Shortly before Kenner was swallowed completely by Hasbro in the year 2000, they released a couple Batman lines aimed at the “McFarlane” era of collectors. One, called Legends of The Dark Knight, was a super edgy, extreme take on Batman and his rogues. The other was an odd line that might have been strangely ahead of its time, but with the committing of one cardinal figure sin, sadly, is very often forgotten.
That would of course be Knight Force Ninjas. Compared to its predecessor and contemporary Batman lines, this was truly an unusual departure of the supposedly “hyper-detailed” and pre-order figures Kenner was quickly becoming famous (then infamous) for. Where the Legends of Batman series of a few years before had loosely followed some comics, and the Total Justice line even had a comic, Knight Force Ninjas appeared to be a completely in-house concept that ironically paid better tribute to 1990s Bat-Books than anyone else would for years. And while Legends similarly told it’s own story without any specific tie-ins, those stories were very different.
Where Legends went high concept and almost artsy with their figures, Ninjas went neon, over-the-top, and nearly the antithesis of the McFarlane style: these figures were much more like TMNT or even the Karate Kommandos than anything with a Spawn label on it.
If it sounds kinda fantastic, that’s because it almost was. I was more of a peripheral “collector” in those days, but it was clear that the pre-posed, super detailed stuff was what people thought they wanted. “Fun” wasn’t something late nineties collectors were after. And there was one, little, teeny tiny problem with Ninjas: Action Features.
Which was the major reason I skipped most of it in its day. For whatever reason, there’s just no good way to work a snap kick or a karate chop into a figure, at least not in smaller scales. It’s a shame, but 20 years later, I can forgive it. Somewhat.
Okay, enough prose, let’s talk about the figure itself. The style- that classic, comic-y animated feel- really did this figure some favors. Like a movie that unapologetically portrays it’s era, there’s a timeless quality to the look that allows it age much more gracefully than figures half it’s age. You know whom I’m talking about. But the look alone isn’t enough to make a classic figure, it has to function…
Articulation is just short of great by 1998 standards. Hinged shoulders, neck and waist swivels, and pinned elbows and knees. Only catch? That snap kick action feature makes for one obnoxious loose knee joint. And it is practically debilitating. He can barely stand. It is no doubt this Achilles’ heel, literally, that kept this figure from being one of the greats for me, at the time as well as today. Other Batmen in the line had less obtrusive action features, but that also mean less articulation in most cases, by design- the articulation was in support of the feature. I had considered taking a couple of the figures and combining the best parts of them to give me a more ideal Batman, but 20 years ago that wasn’t the part of my daily life that it would become just a few short years later. Still, the overall figure still has a lot of charm, and would’ve actually outpaced a lot of Mattel’s own Batman offerings for some time, if that wonky knee weren’t such an issue.
Accessories are more of the similarly fun, if weird, variety. There’s a face mask, shin guard (just one), and some sort of spring- loaded drone for him to kick. I mean, sure, nobody actually used this stuff, but the inclusion was kinda fun. Again, very Karate Kommandos, and it also reminds me of the X-Men Evolution line that ToyBiz followed with a couple years later. Hell, it might have been the inspiration.
Which brings me back to that whole “ahead of its time” thing. Had this line had more contemporaries, I think it may have stuck around longer. I don’t have any of those Evolution figures today, but I bet they would look good with this Batman. And play very similarly. And there is a chance that another year or two later Kenner might have been a little more consistent with articulation and a little less feature focused, not unlike Hasbro’s own DC Superheroes line that came out in 2000. Those figures even matched these Kenner ones in style; I remember having Azrael, Robin and some others on the shelf with those Hasbro ones for a time.
But 20 years on, that’s just another one of those “roads not taken” kinda things. And instead of being a “classic” 90s toy line, it’s another strange, but charming, diversion on the road to modern 6″ figures.
