BATMAN

 

Now this is the Batman i fall in love with!! Speaking of those good times when videogames not only were better than now, but they also offered much more for a much lower price, its imposible not to talk about Batman Arkham City. The game wasnt only brillant, but that beauty was on its outsde package as well: a square perfcet transluscent box with a Gotham landscape inside and Batman and Joker images on the outside, with a little shelf in the bottom with the game and an artbook, and at the center of all, this figure of Batman.

This is one of thsoe rare scenarios where the figure looks really good both outside and inside of its package. The figure - a statue actually - is not that big actually, its shorter than your average action figure but since Batman is crouching his overall scale is bigger soo the details really shine, and wath details he have!!

He is at the corner of a roof, getting ready to jump and punch someone but still looking very depredatory and manly, you can feel the motion of his movement and yet he looks solid as a mountain. Like i said at the begining, i am totally in love of this Batman design, this is the exact image that appeare on my mind when i hear "Batman" soo i am not impartial to really like this.

Every detail is present, like the puches on his belt, the bolts on his outfit, the texture with little holes on the suit, his generouse muculature and how the cape huge his body soo perfectly thanks to the sift plastic material.

Paint is as perfect as the sculpt tough for some reason he is black and white but is difficult to notice since his only color part would be his face and his belt. I do love the grey shadows and white tones that give a lot of volume to his muscles, its actually quiet easy to take pictures of him.

He is posed on top of a big corcular base with the Arkham City logo in red. Really stricking for a black and white figure and  under the base is signed by Kotobukiya. No wonder the high quality of this statue, just like theyr Bishoujo line and the rest of his products. I can say with confidence this is one of my favorite Batman figures i ever seen.

BATMAN

HotToys have LOTS of Batman figures. Not as much as the ridiculous amount of Ironman´s, but still they have many many version of Bale´s Batman and a few of Keaton´s Batman. While i hated Bale and i have a soft spot in my heart for Keaton, i dont see non of them as the definitive Batman. I never liked theyr design of “armored” Batman.

But when Arkham Asylum was released i was in love of Batman´s design. Aside of the OBVIOUS reasons and his baranes and big muscles, i found his look and design pretty close to the concept i always saw like the perfect Batman: with the long ears, angular and menacing face and an outfit that looked like a whole uniform covering a bulky body instead of a transformer robot.

Last year HotToys released Arkham City Batman and i was excited for him! Tough the price was WAY too high and i wasnt able to afford him. He is still on some toy stores on display with the high number on his price tag and i doubt someone dare to buy him.

But eventually i saved some money for another figure: The Creature From the Black Lagoon. And of course, i wasnt able to buy it cus someone else got him before me…ugggh….but to my surprise the store also had Batman and they had him at a very low price!!! It was a pretty nice surprise.

I was pretty nervious to get him thanks to his outfit. Naked Snake uses a similar outfit and he is almost a static statue and Chris is no better since his pants and “flesh” covering his arms restrict the articulations way too much. But THIS guy is a reall exception.

Batman is spectacular in details, his cowl and gauntlets are jet black and clean. I wish his gautlets had some “damage” but is just a minor complaing. His costume have a perfectly done texture and his belt is realistic and detailed with little signs of use here and there. His eyes are wet and perfectly painted and the texture on the skin of his lowe jaw is really fantastic. Each wrinkle of his lips is perfecly sculpted and sofly painted and you can even see 5 o´clock shadow.

Hot Toys sculpt and paint is beyond perfect, is trully creppy how realistic it is.

He can stand on his own, but he still comes with the standar Hot Toys base too. The logo on the base is pretty cool but the base as a whole is kinda useless given his odd design (the figure is supossed to be sit on it).

Here comes the tricky part: the articulation. He have a fully articulated body under his outfit but Hot Toys FINALLY managed to free the articulations. The body is a little thinner soo his outfit is kinda lose, the big muscles are actually shaped in the latex costume, not the digure himself, soo he have some “space” to move inside. This is both stetic and usefull since he can move his arms to a much wider range than i was expecting.

He still cant put his arms above his head but he is much MUCH more movable than Naked Snake or Sheva Alomar and Chris Redfield. Also, his legs are a separate piece independent from each other and the torso, soo he can pretty much open them and move them as much as i want.

The armour on his legs with the ugly tongue dosnt get in the way either soo if i have to compare him, i say he is as articulated as the Predator.

He comes with an extra lower face with a fierce expression. The quality is as impresive as the serious expression if not more, since every single on his teeth are sculpted and painted perfectly and they are even wet looking. He also comes with toons of hands but thats standar now days actually.

He comes with his basic batarang that can be placed on a small hole on his fist (something perfect given how the other Batman toys cant even hold the batarang), the explosive gel thingy, the line launcher and the Batclaw.

His Batclaw have a pretty stylish and elegant design and the claw is actually removable (something useless since it can get lose pretty easylly) and it have a second variant claw as well. The line launcher is the most detailed of the items since it have a pretty intrincate sculpt and a vibrant blue and yellow metalic paint on it. The barrels are also articulated and can move left and rigth.

In fact, it feels like he dosnt have too much items compared to the Resident Evil guys or Snake but i cant think of anything else they could have added. Maybe a couple of smoke bombs? Batman really dosnt have too much weaponry aside of this.

In last place he have his cape. Is not remobavle and is the only piece made with fabric and a pretty classy one it. The outside is made withplastic material to make it looks like leather and the inside is made with black silk for a shiny and more dark looks. I dosnt have wires but the weigth is good and can be placed in various shapes thansks to the “latherish” part.

I only wished the cape was longer tough… it would be pretty silly to fight with a long cape but it may looks much coller.

And he is HUGE. He is much bigger than Jill and Sheva (of course) but also bigger than Chris and Snake!!! He is the same size of the Predator. I always expect Batman to be pretty tall but i dont know how i feel with him being Predator size. In the end i dont know if he is too big or if Chris and Snake are way too small.

I could say Chris and Snake are too small since they are the same size of Jill but the Predator makes me think otherwise. Is the Predator supposed to be taller too? I dunno…i didnt expect Hot Toys to have scale issues actually, not for the price they ask for theyr products.

In the end, he is incrediblly good looking and he is much better articulated than i was expecting (still kinda stiff), my only issue would be the scale since i dont know wath to think about it at all but i am pretty happy with this guy.

He mades an exceptionally nice item for a videogame collector and at the same time satisfy my Batman needs since i dont have many figures of him at all, also he is one of the most bara visions i have ever seen. If only Hot Toys release Arkham City Catwoman (in Jill´s size!) i could not ask for anything more.

POISON IVY

Botanic scientist turned into evil dominatrix monster, Pamela Isley has been one of my favorite characters of Batman and i finally had the chance to get her Play Arts Kai toy!!

The seller asked me “how much do you offer?” and i give him a pretty ridiculos low number not expecting nothing and to my susprise, he accepted!!! The only thing i regret is how long it took me to get this.

She is big but pretty light on weight and like all PAK females, the articulations are pretty simple but works great and gives her a big amount of posible posses. She can stand on her own wich is a big plus considering his tinny are her feet.

The sculpt is sharp and detailed, every vine on her skin and leaf is sculpted and her body shape is perfect. The pain is vibrant and eye catching, almost like a dart poisonous frog, she catchs the eye stronglly. Her eyes are pretty nicelly done, while her face is cute, you notice theres something wrong in there when you look at her eyes; they looks like animal eyes, sharp and cold like a hunter gaze.

She have a pair of extra hands for some sexy gestures and a base. This base is compossed by leafs, bulbs and fly traps plans and flowers and is basically th best base Square Enix has produced. Not only works great and make her stand all the time, but is pretty small (unlike the rest of the figures bases with a huge arm holding the figure) and also, the base is perfectly blended with Ivy as a small diorama. I know if hard to make a base like this for characters like Snake or Leon but i wish Square Enix does more bases like this instead of theyr EXASTAND.

She also comes with two vines tentacles. This vines are vendable and pretty soft to play with soo they have an unlimited range of display. Is a little tricjy make her stand with them since they make her lose the balance, but once fixed in the rigth position they looks great. It dosnt matter if you put them on her neck, legs or arms, they ALWAYS looks pornish and they can be used for tentacle rape Batman!!!!!

My only complaing is her size. She is one of the most smallest PAKs being 2-3 inches smaller than Quiet or Snake and yet, she is too big for Batman!!! She is the same size of Batman Arkham Asylum version and she is supposed to be smaller… SquareEnix seems to be in total oblivion about scale and sizes…

Aside of that, she is pretty perfect and stylish and a figure that stands out stronglly thanks to her radioactive colors and design full of exces and erotism and i really dont feel like i need any other Arkham villian with her around.