The Arkham series of videogames is my favorite take on Batman since The Animated Series. Yes, I even like it more than the Nolan films, which are great but are bit too grounded in the real world to really feel entirely like Batman to me. Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City straddle the line between the grim and gritty realism of The Dark Knight Returns and the Dark Knight Trilogy while still giving us all the “unrealistic” villains like Mr. Freeze, Clayface and even Solomon Grundy.

Both Mattel and DC Collectibles has tried their hand at Arkham-based action figures. Mattel inexplicably allowed someone other than the Four Horsemen to sculpt Batman and several of the other figures, made them all out of scale with DCUC and half of them out of scale with each other, and gave them middling-to-bad articulation. DC Collectibles’ offerings have great sculpting but minimal articulation (although the upcoming Series 4 does appear to finally have ball-and-hinge hips).

So – where can one turn to for fully-articulated action figures based on the Arkham games? For now, the answer is Japan-based company Square Enix and their Play Arts KAI line. (more…)