The Batman Figure With Todd McFarlane’s Personal Touch
As we kick off Bat-Month here at Power Action!
As March welcomes a new Batfilm, Power Action! is dedicating much of our content this month to the Caped Crusader. In this first installment, we’re continuing our series that takes a single action figure and unearths the story behind it. Last time, we went with a figure that’s 26 years old. This time, we’re looking at a figure released just last year.
Batman Designed by Todd McFarlane (2021, McFarlane Toys)
First, let me hit you with some quick facts about McFarlane Toys:
The company was launched in 1994 after Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane didn’t like the progress Mattel was making on his creator-owned characters like Spawn. It was originally called Todd’s Toys, too, but then the name was changed after Mattel sent a cease and desist over the possible confusion with this goober:
In more than one sense, McFarlane Toys became a monster in the industry, its figures known for a striking amount of detail and articulation—with often gruesome results for the darker properties. It began with Spawn toys and others in the original Image series, including Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.s and Rob Liefeld's Youngblood teams, respectively. But the figures were too good, and toy production would extend to horror films, video game characters, music legends in rock (from The Beatles to KISS), anime characters, and more recently, The Simpsons and Star Trek.
The rights for making toys based on Batman and other DC Comics heroes bounced around over the years. You may remember Kenner as the early-’90s Bat-Toy producer. Mattel lost the DC license in 2019, and a new one was split between Spin Master, which would make kid-friendly takes, and McFarlane, taking the DC Multiverse line and make them bigger and finer.
That deal would lead to McFarlane getting the OK to return to a character he hadn’t drawn professionally since the late 1980s: The Batman. His run on the “Batman: Year Two” arc in Detective Comics and covers like Batman #423 proved to be short, but influential with visual flourishes that would eventually dominate the Spawnverse.
Shown in this newsletter is the "variant" paint job on Batman Designed by Todd McFarlane, with a navy blue hue replacing the dominantly black cape in the primary version. In a social post, McFarlane explained his decked-out approach to the character: "What I’ve always loved about Batman—he doesn't have any superpowers, so he's gotta basically be ready to go to war." This also explains the copious pouches, three rows of arm fins, and a couple spikes on his gloves—all making Bats at once battle-ready and reminiscent of the motifs the Image crew injected into comics decades ago.
Everything about this figure embodies what makes McFarlane Toys special, too, with the packaging boasting 22 moving parts ("Ultra Articulation"), a slew of accessories, and an extra collectible card. There’s a ’90s-era decadence to this thing that shows us that even 28 years into making toys, McFarlane approaches each project with a joy that transcends the sour faces of his characters.