Spin Master Batman Four Inch Review

Thanks to Spin Master, we have a few of their new Batman toys to show off to everyone. First off is the Caped Crusader himself, Batman!

 

The packaging has the figure in a bubble with an explosion and the promise of “3 Mystery Accessories” next to him. The back of the packaging has a full figure photo of the toy and four drawn backgrounds asking you “What Mission will you get?” Overall, it’s your basic looking packaging we’ve seen a few times over the years. But this has a slightly new twist on it…

 

On the side of the bubble, there’s an infographic step telling you to cut this perforated cardboard first.

 

When you cut the cardboard strip (and two pieces of tape at the top and bottom of the accessories side of the packaging) the card then opens up to reveal artwork (that doubles as a trading card when you cut it out of the cardboard flap) and three “Advent Calendar” type of punch out boxes. These three boxes are where the Mystery Accessories are stored. 

Inside the figure bubble, there’s an insert sheet that lists all of the figures and which accessories they come with. The question on the back of the packaging about which mission you’ll get, refers to the trading card. The background of the trading card indicates which mission it is (Carnival, Riverfront, Rooftop, Arkham Asylum) When you look at the insert, look for the background, then which figure and it’ll show you the accessories. 

There is very much a blind box approach to this as you could purposefully buy two of the same Batman figure, but get one different accessory out of the two of them (Each character comes with the same two accessories, just in a different color depending on which “mission” but the third accessory can be completely different.

Off to the right side of this insert you see that there are three accessories that are clip on Batman armor. I have to admit that as soon as I saw this, I was compelled to open all the figures I had. I was originally just going to open one before bed but I wound up opening every one of them right then. I was just very excited to see if I had any of the armor pieces as I love clip on armor for figures.

Looking at this sheet you can see that there is a Helmet, Chest Armor and pair of Gauntlets. The Helmet comes with three figures. (Both Metallic Robins and a Batman with the Arkham mission) The Chest comes with two figures (Manbat on the Riverfront & Gold Batman in the Carnival) and the Gauntlets come with two figures. (Joker in the Carnival and Rebirth Tactical Batman on the Riverfront)

This is definitely Spin Master’s way to bring in the younger crowd who enjoy blind boxed items as they even list some of the figures & accessories as “Rare” and “Super Rare”. These designations do not apply to the sculpts of the items but rather the color of the items as every Rare or Super Rare item is also shown unlabeled. (Which I assume stands for “Common”) I am worried that we may start to see the packaging half torn open from people checking to see which “Mission” the figure is on while hunting for those items.

 

Now that we’ve gotten the blind box aspect out of the way, here’s the figure itself! The costume is the DC Rebirth Batman costume. (The packaging doesn’t mention anything about Rebirth on it, but the insert has this Batman labelled “Rebirth Batman”.

This Batman looks to be fairly close to the Rebirth Batsuit art when it first debuted and has a nice classic Batman look to it. It may not be the exact Batman you grew up with, but there’s no denying it’s Batman.

The back has a cloth cape. The material feels like a thin, plastic type of fabric. The figure has a hole in it’s back for a backpack peg or something. Thankfully Spin Master decided to punch a hole through the cape so that it doesn’t block the hole.

 

Batman has a decent amount of articulation. There’s a ball jointed neck. Unfortunately, the sculpting doesn’t allow for much (if any) up and down tilting of the head. The shoulders and elbows have swivel hinge joints. The hips are ball joints. There’s also a swivel hinge on the upper thigh area and the knees are swivel hinge joints.

I’m curious as to why they have the swivel thigh joints as the knee joints seem more than capable of adding the needed articulation. The thigh joints only seem to allow the figure to almost be able to place his foot on the opposite knee in a sitting position. I do feel that it would’ve been better to use that point of articulation elsewhere like the hands or feet. Or even in the torso. It just feels wasted since the knee can already rotate the lower leg.

 

 

 

Here we have a couple of past four inch Batman figures to compare to Spin Master’s new Batman. (and a not too subtle hint that I would love to see Spin Master’s take on Batman Beyond) The style of this Batman figure feels like it strikes a great balance between the oversized, kiddie aesthetic of Mattel’s Batman Unlimited line and their more collector orientated DC Multiverse line. Spin Master seems to have grabbed the best of both worlds in this design.

 

This Batman (Carnival Mission) came with a Grappling Hook, Batarang & two Knives. The Batarang is black but the other weapons are very neon colored. I’m choosing to look past the colors as I know these are for kids and apparently kids like Neon colors. Sculpture wise though, I have to admit, I’m digging these accessories.

 

The Batarang is ginormous for what it’s supposed to be. Let’s face it though, If it was the realistic size, it would be tiny, easily lost and a choking hazard. Also the figure wouldn’t be able to hold it at all. I like the cut outs in it for the hand holds. It fits easily in Batman’s hands and looks pretty good. If the size really is a problem for you, just have Batman hold it upside down in both hands and pretend it’s for zip-lining.

 

I really like the Grappling Hook. Even though it is rather large, it’s got some great details on it and looks like a typical Batman weapon. While posing the figure, I was wishing it had some toyetic design like a spring loaded hook that shot out or something, but it’s still fun.

 

The two knives are interesting. They are like oversized Final Fantasy short swords. It’s always fun having two of the same bladed weapons for each hand on a figure. The size isn’t even so much a problem here for me as there are so many different types of bladed weapons out there that these could almost be thought of as “in scale”.

The knives have another fun aspect to them, they can combine into a shield! Both clip together and form a one handed shield complete with Batman logo in the middle. I had a “that’s cool” moment when I realized the logo showed up with you made the shield. I hadn’t paid enough attention to the knives to notice the half logo yet.

 

 

That’s our look at the Spin Master four inch Batman. This figure runs around $8 retail and honestly, that’s a pretty good deal. The figure has some kiddie aspects that collectors may not want, but it’s well detailed and has 11 points of articulation. If you don’t like the neon colored, oversized accessories, the figure itself is a decent Batman for your collection.

I think the mystery box aspect of it is a great way to get kids more interested in the figures. From a marketing stance, the idea of buying the same figure in the hopes of getting different accessories sounds great. I really like that this line seems to have a little something for all collectors, Adult and Child alike.