THE BATMAN: Masked Manhunter of Gotham City

[darklord1967]

Fellow MEGO fans, collectors, and customizers, I proudly present THE BATMAN: Masked Manhunter of Gotham City from 9Art Custom Creations!

The Dark Knight (and several of his friends... and arch enemies) will be displayed at MEGO MEET '17 to be viewed up close and personal!

This 1:9 scale Custom Caped Crusader comes in a custom window box, and features a removable cowl, Bat-A-Rang, Batrope, 9Art Certificate of Authenticity, and Character File Card!

The figure stands 8- 3/8" tall when dressed. He features 27 points of articulation built into an all-ball-joint body (doing away with traditional MEGO bungee cord, circuit tension assembly).

[boss]

He came out great. Can't wait to see the rest.

[mego maniac mark]

Wow, that's a beauty!

[The Re-Rooter]

I cannot WAIT to see him with the rest of the set in person! <3

-Diana

[Blue Meanie]

Do you want my money now or at the meet??!!?? That looks absolutely stunning.

[comicmike]

I can not believe how much *goodness* I see right there! What a great way to kick off my Monday morning

[darklord1967]

Thank you everyone for your kind words! Greatly appreciated!

As those of you that know me can attest, the planning, development, and creation of this custom action figure, and my other upcoming 1:9 scale Gotham City characters (to be revealed shortly), was a very long (and at times, very difficult) undertaking.

As I have said many times, the creation of this custom figure was a direct result of my obsession with owning an 8 inch "Mego-esque" scale Batman figure that addressed the many things I found disappointing about MEGO's Batman and Robin figures when they were gifted to me on Christmas of 1975.

This was a journey wrought with trial and error... development of new skills... serious illness for 5 years that temporarily knocked me out of the customizing hobby... a tentative return to the hobby 3 years ago.. and so much more.

But before I get too deeply into basking in your kind accolades, and taking any bows, I really want to acknowledge the individuals here in the MEGO customizing community that in one way or other have been with me on this long journey, offering support, assistance, guidance, and friendship. These individuals were invaluable to the realization of my goals. And I will never be able to fully thank them for all they've done, but I can at the very least acknowledge them here.

In no particular order:

Juan DeLeon, and Russell Pitman: These gentlemen provided top shelf, first rate, world class molding and casting services of my scores of original head and body part sculpts. If not for them I would NEVER have even come close to realizing this venture. And back when I first began this project, Fred W Goodspeed provided excellent molding and casting services for virtually any strange body part I sent him. His skill and talent were a real inspiration. Despite dealing with his own adversity and difficulties (like his home flooding), Fred still found the time to help me with this project. A supremely generous man. These three gentlemen are undoubtedly my HEROES on this project.

Michael "comic mike" Best": When developing these custom figures, I didn't know if it would even be possible to find collaborators who were as picky and fussy about details as I was. And when I found myself in need of someone who could PRECISELY shrink existing MEGO head sculpts to a size that suited my desires for correct anatomical proportions of the overall figure, I tapped the talents of this young man Mike Best from Canada. Mike approached the projects I gave him with a zeal, enthusiasm, and care as if they were his own. And the results he achieved were absolutely spot-on perfect every time!

Paul “LaserMEGO” Wasson: My custom figures would just NOT be the same without Paul’s astonishing laser printing services! Whenever I needed custom vinyl logos and emblems for my figures, Paul was my one and only source! And I’m supremely proud that this custom Batman figure wears a custom chest emblem that I had Paul print.

Paul "Doctor MEGO" Clarke: I can remember first meeting Paul Clarke at a toy show in New York many years ago. I was carrying my first attempt at a custom MEGO Batman, and I stopped by his booth to look for products to improve my developing customizing skills. Paul was very helpful, and loaded with tons of useful MEGO information. Years later, as I embarked upon the final leg of my custom "Gotham City Legends" journey, I found myself constantly returning to the venerable good Doctor for the various odd parts and "nicknacks" that I required to complete a figure. I think a LOT of us owe Paul a round of thanks for the years of sweat and toil he has dedicated to his hobby... and how much we all have benefitted from his efforts.


Blue Meanie: I first met Roberto at the Farmingdale, NY collecibles toy shop “The Land of Ooze and Ahs” way back in the year 2000! I was carrying with me the preliminary parts I had just created for the custom Mego-scaled ’66 Batmobile I’m building. Roberto’s enthusiasm for my project was so infectious that it made quite the impression on me. His excitement and cheer on that single afternoon for what I was trying to accomplish was a motivational shot in the arm that has stayed with me throughout all these years… even through the tough times.


Whenever I became too full of myself and too proud of whatever custom creation I was developing, I was always sure to take a long, sobering look at the astonishing creations of customizers whose stellar works always brought me back down to Earth... customizers who reminded me just how far I still had to go in this hobby to even be considered in a class beneath them! Chris "CaptainMEGO" Meimann... John "Type3toys" Farley... Charlee "b Natural" Flatt... Jason "Blackknight" Roberts… Brian "bleit1701" Leitner... Derek "Megospidey"... these are the guys whose consistent excellence inspired me to push and push to improve my own skills at every turn.

In addition to other MEGO friends, I approached Bryan “Boss” Bossart and Jessica Rotich last year to help me proof-read the bios and stats I had written for the Character File Cards I created for this series of Custom figures. They selflessly and generously gave their time and energy to this project catching my myriad of typos, formatting and grammatical errors before I went to print. Their patience, sharp eyes, and generosity cannot be over-stated… neither can my gratitude.


I first met Austin “MEGOWGSH” Hough, the big huggable teddy bear of the custom MEGO community, two years ago at MEGO MEET ’15. His boisterous humor, enthusiasm, and talent really made my weekend special that year. Over the following year, Austin selflessly offered his invaluable flawless silkscreen printing services to several of the garments I needed to create for these characters. When I was prevented from attending MEGO MEET ’16 (due to the airlines refusing to allow me to check in my big displays in baggage), I fell into a terrible, terrible depression that weekend. It was Austin (and “EMCE Hammer” Steve) who took the time to call me at home and make it all better by bringing some of MEGO Meet to me! For this, they have my eternal gratitude, affection, and friendship.

After corresponding for years here on the Megomuseum message boards, I finally met Sam “samurainoir” Noir, David Lee, Chad “Noelani” Gordy and Sean Gordy in person at MEGO Meet ’15. I was instantly blown away by Chad and Sean’s 3D printing setup at the show! And their LIVE demonstrated customizing skills were second to none! The professionalism of Sam’s custom “Captain Canuck” figures were really inspirational, and David’s charm and warmth actually surpassed even the pleasure of being in the presence of his incredible Castaway / Zica products… so many of which have been SO instrumental in the realization of my Gotham City project! Later that weekend, on various occasions, I invited these gentlemen up to my room to check out some of the custom characters and projects that I was developing for my “Legends of Gotham City” line of custom toys. With the generous support, encouragement, and enthusiasm for my work they each demonstrated, I found that my passion to return to this project (after my illness-induced absence) had increased fifty-fold in a single weekend! I can NEVER repay these fine gentlemen for that. Never.


Way back in 1998, there I was, a lowly, aspiring MEGO customizer from Brooklyn, NY who idolized the works of Charlee Flatt, and dreamed of one day creating ultra fine, super-detailed custom MEGO-scaled characters like his. I learned that Charlee had a partner of sorts… a man who helped create the custom window box packagings for those astonishing “B-Natural” custom figures… the gentle giant by the name of Scott Arendsen. Well, as I worked to develop my own custom packaging for my own future custom figures, I found myself needing to get scanned samples of actual MEGO toy packaging, and Scott generously came to my rescue. Not only did he offer incredible guidance, and support to this unknown aspiring MEGO customizer, but in a remarkable demonstration of trust, he also actually sent ORIGINAL MEGO boxes for me to scan for my needs! When I think of the first few individuals that welcomed me warmly into the world of MEGO customizing back in the late 1990’s, Scott Arendsen is definitely among the names that come to mind. He was there from the very genesis of this project, and I don’t think it would ever have come to fruition without his initial friendly assistance.


I am sure I have forgotten other individuals in this community who richly deserve mention in these acknowledgements. And I sincerely apologize to them for the oversight.

Rest assured, however, that I will happily add their names here in this thread as they occur to me.

[Brown Bear]

Congrats on a cool figure. I felt like I was watching the academy awards there for a minute. 😜

[apes3978]

Great looking figure...

[Timothy2251]

That is a work of art right there. Nicely done, sir!

[TrekStar]

That's off the charts, looks intimidating just perfect.

[darkbros]

Nicely done sir!

[nubee]

Perfection

[Grimjohn]

Magnificent!

[darklord1967]

That's off the charts, looks intimidating just perfect.

That's one of the nicest compliments I've recieved on this figure so far.

Way back on Christmas morning of 1975, one of the things that I disliked the most about my MEGO Batman was that he did not look intimidating... he did not look imposing or ornery.

I realize the public consciousness of the character was still dominated by the campy Adam West interpretation at the time, but I was FAR more fascinated with the dark avenger of the night that I was reading about in the comics... and smiling MEGO Batman just wasn't cutting' it.

So when I became a MEGO customizer many years later and sought to make a Batman figure that satisfied me, an intimidating presence was one of the PRIMARY goals of the figure.

So thanks a million, pal!!!