Mezco Year one Batman

[Lou Szabo]

I just saw this Mezco figure and it reminded me of Adam West from the LIFE magazine shoot

[AndyFish]

YEAR ONE is one of my favorite Batman stories. Figure looks great-- I saw one in person at one of the big shows last year at the Mezco booth. Some of the photos they posted today are spot on from the comics.

[Mike Mulitsch]

Im in because of this picture alone

[AndyFish]

That is a good one, Mike.
This one really grabbed me;

[SprangFan]

I just saw this Mezco figure and it reminded me of Adam West from the LIFE magazine shoot

I feel like Mazzuchelli deliberately tried to evoke Adam West in his Year One design. It's easily one of my favorite comic book takes on Batman, at least visually. I always considered styles like his and Steve Rude's more "realistic" than say, Neal Adams' (who normally gets all the "realism" praise) because their Batman looks like he's wearing real fabric instead of having gray paint sprayed onto his body to show off his rippling abs and biceps, with every sinew and vein visible. One of the payoffs for drawing clothing that actually looks like clothing is that when you do get a clothed action figure you can honestly say, "It looks just like the comics!"

The price is surprisingly low for a Mezco figure, too, though it's all relative. I'm still old enough to balk at a $100+ price tag for a 6-inch figure. Heck, I've still got sticker shock from the upcoming all-plastic McFarlane Blackhawk figure priced at $34.

[AndyFish]

If SprangFan posted more I'd be a lurker because he often says what's in my head but in my infinite wisdom have no ability to express it. I'm with you 100% about disliking the "realistic" artists who draw the costume as if it's either so skin tight you can see every ripple or it's painted on. Neither am I a fan of the Arkham or Absolute Batman who is so big he'd simply be a punching bag in a real street fight. Give me artists like Mazzuchelli, Darwyn Cooke, Alex Toth and those who actually drew wrinkles on the costume.

Denny O'Neil, legendary Batman editor, and I once had lunch in the best out of the way New York Jewish Deli you've never heard of-- and we spent about two hours talking Batman. He's said some of these things publicly but his choice for the "perfect" 1970s Batman was Roy Scheider (of Marathon Man and Jaws fame), he felt he had the perfect Bruce Lee type build-- Scheider was in impeccable shape but sadly was addicted to cigarettes, and Denny felt that he could clean up well enough to be Bruce Wayne. While he had the face of a boxer and wasn't your typical 'pretty boy' actor MARATHON MAN proved he could look like a millionare in a suit.

He admitted to me he didn't understand fans obsession with the nude statue style of art that Neal was so known for, and he was one of the ones who championed Mazzuchelli for Year One, loving the way he drew the character. For many many years rumors abounded that DC Comics and it's personnel HATED the 1966 Batman and that was never my experience. Back in the days before it was officially released, the DC Freelancer room had bootleg VHS tapes of the show right there you could watch while you were doing page corrections, waiting for a voucher or an assignment.

If Mazzuchelli had drawn an actual "Year One" Batman he would have looked like my avatar, IMO there is no doubt the suit he chose owes a lot to Adam West.

[SprangFan]

Can't believe I left out Darwyn Cooke; what a great artist, and such a shame to lose him so soon.

I figure there were a couple of good reasons to evoke the "66" look with Year One. First, there's the fascinating cognitive dissonance of placing the "friendly" Adam West-style outfit in hard-edged action scenes filled with real tension. Second, the "low tech" sensibilities of a cloth outfit and that big, clunky utility belt with pouches instead of "capsules" suggests a Batman who's still new to the game and hasn't yet evolved his gear and operations to their ultimate form. Of course, after the success of Year One and Dark Knight Returns, the "pouch" type belt ended up being the new standard just because it makes more sense and looks cool, but at the time it was a novel look for the comics.

I totally get the visual appeal of detailed musculature when drawn by masters like Adams, John Buscema, etc. but it always feels like they're more concerned with showing off than with establishing realism. The ultimate irony is that when superheroes finally made it to the screen in big-budget Hollywood productions, millions were spent on rubber suits that tried to recreate the "sculptured pecs and abs" of the comics. So not only was comic book art divorced from reality, but given the option, "reality" chose fantasy over itself.

Obviously with comics, realism needs to take a back seat to storytelling. Not only is it impossible to wear a fabric that shows all your muscles (but somehow not your nipples or navel), Neal also made the features of the cowl flexible based on the character's emotions. If Batman was surprised, the eyebrows went up, if he was angry they went down, if shocked the eyeholes got bigger, if suspicious they narrowed to slits, etc. Comics by their nature have to meld "realistic" with "cartoony" and the amazing thing is that it ever works for anyone. I once read a fun quote about Adams' art that said, more or less, "Neal draws people exactly the way they would look, if they looked that way."