Raving Toy Maniac

Found the second wave of the new highly stylized non-movie Bat figures; Two-Face and Freeze look to be one per case, along with the requisite technicolr Batmen. A couple Bats that may actually be worth a look, though. One is in a white anti-freeze type costume with goggles, a reasonable counterpoint to freeze. Another looks a lot like Manbat, where supposedly brilliant Bruce exposes himself to the toxic sludge Croc is dumping to mutate into a monster to fight him (here's hoping he has some Bat Anti-Mutation pills in that utility belt). Idiotic idea behind it aside, the figure actually looks pretty cool with the mutant head and arms attached.

The line does have yet another bad case of crisis on technicolor Batmen, especially with the deluxe figures pretty well sitting there since they were put out. Still, there may be some hope if there continues to be at least two non-Bats per wave as we've seen so far. The real weakness of the line, though, is the continuing slide Mattel is taking on quality; the translucent plastic used for Freeze's arms has the consistency of limp linguini; that and the hollowed out arms on Croc make this feel like a cheap knock-off line. Freeze's arms are never going to hold up to kids actually playing with them, as the elbow joints are not going to survive long without tearing under normal child-wear.