I will admit that I am a fan of Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns. I was first exposed to this wonderful tale back in college when a buddy and I were out hitting comic shops in 1989 caught up in the bat craze. I picked up the trade paperback not knowing what to expect and ended up reading it three or four times over the next couple of days. I loved everything about that book and it was to me the end all be all bat story.
DC Direct finally came to their senses a few years back and turned out a series of four figures based on the book. The series was to included Batman, Carrie Kelly Robin, the Joker, and Superman, each to included a piece of sidewalk that makes up the street corner where Bruce loses his parents in the book. The Robin figure also includes the street lamp that Batman uses to power his Superman fighting suit!
This Batman is one of the first DC Direct figures I bought, it was at a time when I was freelancing and I picked him up as a reward for a fine job on a little catalog I was working on. The catalog would come due in November and the day after the press checks I would swing by the local comic shop to pick up a Batman. I timed that years catalog just right as I knew this chunky Batman should be making an appearance right when it was going to press!
As you can see it's not very poseable, I think of DC Direct stuff more as movable statues, the articulation is basic, but the sculpt is dead on to the comic. This version reminds me of the panel where Batman rises up from the Bat "Tank" Mobile to fight the leader of a cult of punks and hands him his ass along with his teeth and a few other bits and pieces. This Batman does not mess around, this is the Batman I think of when someone says Dark Knight.
4 comments:
I'm on the fence about Frank Miller's whole body of work, but I agree that The Dark Knight is an amazing piece of graphic fiction.
The Dark Knight Returns and Year One are a couple of the best Batman stories ever.
The Dark Knight Returns and the first couple issues of All Star Batman and Robin (that's all I could stomach) are a couple of the worst.
That figure is pretty cool too - it's one I never got around to adding to my collection, but your pics make me want to re-think that!
I meant to say "The Dark Knight Returns 2 and the first couple issues of All Star Batman and Robin (that's all I could stomach) are a couple of the worst."
Oh, I agree year one and Dark Knight Returns are indeed two of the best, DK 2 seems to me to be an "I had to fulfill my commitment comic" and All Star was just horrible, I stopped after a few issues because I was tired of the price , lack of story, and the hunt to get the latest issue... Now I did enjoy the first several issues of the Legends of the Dark Knight titles, those are way better than the All Star issues.
Definitely my favorite Batman story of all time (the first one...the sequel just stunk), and this figure is incredible. My local comic shop never carried this line cause I'd have definitely picked it up if I'd seen it there. It's absolutely faithful to the story.
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