While Hot Toys is generally known for its Movie Masterpiece Series, they actually do make figures for other media, specifically video games Mainly consisting of Resident Evil and Batman games these days, Hot Toys still hasn't exactly completed the line up from any of games. One of these games is Arkham Knight, the third in the Rocksteady Batman series.
Batgirl is probably the most recent entry into the line up, and even that is old news now. I believe she was also the last rooted hair figure produced by Hot Toys, as everything is that horrible sculpted hair these days - great for looking forward, not so much if you want to pose your figures with their heads turned.
Well, unlike the rest of the Batman line up, it appears that Batgirl didn't sell that well. I actually got mine through a trade for older figures, but Batgirl has been up on sale at Sideshow for both Halloween and Black Friday, still available and I'm going to guess put up for sale again on Boxing Day. I don't think it is a lack of popularity that killed sales, but rather, something a bit more basic.
Lets get started, shall we?
Batgirl comes in a box which features a magnetic cover protecting a windowed box, displaying the contents. Pretty standard issue for the VGM series, if memory serves me correctly, but far less frequent on the Movie side of things.
I didn't play the Batgirl DLC, and I bought the game before any GOTY editions were released, so I don't actually know what tools she had in the game. I'm going to guess, however, that she had more than what was in the package, though quite frankly I'd probably never actually use them anyway:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 2 x Faceplates (Neutral, Smirk)
- 10 x Posing/Gripping Hands
- 2 x Batarang
- 1 x Map Display
- 1 x Grapnel Gun
- 1 x Grapnel Effect
- 1 x Base/Stand
I have absolutely no idea how to use the Grapnel Effect, as the wire is quite flimsy and won't stay erect. Jumping a bit ahead, it's not like you can really use the hands to support the wire either as the articulation isn't exactly the most cooperative.
Here she is unpacked. Visually, the body is a pretty good match for the onscreen counterpart, with the exception of the cape. Unfortunately, this cape is like most Hot Toys capes, basically being very flimsy both fabric and wire wise.
Colour and material selection is again are well chosen to match the "real deal", as is typically the case with Hot Toys figures.
Detailing on the suit is great, much like the Batman from the series.
Speaking of, I'm not entirely certain she scales correctly with Batman, but the fact she's shorter than him is correct. It's just that Batman I believe is about 6' 5" to the top of his head... I don't think Batgirl is like 5' 5".
Where the figure falls flat visually is the head. The rooted hair is subjective - while it's not perfect, I do like it when the option is provided, as it not only give posing options, but also, the figure can actually turn its head and not look weird. The upper part of the cowl seems fine, even if the eyes are a bit off. But that face plate.. Jeebus they really screwed with that. It's too long... way too long.
You ever watch the Army of Darkness? IIRC, there's that one scene where Ash gets his jaw sucked into a vortex because he recited the wrong words at the beginning. Maybe I got the scene wrong, but the resulting jaw on Ash is basically what we have here with Batgirl.
So, the body itself is an interesting story. My best guess is that Hot Toys effectively adapted their seamless body for use with Batgirl, as the TT bodies that Hot Toys makes do not feature ratcheting joints. It's an interesting choice, and it was a good effort to mix aesthetics and articulation.
Having said that, I think this is already what killed the figure for most people even before any of the other issue.
Maybe it was a manufacturing thing, but I'd like t think it was a conscious design decision to actually have open hip joints. I get that it doesn't look as good as a fully suited figure, but pretty much every other suited figure has had horrible leg articulation, and this design does allow for some posing options. Its only recently that with the elastic sock style body suits, or rubber suits with actual slack built in that leg articulation is even a possibility.
Back to the gaps, I get that it's not perfect, but it serves a purpose, and lets face it 99% of my 1/12 stuff feature exposed joints and gaps like this anyway. But there's a group of collectors that value form over function and that pretty much doomed the figure from the start.
So if you've handled the seamless Hot Toys body, you'll know that the articulation is actually generally worse than their standard body, Part of that is the ratcheting joints, so you'll only have certain positions you can put the arms into, but you need the ratchet in order to hold positions due to the resistance of the coating material. The figure also cannot put its arms flush with the side of its body, and it cannot cross its arms.
Batgirl's entire upper body is rubber covered, broken up at the chest level. I like the way the shoulders look, but as you can imagine articulation is limited due to the material, but it's still got slightly better articulation than most of my Black Widows and has a better looking body. that is likely to change when I finally get my hands on the latest one, but for now that statement still stands.
As I mentioned, the articulation is still iffy at best, achieving basically typical action figure range of motion, so basically 90 degrees at max for most joints. Despite being segmented boots, the ankle articulation is honestly pretty bad, mostly due to the fact the ankle design basically allows no room for movement. Knees are tricky, not so much of design but rather QC - the left knee of my figure is hard to move because the black rubber is a bit loose inside the boot, which gets in the way of motion. The figure does have a waist though, and the soft rubber suit allows for movement there, as well as ab crunch and back arch.
I don't think the chest section rotates as I tried and ended up with some detaching rubber suit parts, but fortunately it appears when I'm in the mood I could get some rubber cement and just stick those back together, if I even bother, seeing how the suit isn't actually damaged or anything.
While the articulation is still average at best, the rest of my usual concerns - Paint and Build Quality - are up to Hot Toys high standards. I feel collectors who give Hot Toys a hard time about these two areas really haven't seen anything outside of the Hot Toys world. Is there better? Possibly, but you're talking about better than what is at least above average. There's plenty of fish that produce items that cost the same but feature way, way more flaws.
Like with my typical Figma and Figuarts, there is an expected level of quality associated with their releases, and generally speaking I can randomly pick one up and it'll be just fine.
So overall, pretty much what I expected from this release and the fact they used a body with actual hip joint gaps. I just wish the face wasn't as long in the chin.
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