Play Imaginative Batman - Super Alloy 1/6 Scale

GUEST REVIEW: Well, this will mark the first ever guest review for the Angels & Summer blog. Right now i'm semi-retired from Play Arts Kai collecting and starting out with 1/6 Scale figures. Budget-wise it would be very difficult to review 1/6 figures regularly so i have to employ the help of my comrades. This particular review is a collaboration with Anton Aldon who actually owns this impressive die-cast figure.

It seems like every manufacturer feels as if we're still short on Batmen figures, with a wide variety of incarnations available in the market right now ranging from Video Games, Movies, Comics and Animated Series, it's difficult to secure your own niche and unless you are targeting Batman collectors exclusively you really have to come up with a version unlike any other. Well, for one thing, this heavily "armored" version is goddamn die-cast.

I take it you are familiar with the term "die-cast," in a nutshell imagine the old Matchbox and Tonka cars or even the Transformers Masterpiece line, we're talking about real metal here, the type that will mess up your finger nails when you drop this on top of them.
While terribly impressive scale-wise and weight-wise, you can also expect less details as compared to the softer PVC figures. It's no surprise that this one's harder to sculpt. As Anton would have it let's tackle the PROS first.

The paint job is really very clean and it works well with the simple sculpt of the figure. You won't encounter wayward paint strokes commonly present on PVC or plastic Batmen. Initially, i thought going die-cast wouldn't work well with Batman unlike Iron Man, who is, well, marketed as a fully armored figure, but surprisingly it actually worked out. The figure feels and looks expensive while going for about just a third of PI's Iron Man MK7's current market price.

His cape looks pretty good also and the wires stitched beneath the edges works for dynamic poses. Well, that's something other 1/6 companies should consider doing for their caped characters.

On the other hand, Batman is far from perfect, something anyone may expect from a newbie 1/6 company. The most common of which is the lack of ratcheting joints on the ankle to support the top-heaviness of the figure. It is advisable to secure his poses by reinforcing those damn ankles if you want to avoid a free-falling Batman, leading to paint chips or floor dents, or worse, an injured foot.

Like we previously mentioned the cape design is pretty good but the connector isn't, Batman can use stronger clips or magnets for his attachments.

Batman's base looks pretty cool, though i must admit i'm expecting a more gothic gargoyle that fits the dark theme of Gotham City. They went with an Asian looking Dragon-Lion, thingy which reminds me a lot of Falkor from the Neverending Story, well, a disembodied one really.

The problem with the base is that it lacks support for the upper body of Batman, a serious oversight since we mentioned that top-heavy armor and weak ankles of the figure. A simple support would have saved the figure from those issues.

Accessories are pretty dull also, you only get these three above. They look great still though they swerved a bit from the traditional Batarang and Grappling Gun look.

 

The Play Imaginative Super Alloy Batman figure presents a nice, fresh take on the Dark Knight, however, unless you are a die-hard Batman collector i fear this will not hold your interest for long. With the current going price for the figure he's still worth a look, but for sure there are a lot of other 1/6 figures out there going for the same price that are far superior to this Batman.