Batman – The Dragon Fortress

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.

Continue reading “1995 Sea Claw Batman Quick Review (Batman: The Animated Series – Crime Squad)” →

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.

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.

Continue reading “2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker Toy Line Review” →