Review of the Missing: Batman Begins Batman

Welcome to Review of the Missing, where I review Minimates that were never made. This week I review the Batman minimate based upon the movie Batman Begins.

But before I begin, I need to make two admissions. The first is that I am a novice when it comes to DC comics and characters. For whatever reason, I grew up almost exclusively on Marvel comic books. I never read any DC comics (and I’m old). However, I read my first Batman comic this year, when I picked up the Hush series. Now I’m trying to make up for lost time.

My second admission is that while I hated the original Batman movies, I absolutely loved Batman Begins. It ranks up there with some of my all time favorite movies. It was the best action/adventure this summer hands down. If you haven’t seen it, you need to buy the DVD immediately.

All right, I’ll give you a third admission for free. Collecting minimates sparked my interest in Batman. I know most people collected Batman minimates because they liked Batman. I liked Batman after collecting his multitudes of minimates. Did you hear that DC? Yes, DC minimates made me purchase more DC products.

All of these admissions mean that I am absolutely heartbroken that Batman Begins minimates have not been made. I’m such a Johnny-come-lately to the entire Dark Knight phenomena, and I’m sad I can’t even buy the penultimate Batman minimate.

And a Batman Begins Batman (BBB) minimate would be the penultimate minimate. I say that based upon the only evidence in existance - the Batman Begins designs from a recent Toy Fair. Art Asylum pitched the Batman Begins minimates to the big retailers as part of their C3 block construction system. Presumbably the minimates would have been released along with cool C3 vehicles like the black Tumbler Batmobile. Unfortunately, the big retailers baulked at more C3 this past Spring and instead put all of their eggs in the Lucas film turd basket. Smooth move.

This was such an utter shame. The designs for the BBB minimate are utterly fantastic. The mask head piece evokes the same hard, angular look as movie’s version. The Bat-a-rangs were to be painted a metallic black/orange just like they were in the movie. Other details were planned such as the glossy black suit color.

They even got the facial expression right. I can almost hear the design saying in the deep Christian Bale Batman voice, “Make me. Make me right now.”

Can the world ever have too many Batman minimates? No, not if they look like this dark beauty.

--------Watch This Weekend for a New Minimate Institute of Research! ------