Of all the
Batman Classic TV Series action figures released thus far, the only one that made me shoot my curl is '
Surf's Up Batman.' Holy H2O this guy is just too much fun!
I live in Santa Cruz, and while surfing is a way of life here I have yet to partake. I'll stick to surfing the sidewalks personally. But there's just no way I could pass up this surfing Batman action figure! All the corny campy good clean fun of the 1966 TV series is contained in this one figure: Batman in board shorts with a massive yellow Bat-Board? What's not to love?!
I was surprised at the quality of the figure when I opened him up. I still have PTSD from Mattel's shoddy quality control in it's DCUC toyline, so I tend to expect the worst when I open a new action figure from them.
However Batman's joints all function properly and snugly and although I posed him over three times he has yet to disintegrate! He's well designed visually and although he seems a bit scrawny even for Adam West, I may actually be willing to pick up the regular Batman and maybe another figure or two from this line (if it continues.) I hold out hope that we get a Batgirl at least!
Batman's Bat-Board is great - it's well proportioned to Batman and even has a fin! That's a detail I assumed they would have left off (since it is the bottom of the board) so I am glad to see it.
Batman's face and cowl sculpt are really good representations of Adam West and his television cowl. There's enough detail here to prevent this action figure from coming across as too cartoony. The cowl, gloves and boots have a sparkly quality to them that gives them a nice shiny vinyl look. Batman also has a cloth cape which I always prefer and makes a lot of sense for this iteration of Batman.
And while the board could have been considered the base for this figure, Mattel has included an actual base as well. Nice if you plan on displaying Batman holding his surfboard. A card was also included, depicting a painting of Batman and Joker surfing reminiscent of the old Batman Topps card collection of the sixties. Unfortunately the card art is horizontal while the card only fits in the base vertically. The back of the card does show part of the Batmobile in the batcave and it fits vertically, so I assume you can line up all your figures and they make a nice panorama. But if you are cherry-picking the line it's useless as a viable display, but still a neat pic of Batman surfing (and the world needs more of those for sure!)
I'm happy with the quality of this figure now that I have him in hand. While he was the only one I 'needed', I may give other figures in this line a second look knowing this one turned out so well. I do hope to see a surfing Joker in the future, which I believe Mattel teased at a toy convention or SDCC or something. Let's hope the line survives long enough to see it on shelves!