Did Batman Beyond have good toys back in the 90s?
>>11695922You know how back in the 90s it was impossible to find a Batman in gray so no one ever had a normal Batman? It was like that but even worse. But if you like ridiculous toy recolors he had some crazy shit. There was a serious lack of villians though. I think we only got Blight. Inque and the Royal Flush gang deserved figs.
>>11695927That's weird there was a lack of villain toys considering action cartoons always made their money through toy sales and Hasbro was behind the Batman Beyond toyline. They did the toyline for WB specifically.
>>11695930IIRC Hasbro/Kenner designers werent fully clued in on the details of Beyond during its development. WB effectively sent them reference materials for the Beyond suit and little else. That's why the one Blight we did get was naked, and not to mention, why we got the random packs of Jokerz gang members. Alot of the Beyond cardbacks dont even reference Terry, I believe some even make the assumption Bruce is wearing all those ridiculous suits. Likewise that's why we got a robin in the line.
>>11695927There's never been another Batman line quite as unorthodox as the Beyond line was. One could even argue a standard Terry/Beyond Batman was never even released in the collection because the two closest options there were had all sorts of liberties taken. Translucent plastics, additional tech details, gloves, splashes of color, etc.In a way it almost seems like a late 90's take on the absurdity of the silver age. Not in a Grant Morrison way either, but something wholly unique to the time, like a grunge take on batmania or something. The consequences of the Beyond lines fascinate me even more. Hasbro's lease on the DC toy rights was coming to a close so they didnt renew. Knowing they werent going to renew they just went whole hog on parts reuse. Items intended for the Beyond collection ended up released under the Mission Masters banner as a result, and new figures were cobbled together from the existing parts library. Virus Delete Batman is just one of the examples of this, having been pieced together from the head of R.A.M. BAT Batman, the legs off Codebuster Batman, and Power Grid Batman's torso.
Here he is in all his glory.
In some ways it feels like Bat Link was something the designer had in mind before beyond, but were forced to present as beyond product.
>>11695927I had the mc donalds one growing up
>>11695922You know what the ironic thing is. Hasbro did the toys for Batman Beyond. When Hasbro made their own failed cable kids network, Batman Beyond just happened to be one of the shows that aired on the Hasbro network.
>>11695927We also got the main Joker gang member.
>>11696032They aired all the 90's DCAU Batman cartoons for some reason. Ironic, you'd think they would have atleast managed to nab the 90's Marvel cartoons.
>>11696014The beyond heads look kitbashed on and mismatched if you look really closely. So I think it was going go be a regular Batman line with heads like >>11696012 first and Beyond was an afterthought. Also the oval logos aren't a Beyond logo at all. Evem though there still is one actual beyond logo. Most damning thing is the fucking Robin though. Who the fuck knows.I had the yellow guy as one of my only figures of Terry but I loved him. There was just so much detail in it that made my imagination go wild.
>>11696119It varies between figures. Circuitry Storm, Mainframe Attack, Energy Surge, and a few others look to be based off the Beyond suit. Maybe they were just running off fumes for the later releases so they fell back on some classic Bat motiefs. Either way it's still possible Bat-Link was supposed to be something different. I always got the sense it was a sister line to LotDK. >I had the yellow guy as one of my only figures of Terry but I loved him. There was just so much detail in it that made my imagination go wild.I totally get it man. The sculpts on these later guys is just so good. It's impossible for me to hate them. Even the "safer" variants have some charm. I can see alot of these designs making more sense for that joke pitch Timm and Murakami came up with after Pokemon dethroned Batman on Kids WB, the whole Batman on Mars mess.
>>11695922>>11695927>>11695990>>11696009>>11696014>>11696119>>11696173from my recollection a lot of the Beyond figures were originally intended for a version of the Batlink concept that was going to be its own thing(that in turn was loosely based off a comic DC had published around the time involving Batman and Joker in cyberspace that was done mostly with CGI art) but with Beyond becoming a thing they needed a toyline for that fast so they just tweaked the concepts they already had ready and turned it into the Batman Beyond linecourse the whole story of how Batman Beyond even ended up happening is a whole clusterfuck of its own, as related in the attached image
>>11696183>Digital Justice was going to feed into a new Kenner line>Beyond comes about>They just retool what they have for BeyondReality really is stranger than fiction.>course the whole story of how Batman Beyond even ended up happening is a whole clusterfuck of its own, as related in the attached imageI'm well aware but even now the story's baffling. I wish Murakami would share more art from the pitch. Anyways bumping with one of my favorite pics posted on the board in the last 5 years
The one piece Murakami shared of the Batman on Mars/Batmanime pitch
>>11696195im glad WB were still such anti-weebs. I didnt even have that much respect for Teen Titans til Go.
>>11695922They were pretty on-par with the time period. I wasn't personally the biggest fan of forms and gear that didn't exist in any fiction as a kid, but Batman Beyond had some crazy awesome ones.
>>11695927>>11696183Yes, Aaron Archer basically said as much too when he went into it on his Toy Armada podcast. theBatlink stuff was a comic based line that got reworked and some protos even have the Bruce-Batman head on it. There's even the yellow oval molded on the Batlink Beyond figures. Between Hasbro killing off Kenner, Hasbro basically putting all hands on Episode 1, and the movie cycle that sustained the Batman line dying, Beyond's toyline was an under served mess. With a Batman movie every 2-3 years or so before that, I think Hasbro wasn't expecting to do much with it while a hypothetical next movie was out. Then when that was a bust, Beyond was winding down and Hasbro basically rolls on their back for the last year hacking out TNBA/BTAS redecoes until the license ends. It also bugs me that after STAS, they decided to not stick to the same style as the BTAS figures, which really sticks out.
>>11696195A Batman faux anime would need to be a bit more visually dark to work.Something like Teen Titans or The Batman where it was just the right mix of cartoony and badass to draw in early 2000's kids. Still kind of sad that it didn't happen though since a stupid Sentai Batman appeals to my current sensibilities.
>>11696173Wtf is that gimmick on his arm supposed to be?
>>11696201>anti-weebs>they reoriented the whole of Kids WB around PokemonYou didnt even bait the hook, you just tossed the entire fishing pole in the water.
>>11696419You ever played with those paper ribbon things around new year's eve? It's basically one of those on a spring-loaded base.>>11696344You gotta remember this was conceived as a jab to the WB execs who were demanding a new batman show "in the vein of pokemon". So the guys just made it as unapologetically goofy as possible. It is odd that Japan didnt make their own Batman stuff until the 2010's. Considering the precedent of Supaidaman you'd think asentai batman would have happened by now.
>>11696511>Considering the precedent of Supaidaman you'd think asentai batman would have happened by now.There is a comic miniseries heavily inspired by toku but it's not from Japan
>>11695922Batman Beyond came out in 99 so i doubt it had any significant merchandise until after the turn of the century.
>>11696571I meant an actual japanese effort. Man the play arts kai figures look better than these designs.
>>11696571What is this from?
>>11696571I feel like this misses the point of why Toku is fun. I can't see those as actual clunky suits and I would be willing to bet that the action and whatever they are fighting will also be too flashy to fit the idea.
>>11695927At least Inque had that bendy McDonalds toy that was in scale with the line. I had my dad cut the keychain part off and I was good to go. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.>>11696195I really like these designs and while I'm glad the show didn't get made given what we got in its place, I wish these designs got some attention somewhere. You can see a lot of Digimon (Specifically the angels) and Bubble Gum Crisis influence in them. Very of their time in a good way.
>>11696509Yeah, they let someone else weeb it up. They didnt have to contribute shows to help with that.
