DC have always had a Batman figure on the market, it unsurprisingly consistently rolls out and gets some interest, sometimes they produce too many and folks like me get excuses to buy them and not feel too guilty or stupid, despite the fact that we then buy and pay more because even going over the top it’s still on sale.

The release of The Dark Knight bought a new wave of Batman figures to expand on the slightly limited range of Batman Begins figures, which at the time was perhaps being shortened due to the more cartoony version of figures for the animated series The Batman.

Whilst in my local supermarket, I spotted – in the way that geeks tend to, that being a slight glint in the peripheral vision leading to a sudden stop whilst pushing a shopping cart and causing a small child to smack in to the back of your leg and butt cheek – that they were discounting a whole load of Dark Knight figures, as well as Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, Power Rangers and Ben10 (but no Gwen) toys.

The deal was two figures for £8 or $11. What actually led to the purchase was seeing that if you bought them individually they were £7.97 each. Away I walked with four new figures. Well, after paying for them, away I walked, it would be rather ironic to shoplift crimefighter toys.

The four figures were: Bruce to Ninja; Grapnel Launcher Batman; Sonic Spy Batman; and, Punch Packing Joker.

The back of the packs reveal, in the good old fashioned way that toys have, what other toys there are to collect. From the Dark Knight range there are twelve figures, of which each pack only shows six, I happen to know there are a few more from just looking around (for example the overly neon PowerTek figures from the range aren’t included). The figures shown though are:

M5053 – Stealth Wing Batman (In bright blue costume repaint)
M5047 – Elasto-Cuffs Batman (Where it is now possible to fire handcuffs at villains on a length of cord and always apprehend them. Just as long as the handcuffs are dayglo orange)
M5045 – Staff Strike Batman (Where he gets HellBoy wristbands with pikeaxes sticking out)
M5048 – Grip Gear Batman (Quite a good one, in that he has suction pads to stick to glass. However, some websites show him as a fire red repaint, while he is the cool basic black on box)
MS060 – Swiss Blade Joker (Quite cool, Joker in a reverse colour scheme – green coat and pants, purple waistcoat – he carries a big metal case with weapons a-plenty)
M5058 – Fear Shot Scarecrow (A brilliant looking Scarecrow with a wristmounted Fear Gas sprayer)
M5061 – Punch Packing Joker
M5055 – Battle Belt Batman (The colour scheme on the box gives him a really awful camo outfit, some websites put him in grey and baby blue, either way he has a missile launcer thing)
M5052 – Ultimate Chain Attack Batman (How to put this, he’s wearing a goldish-brown and weilding an oversized tripple chainsaw. If he was in basic black with red splatter it would be the perfect Resident Evil crossover figure)
M5050 – Parachute Batman (I’m not sure why this Batman has bright green shoulder pads on top of his cape)
M5044 – Grapnel Launcher Batman

I really want to go back and see if I can get a Scarecrow, Swiss Blade Joker, Ultimate Chain Attack Batman and, well, anything to round it off to sale price again. If I do get a Chainsawing Bats, you can bet I’m taking one of the plain black suited figures and blood splattering him.

Bruce to Ninja
For a line that was marked up for The Dark Knight it seemed a bit odd to include Bruce’s ninja training from the first film, however I’m very much in favour of being able to actually have a Bruce Wayne and I can see how Business Suit to Batman might not have sold so greatly.

The set includes Bruce in ninja training garb and a batsuit torso that you can fit over him to ‘transform’ to Batman. It also features a very thick chunky sword shaped thing that opens up in to a fan, as well as a spiked gauntlet.

Personally, even as a kid I’d have preferred the Business Suit to Batman, because suited arms and legs would match the torso better. Yeah, I wasn’t co-ordinated in a wardrobe as a kid, but dammit my action figures better be.

Grapnel Launcher Batman
The better of the two Batman figures that I picked up, in my opinion. The figure is the basic black suited Batman – which is highly detailed and sculpted, though luckily not to the point of including batnipples – with a slightly oversized grapnel gun, obviously oversized to fit the spring mechanism for it to fire.

The gold coloured grapnel is roughly shaped like a bat and the gun does seem fairly in keeping with movie versions of hook-and-line weapons, with feasible areas to store cord and winch devices.

Sonic Spy Batman
Remember in Dark Knight where Batman fired those sticky bombs to the windows? Yeah, this is nothing like that. How about the bit where Batman unloaded a device the size of a cement mixer to fire a listening device so he could be all stealthy?

The basic black suited mold is back, and this time his gadget is fairly insane. Batman comes equipped with a huge missile launcher with a satellite dish and a missile that lets him listen in to things. The launcher itself is bigger than his torso and described as ‘fully portable’ on the back of the pack.

Punch Packing Joker
Got to love a Joker figure, if only for his clothing. Purple long coat, pants, shirt and tie, with a green waistcoat. His green hair is wavy, though as well as being long it does seem to be receeding giving him a noticable amount of forehead, maybe if they’d parted it a little differently.

The Joker figure is equipped with a missile launcher, which I could quite believe was inspired from the Police Van Chase Scene in Dark Knight, except that because the toys are obviously aimed at children they couldn’t just have Joker firing a missile, it had to be a missile with a boxing glove at the end.

Having seen the Batman Activity Book that was brought out for kids, which yes I own and may review sometime, I can understand that they’ve taken a few steps to still cash in on kids love of Batman and keep it tied to something current and hip. Heck, Two-Face gets majorly dropped all over, talk about discrimination.

The Joker figure is cool though, possibly second best to the Burton movie Joker figure because he had a hat and the long barreled revolver, not needing to soften down for the kids. He outwins the other Sark Knight tie-in Joker just because it’s a better colour combination.

If there is one thing that Higglytown Heroes teaches us, it is that everyone is a hero in there own right. Alright, so maybe doctors, police and firefighters train to hone their skills but don’t get to wear the spandex or get the better gimmicks like your day-to-day superheroes do, people like Creep Child Molestor Man and his sidekick Indecent Exposure Boy, but only a small percentage of heroes get to be superheroes. The Medical, Law and Rescue heroes are still heroes.

But this isn’t about day-to-day normal heroes, nor is it about Higglytown Heroes – and to be honest I’m not quite sure where I was going with that as an opening anyway. This is about superheroes and one mans quest to be a hero. Not the hero we deserve, not even the hero we need right now, but the hero we’re going to get regardless.

A lot of people had made their own series on YouTube in the wake of The Dark Knight, some of them are almost works of art (The Joker Blogs stands out as a shining example) and some of them are cringe worthy and best left to clutter up the Related Videos listing.

Back in November 2008 a new series started on YouTube, made by some young brits with perhaps the greatest concept of the time, something at the time I couldn’t help dropping messages to everybody about. The series was Becoming Batman and the concept was both simple and genius at the same time: track a man most unlikely for the role as he becomes Batman.

The very notion of a British attempt at Batman, if not already amusing enough, is coupled with the most unlikely candidate. There are really only three options to take with a concept like that, either you take it as a serious documentary, as a half-serious mockumentary or as a complete spoof.

The series has recently come to a close, at least for this story arc, so I thought I’d give a review of the series. Spoilerific, so you may want to watch through it first.

The original feel of the series seemed to be the mockumentary concept, as ‘Wayne’ and his friend mostly sat about discussing and planning, with the friend providing at times a voice of reason and letting natural interaction and seeming cluelessness or ignorance take the lead.

It was rather a simple set-up, with a few one-liners and perfect deadpan delivery of reasonable thoughts in amongst an absurd situation. The very pilot episode featured some classic examples:

(On being Batman according to newspaper)
Wayne: Any bored, wealthy martial artists feel like taking this on?
Friend: How is that you? Are you a martial artist? No. Are you wealthy? Not at all.
Wayne: I am a bit bored
Friend: You are a bit bored. Theres a stretch between “I’m a bit bored” go bowling or something don’t become a crime fighting…
Wayne: But I could be Batman!

Whereas the second episode featuring the “To Do List” really brings home about the almost surreality of the situation, the idea of a To Do List for becoming a costumed crimefighter featuring “costume”, “fitness” (“I can hold a jog, for a while”) and “get a butler”.

Friend: ‘Hide my true identity’
Wayne: Yeah, ’cause I thought because if I’m fighting crime I don’t want people to know who I actually am
Friend: Oh yeah yeah yeah…sort of protect you, people around you…yeah, should probably stop doing these videos…

The flaw as I saw it though happened from about episode three, where the nature of the series began to change rather early. The friend started to act comical on his own, as far as making an overly large protein shake and started to slip from the voice of reason role.

This was only the start with the series taking on more of a spoofing nature, becoming it’s own retelling of types and less about the mockumentary. Certain episodes still kept the original feel, such as the discussions with legal advice, but there seemed to be more of a lean to drop in movie references and lines or to cram in nods to a developing ‘celebrity status’ and to see how far they could push certain points.

Some of these references were very well done, especially the visual references (compare Episode 6 to Bank Heist) and some of the choice quotes, but the shoe-horning of Alfred in and going down the spoof route seemed to harm a great concept.

There are also some great moments in the opening of episodes, even after it has changed its direction, that harkens back to the original feeling of the series. Simple mundane tasks like having to scrape ice from the batmobile or having to answer the bat-mobile.

One aspect that perhaps became the most noticeable change is shifting focus. I tend to think of this along the “Harry Potter Style”, in that series you follow one character throughout, you only know of that character and what he knows because you only ever see scenes he’s in. This from a storytelling point of view makes it much more character- and circumstance-centric, and in some ways adds some essence of believability to the story – although you are aware that there must be a camera and operator, there is more the feeling of being there. The sudden change to following multiple characters and different styles of shots changes the overall style.

The element that quite threw suspension of disbelief in to a curve ball akin to ‘Bad Boys II’ with Miami PD invading Cuba with CIA, was the inclusion of daydream sequences.
Personally, and I know that they have gathered a fanbase so my own view is not that impactful given I’ve still had free entertainment, but I feel the unique nature and approach would have made a much more satisfying and even more humourous series. I’m not sure whether I could be as excited for a continuation as I was for the original episodes.

The trick, of course, is to adapt the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 line and “say to yourself it’s just a YouTube show and I really should just relax”. It’s a fun show, it has great humour and it’s highly watchable and re-watchable, but in my opinion, if it had stuck to it’s early styling then it could have been something so much more.

Though, admitedly, it does prove tempting to see just how an average person would do trying to train for the role. I know probably at least Deej has had those very same thoughts as I.

Yes, like a lot of people, I went to see The Dark Knight and came away, again like a lot of people, suitably impressed by the movie.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, let me just say that it’s very hard to actually discuss the story and even the major characters without spoilers, so to protect those who haven’t seen it yet, my review is going to be very brief and only mention elements that are either common knowldge, opinion or excruciatingly vague.

I loved Batman Begins as a restart point for the franchise, it took the gritty darkness of the Burton films and spiced up with a dash of realism and simplicity, everything about the movie was toned down to an industrial, everyday aspect. Villains were simple, believable, and the arsenal was streamlined and practical, being what was available and not a sudden wide range of toys.

Granted, I was slightly disappointed about the under use and playing down of Scarecrow and Zsasz, but mainly because those are two of my favourites from the DC universe and comics in general, however, the sacrifice of those characters did aid in setting what degree of realism we were dealing with. Villains were everyday people, with similar limitations to normal people, and with personalities that were recognisable, and therefore allowed for a Batman closer to the people.

This could cause some concern when dealing with the Joker, who is pretty much established throughout continuity as the most extreme larger than life character, however the Joker in The Dark Knight skillfully avoided this. A lot of people will go on about Heath Ledgers performance, rightly so, and it is with good cause.

The Joker is portrayed in a way that I never really would have thought of seeing, he’s a darker character and yet that darkness comes from how normal, how average he is. He’s not really insane, not truly, but he is portrayed with degrees of slightly off tendencies. At times, he speaks timidly and neurotically, with traces of some sadness and weakness, whereas others he has an almost manic fire in him. There’s displays of stoic determination and the hooting, bouncing Joker of old. Joker acts not as some crazed lunatic, but as a force free from rules who spreads disorder because he can.

Thats not to say he isn’t evilly funny, because there are some extremely funny scenes involving Joker. The entire hospital part of the movie is testament to the portrayal, with a mix of laughter and edge throughout, interweaving in the character.

He’s a different Joker to what has gone before, but that’s good because he’s the Joker that fits with that Batman series, and that series is right for the audience. We aren’t talking the travesty of Bane here, where one of the most successful villains gets a treatment so bad it’s almost by Uwe Boll.

From the opening caper, the movie hooks you, and you get a feeling about what the character is like and how the rest of the film will feel. It has an intensity and a grittiness to it, a darkness that just flows through the entire experience and capitavates from scene to scene.

Tim and I were discussing it afterwards, and it suddenly became clear how easily Batman Begins and The Dark Knight could have so easily been made in to a season of a tv show each, with Begins as the first year where he’s starting out with Highlander-esque flashbacks, building up to the finale with Ra’s Al Ghul and Scarecrow over 13 episodes, and then with the spacing and level of plot in The Dark Knight, how easily the Jokers campaign and the life of a certain DA could be played out. There’s a lot going on, but never too much.

My only two gripes, which are very slight, was the ‘true human nature’ issue that seems to plague movies a little much – for those who have seen it, I mean the boats – would have actually been nicer with a larger, more devastating twist; the other is the suspensful build-up ‘buzz’ noise, used in a similar way to building up with incidental music, but anytime we had to feel danger, there was a growing buzz, to be honest it got overdone – I know when I’m supposed to be nervous, if I have to make out words over a buzz, I’m likely to get annoyed.

One thing I focused on too much? Ledger licking his lips after every sentence, that just seemed so perfectly right of a nervous affliction.

The movie rocked. Seriously.

My hope for the next is more of the natural-style psychopath. If it’s a Riddler, make him a twisted sicko but not an over-the-top prancer, just some guy who sends disturbing, threatening, vague clues to something like bombs or murder. If it’s Catwoman, make her naturally good at what she does. I’m still holding out for maybe a Mad Hatter, Cornealius Stirk or Deadshot cameo.