Category: DC Comics

1994 Skybox DC Master Series Trading Cards

1994 SkyBox DC Master Series Trading Cards

On By thedragonfortressIn DC Comics1 Comment

This post was written by my dear friend Pat (@ptotime). Thanks, Pat!

1994 Skybox DC Master Series Trading Cards
Green Arrow, by Ray Lago; and Huntress, by Hector Gomez.

During the pandemic, there was a hot moment where all of the stuff that Wizard Magazine lied about being worth something someday actually WAS worth something. This was purely a function of the market: while working from home, bored Xennials spent more time on eBay, looking up things that they used to enjoy. Suddenly, there was demand to meet the Internet’s inexhaustible supply of 1980s and 1990s pop culture ephemera. Old toys, old video games, old comic books — everyone who, at age 8, was certain that their Web of Spider-Man #100 (First Appearance of the Spider-Armor; green holo-foil cover) was going to be worth money lived out the monkey’s paw fulfillment of that wish when online sellers convinced them that the dose of nostalgia was worth $35 or whatever. (After all, it’s a Key Issue.)

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1995 Sea Claw Batman

1995 Sea Claw Batman Quick Review (Batman: The Animated Series – Crime Squad)

On By thedragonfortressIn DC Comics10 Comments

Today we’re trying something a bit different. I have a full length review gestating, but it needs just a little bit of work. So, while you wait, here’s a quick review. 

I love Kenner, Hasbro, and Mattel’s old DCAU based toys– but there’s only so much you can say about each individual figure. My first Batman: The Animated Series figure review was a retrospective on the toy line as a whole and how it compared to other toy lines of the 1990s. We don’t need to cover that ground twice so, in this review, we’ll just be taking a quick look at one BTAS figure. 

It’s pretty simple– just a 5POA Kenner figure and two accessories. So I doubt even I can get too long winded about it. Let me know if you like this kind of stuff, as I wouldn’t mind throwing down quick reviews for basically every DCAU-based figure I own. There’s a shocking lack of content concerning most of these toys on the web. 

This time, we’ll be looking at Kenner’s Sea Claw Batman, released in the Crime Squad sub-line in 1995. 

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2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker Toy Line

2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker Toy Line Review

On By thedragonfortressIn DC Comics7 Comments

2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker Toy Line

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker had everything– the fourth vocalist of Black Flag, Clarissa Explains it All, Luke Skywalker, Boy Meets World, Smallville’s Lex Luthor and Justice League’s The Flash, Mrs. Mom from Mr. Mom, and Megatron. It also had a toy line. 

The film featured a remarkable, toyetic cast of clown-themed villains working under the titular Joker. Their designs are so memorable that you might think they appeared in Batman Beyond often, and not just in this movie and an episode of Justice League Unlimited. But no, those are their only two appearances, and they are still iconic. 

2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker

They are:

  • Bonk – a hulking, brutish Nosferatu/clown hybrid that was once a hardcore frontman and is now a spoken word grump
  • Chucko – a terrifying murder clown whose lower body was eventually replaced with a large beach ball
  • Dee Dee – Harley Quinn’s granddaughters and twin Sabrinas 
  • Ghoul – a Halloween pumpkin man in a witch hat 
  • Woof – an honest-to-god cyberpunk werehyena 

You’d think this colorful cast of circus-themed horror weirdos would make for an incredible toy line done in the Kenner-disguised-as-Hasbro style. But that wasn’t quite what we got. 

I’m here to take an in-depth look at the toy line we actually got for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, and there’s neither a werehyena nor an especially large clown in sight. 

Here’s a review of each figure from Hasbro’s 2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker toy line. 

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This Epic action figure radicalized me into a g*mer

On By thedragonfortressIn DC Comics2 Comments
1998 Legends of the Dark Knight Batgirl

Isn’t Cyberpunk 2077 Epic? I mean sure the devs lied and we should hate them (for a little while) and it has some bugs on peasant boxes (consoles, lol), but it runs perfectly on my 69,420 gigawatt custom PC with super rare ($6000 on eBay) video card and custom lighting (red). 

That’s right, friendos, I’m a gamer now. I deleted my 100+ Animal Crossing hour (girl game, also Political) save and got into Dark Souls (Epic game, not Political) where I’ve logged over 6 full work days on Steam. 

What turned me from a normie toyboi into an Epic gamer, you ask? 

That’s an easy one, gentlesir. It was only the Batman – Legends of the Dark Knight – Batgirl, released by Kenner in 1998. 

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1992 Turbojet Batman by Kenner (Batman: The Animated Series)

1992 Turbojet Batman Review (Batman: The Animated Series)

On By thedragonfortressIn DC Comics10 Comments

1992 Turbojet Batman by Kenner (Batman: The Animated Series)

This review is a bit different. Not only are we looking at an action figure from a toy line we’ve never talked about here before, but my friend Pat is also joining us. Pat is one of my oldest, dearest friends and we’ve undertaken many regrettable projects together. Here is our latest.

If you like both Pat and myself, know that we both contributed to the TMUK/Toy-Fu Transformers Action Masters Zine I wrote about in my last post. Pat’s contribution to the zine is a comic, and if anything else included in that zine makes me laugh that hard, I promise I will literally eat my hat and then never fulfill that promise.

Let’s talk about some old Kenner Batman toys! Today we’re going on at length about Kenner’s 1992 Turbojet Batman from the Batman: The Animated Series line.

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