For nerds of a certain vintage, there has never been a better portrayal of the caped crusader than in Batman, The Animated Series, a 90s cartoon series that kickstarted a whole era of DC animations. The iconic art style from that animation is now coming to the Batman Miniature Game, with the first wave of new figures already released by Knight Models.
The first set of Batman, The Animated Series (BTAS) miniatures contains Batman, Batgirl, Green Arrow, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Black Canary. They faithfully translate the cartoon’s simplified costumes and exaggerated silhouettes, originally designed by BTAS co-creator Eric Radomski, into three dimensions.
If you’re a younger DC comics and Batman comics fan who wasn’t around in the ‘90s, you owe it to yourself to go back and check out BTAS. Radomski and series co-creator Bruce Timms’ vision of Gotham was anachronistic, iterating on the neo noir design sensibilities of Tim Burton’s Batman films to create a stylish world that existed outside of time – which means the series doesn’t feel out of date today.
The voice cast was peerless: this was Kevin Conroy’s first outing as Batman, Mark Hamill made his debut as the Joker here, and Ron Perlman growled it up as Clayface. The series also added lots of features to the Batman lore most people take for granted: Harley Quinn first appeared in BTAS, as did the idea that Mr Freeze is a tragic anti-hero, not just a deranged and chilly scientist.
The new miniatures from Knight Models can be used in the Batman Miniature Game, which is already packed with different Bat-variants: Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, classic TV series Batman, Batman Year One…
The Batman Miniature Game is a skirmish scale miniature wargame themed around… well, you can guess what it’s themed around. One of its most distinctive features is that the game takes place entirely at night, with visibility extremely limited, except to characters illuminated by street lamps and other sources of light. Obviously, Bats doesn’t have any trouble seeing in the dark…
Has all this talk of Batman got you hankering for some more classic graphic novels? Once you’ve finished with the best Batman comics, check out our Image Comics and Dark Horse comics recommendations for a bit of a palette cleanser.