Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Batman: Total Justice & JLA


Dug out this bunch while packing, the Batman: Total Justice line. I haven't seen them in awhile.


There weren't many DC toy lines in the first half of the 90s. It was just mostly Batman and a Superman: Man of Steel line which I can recall. I was sorely lacking in DC figures until the Total Justice line came along. The line had Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman to name a few. Finally there would be some variety. It took me quite some time to collect them. Whenever I hit the stores I would only see Aquaman, Black Lightning and Despero. I did get lucky on occasion. I ended up buying the majority from resellers. My collection is incomplete but I was happy with what I got. 

These figures had some great sculpts for the time and had more dynamic poses, compared to the usual "standing straight" pose. I find their wide stance to be silly now but I thought they were cool back then. Their wide stance also made it a challenge to display them properly in a shelf. The one that I used anyway. The figures came with some "techgear" which I rarely used. The Green Lanterns' ones are cool as they can be used as ring constructs. I should probably have kept them with their gear on so as to protect them. Fortunately most of them are still in pretty good shape. The one who succumbed most to time is the one who you least expect to, Superman.

Here are the figures. I'll just touch on a few. Batman, Flash and Parallax were among my favourites. I didn't like Superman much for the long hair. I never liked that look.


A cool feature of Batman's is his "cape" which is two separate pieces. They both are on a peg and they can be raised or lowered. They also have swivel which allows them to rotate outwards to be used as wings. 


Aquaman became badass in the 90s and I like the look. The figure's stance is one of the widest but despite that, he has trouble standing. 


Parallax was actually Hal Jordan who had gone mad and became a supervillain. This was before things got retconned. The figure has a great head sculpt. He looks really sinister. There's great detail on his costume. And I like his long windswept cape.  


I liked Darkseid the best as he looks great and has good size. One major gripe is the claw action feature which runs through his right arm. Despero came with a gun and sword which is cool. He only has one gripping hand unfortunately.



Similar style figures were released under the Justice League of America (JLA) line. This line never made it to local retail and I had to pick them up from comic shops and resellers. Wonder Woman was in the last wave of the line and was very hard to find. I think I only saw her once and I grabbed it. It cost quite a bit... The Atom was also part of that final wave and I never got him. The figures did not come with any techgear. They did come with JLA bases which I can't locate at the moment.

The JLA Wonder Woman was the best looking Wonder Woman figure at the time. She's a little too big compared with the other characters. We have keep in mind though that the other figures have very wide stances. Looking at that Martian Manhunter now I think he's one of the worst figures.



The Green Arrow figure here is the Connor Hawke Green Arrow. The figure is a re-release of the figure from the Total Justice line. Here his costume is dark brown and dark green which I prefer. He cannot hold his bow properly, hence the sticky tac. Plastic Man is great. He looks good and has a flexible neck and arms.


So there's my Total Justice and JLA collection. It's still a nice bunch to keep together but I think I'll probably move them on. Thanks for viewing!



6 comments:

David said...

the're really good looking figures

Dr. Theda said...

We had the three villains form this line... Paralax (mine is still in package and hangs upon my wall...) Good post.....
We did not even know who "Despairo" was at the time..... they finally had his character in a cartoon episode Seems to be a Space Despot who the Green Lanterns opposed...

Hobgoblin238 said...

3 villains is pretty lousy.

Bubbashelby said...

I had a few of these, sadly I didn't hang on to them and wish I had at least kept The Atom and Wonder Woman. The gals were great, but the guys were generally just TOO sinewy for my taste. But it was wonderful to see such depth and breadth of characters back in a time when our DC options were pretty sparse!

Dr. Theda said...

They only made three Villain in that set... and Darkseid had a "claw" as a hand...
Hope that you are well good Sir Hobgoblin....
we never collect "Heroes"... just Villains...

Unknown said...

They actually made four villains, but Professor Zoom was a Toyfare mailaway exclusive.