Speaking of the Mattel Core stuff, I finally got the Jokerized Batman.
I wanted to take the opportunity to do a bit of a comparison between this one, and the version McFarlane did. Why this design? Well... this design comes from the Batman Who Laughs, the Batman from Earth -22 who finally killed the Joker, but got infected by Joker toxin in the process, becoming a version of the Joker with Batman's intelligence and skill set. The Batman Who Laughs is most well known for his
black leather Pinhead-esque look, but he looked like this for a few panels in his backstory issue. It was a brief look for the character, but both McFarlane and Mattel decided to do figures based off it.
To be clear, McFarlane's was a $20 collector-aimed figure when it came out, and Mattel's is a $13 kid-aimed figure. They're not supposed to be interchangeable or comparable so rather then get into which is "better," I just wanted to look at how both companies approached this niche design.
McFarlane went way harder on this then they had to. For a version of the character who only exists for a few panels, it got a lot of love. The sculpt is entirely unique. There are loads of detailed tectures sculpted in that give it a bit of a rough and grimy feel. The two-tone cape is even represented with the green lining painted on. Even the batarang is a new sculpt, rather then be a repaint of the one of the existing moulds they have. Accessory-wise he has a figure stand and a trading card, along with said batarang.
Mattel's version is mostly a reuse of the Core Batman design they've been pumping out since the summer. I say mostly, because there are differences. The head is obviously unique, but so are the gloves. The gloves shocked me because given the kid-centric nature of the line, I'd have totally forgiven them if they didn't do that, but they went that extra mile. The belt is also unique, being a Hush-esque pouch belt. That is accurate to the source material (see McFarlane's) but it's strange they've only used this version of the utility belt on this guy, and not the Hush-inspired repaint from the Nightwing and Bane three pack.
Additional accessories include the standard Mattel DC Core accessory sprew. They include two types of batarangs, some flares (or they could be vials with Joker toxin), handcuffs, a spiked boxing glove, and a mine-looking thing. They're also all cast in glow-in-the dark plastic. The cuffs and s-shaped batarangs are reused from previous Core releases, but everything else is new moulding.
The mine is actually "kryptonian repellent." I guess that means that the accessories are kryptonite, being green and all?
He also continues the Joker's gimmick from the first wave, coming with Jokerized faces for his wave mates. John getting a glow in the dark green face was the workaround for not wanting to give a Black guy whiteface, I guess.
Again, the McFarlane and Mattel releases are trying to do entirely different things with the same character. The McFarlane one emphasizes detail in the sculpt, and a lot of paint to bring that detail out. The Mattel one has a lot of mould reuse, but that's ok. Detail and paint isn't the goal, it's fun and play value. They both succeed in what they set out to do, and they each went far harder for a very short lived look for the character then either had to.
