally, the Bat-Boat. Is it wise for me to get the vehicles from this line? No, it is not. Am I doing it anyway? Absolutely. They just capture the series’ aesthetic so perfectly, and also a retro 80’s toy line aesthetic. It doesn’t do anything, it just sits there, being a Bat-Boat you can put figures in. The tail fin is on  a hinge, but I’d bet money that’s more to keep it from snapping off in shipping than because of any play functionality. But it’s a Bat-Boat. and, even better, it’s clearly the kind of Bat-Boat where the producers of the show found an actual boat that looked mostly right and did minimal deco to it to Bat it up.