Hasbro: G.I. Joe Classified Series BAT Review

I recently wrote an article detailing the five figures I was most looking forward to in 2022. The BAT was one of them. Well, as you all are no doubt aware, 2022 isn’t quite here yet, but the BAT doesn’t keep a calendar, deciding to arrive a wee bit early.

I ain’t complaining.

The BAT does exactly what I want the figures in this line to do. It takes the vintage design and applies the lightest possible touch to the updating, leaving us with a figure that looks every inch like the vintage figure, but with heightened details and articulation. All the hallmarks of that older figure are here: the black and yellow color scheme, the robotic flourishes, the swappable hands, even the chest workings. I think it might be my new favorite in the line.

The BAT was one of my favorite additions to the old Joe line. As a kid that fell in love with robots and all things robotic as soon as he saw C-3P0 and R2-D2 in that Star Wars figure display at the local hardware store (oddly enough) I felt that every line in the 80s needed a robot, android, cyborg or something full of metal. Most lines cooperated. You wouldn’t necessarily think of the G.I. Joe line as a natural place to stick in a robot, but 1986 brought about the BAT. As a bonus, it finally gave the Joes something that could shoot at and actually hit in the cartoon. Everyone on that show had Stormtrooper levels of aiming until the BATs arrived.

The Bat features all the articulation the Joe line has made standard. As a bonus, the lack of any kind of overlay on the chest means that the BAT has full range of motion in his torso. The exposed internal workings of the chest are necessarily smaller than they were to facilitate the articulation, but the idea is still there, and it works out in the overall look.

I think I’m at the point where the worrying about the fragility of the hip joint is overtaking any bonus that the drop-down hips give. The hips on mine aren’t as tight as previous figures—Firefly’s hips were especially tight for me, to the point where I had to oil them—but they don’t move as fluidly as I’d like. Speaking just from another robot point of view, My ML Ultron moved easily with no worries about breakage and the hips were solid as a rock, while I have to look and check that I’m not stressing the plastic on the BAT’s joints. I don’t think I’d mind the drop-down hips if the pegs were made thicker, somehow, but I’m not sure if that’s possible while maintaining the same aesthetics.

The coolest thing about the vintage Bat was the swappable hands. It took the great thing about Trap Jaw and Roboto from masters of the Universe and applied it to the G.I. Joe world. There was a lot of cross-pollination of some great ideas going on back then that improved every toyline. That same gimmick is carried over here. The default hand swaps easily to either the claw, laser or flamethrower. As a bonus—and something the vintage figure couldn’t do—you now have the option of swapping either hand, or both. And if you have multiple BAT’s you can get nuts and give one two claw hands. That’s just kooky.

The extra appendages fit snugly into the backpack. Two can be slotted in on top, and there’s a third downward-face hole for the remaining appendage. The backpack pegs in and stays fairly snugly, although it can get jostled with too much handling. When fiddling with them for pictures I kept having to straighten the backpack a little.

The BAT also comes with a sidearm. It is very tricky to get into the holster. I’d recommend heating the holster up a little the first time you put the gun in, but you can also just force it in. It snaps in quite securely and would take a stampeding elephant to get it back out.

All of the shooty weapons have holes for plugging in effects pieces. Effects pieces not included.

In addition to all the aforementioned accessories, the Bat comes with a few modern touches. There’s a chest plate that can cover up the exposed chest gears. I personally will be leaving mine exposed (gasp) to keep that vintage flavor, but he does look pretty snazzy with it. There’s also a battle-damaged plate that you can swap on as well.

To go with the battle damaged theme, there’s also an alternate battle-damaged head with an exposed Terminatoresque eye. While I’ll be keeping the chest plates off, I do like the look of this extra head, and will be keeping it on at least one of my extra BATs. The eye has some bright blue paint to replicate a glowing effect. Whether the paint hits the mark seems to be a bit hit or miss.

The wait until the June release of this figure was going to be excruciating, so I count myself fortunate that I was able to get my hands on one so early. It is an exceptionally fun figure.