Batman - The New Batman Adventures

Growing up on Batman: The Animated Series, I distinctly remember having a strong dislike for the sudden and abrupt transition to The New Batman Adventures, effectively the final season of BTAS. The sometimes drastic design changes of the characters were jarring, and I'm not confident I prefer any of the updated changes. This sort of signaled the beginnings of my losing interest in the series...to which, ultimately, I just stopped watching entirely.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>But as it turned out, my phase wasn't a love for superheroes; my phase was getting out of superheroes. And I think we all go through this period in time, often in adolescence, where you briefly abandon your hobby, deeming yourself "too old for this," and often triggered by a change to what you loved. So, when I went back to superheroes, recognizing that my interest wasn't temporary, but rather that I just felt kind of betrayed by TNBA alterations... I wanted to give it another chance. Was it as bad as I remembered?&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Truth be told...no. It's not bad. In fact, it's pretty great. Yeah, I still prefer most of the character designs from BTAS (though TNBA designs grew on me in their own right), but the storytelling (outside of a few weaker episodes) was still pretty on point. I was just so bound by my one-track love for BTAS that I couldn't accept anything different until my growing mind expanded beyond the narrowness of childhood.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>So I figured, if I'm going to go character-to-character with this series, the best one to start with is the titular character himself. But let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. These are old figures repackaged as new. If you're buying this line for articulation, you've made a grave mistake. They work best more as almost statues; you're not getting much movement out of these. But being that the line is the most expansive series of toys based off of arguably the best animated show of all time, covering most every BTAS and TNBA role, save a few exclusions (TNBA Penguin, I'm looking at you), these lines were irresistible for me. Toss in that the original DC Direct releases carry a heavy aftermarket price now; it's fantastic to be offered a "second chance" on these.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Batman's new design is solid enough, though the yellow oval logo will always be my go-to favorite. Unlike some other updates to the artwork, he's more streamlined and angular, but not all THAT different. He's still got the square jawline, but now with the more simplistic all-black logo and his shoulders covered by the cape...which is the big issue with this figure. For as limited in poseability as they are, that cape makes an already pretty static figure even more hindered due to it restricting the arms. But if you treat this as almost a statue, it cuts a nice visual regardless. Not the best Batman out there, nor the most interesting one, not by a long shot, but a nice representation of this specific style and subsection of the animated series that is, in the end, essential for any DCAU collector.&nbsp;</div>