THE ONLY GOOD COP IN GOTHAM CITY

"This is no place to raise a family. Maybe Gotham's all I deserve now. Maybe it's just my time in Hell."- Jim Gordon, Batman: Year One

Growing up, all I knew of Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon was the version from the 1960s Batman TV show: An old dude with a cool red phone that he used to call Batman when trouble was afoot... not a bad guy, just kind of an elderly male damsel in distress. He had a better portrayal on Batman: The Animated Series, where he at least saw some action and wasn't stuck in his office all the time. By no means Dirty Harry, but better than he was 30 years earlier. 

Then I read Frank Miller's seminal Batman: Year One and disregarded everything that came before. Miller's Gordon is AWESOME, some kind of highly-trained, black ops bad-ass that is transferred to Gotham from Chicago, and is literally the only good man in the entire police department. He takes  down street punks, psychos and corrupt coworkers with ease, but can't manage to track down some loon in a bat costume-- the one person he's obsessed with catching may be the only ally he has. 

And so began my love of the character. 

Completed in June 2013, this is actually my second attempt at Gordon for my Gotham's Most Wanted "universe." This version is a Wild Bill head (he always looked dead-on like Gordon to me) on a Professor X body, AKA THE BEST SUITED BODY EVER!! with a cloth coat from the Star Wars line. 

The earlier incarnation utilized the exact same head, but on a Cobra Trooper body with movie Cobra Commander legs. While doing the photo shoot for the figure, I was displeased with the paint job and decided to start over completely with a new body.

Unused Jim Gordon Mk 1

Commissioner Gordon in my universe is very similar to Miller's, as well as Gary Oldman's fully-realized take on the character in Nolan's brilliant trilogy. He has the same bad-ass background, the same faults, and the same sense of honor and integrity. He's waging an intentionally losing "war" on The Batman... every officer has been ordered to arrest the vigilante on sight, but nobody has ever done so. 

I've always loved the friendship between Gordon and Batman, and felt that James Gordon is who Bruce Wayne would have become, had he become a cop instead of a vigilante... but Wayne is too damaged for that... 

Chasing a suspect in The Narrows

The hunt continues in a Narrows tenement...

Suspect apprehended

GCPD lock-up

"What about escalation? We start carrying semi automatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing vests, they buy armor piercing rounds... and you're wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops. Take this guy: armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for the theatrical, like you. Leaves a calling card. Calls himself The Joker." 

COMING UP: WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN? 

YOU WILL BE UPGRADED!

Though I've always liked the idea of the character, I don't know a whole lot about Doctor Who, but I'm invested enough in the character to do the research and rerun analysis. I've seen enough to realize that The Doctor has some fantastic villains with amazing visuals, almost enough to rival The Batman himself... just kiddin'. While I have been commissioned to produce a number of Doctor Who's rogues, I wanted to start with the Cybermen because, well, I love robots, and, being early villains, they've got quite a history with our favorite traveler of time & space...

Completed in June 2013, Cyberman is a slightly modded, fairly basic repaint of the Marvel Universe Iron Man figure. The piece was deceptively simple, and remained about 95% done for weeks until I cracked the way to add the tubing detail to the sides of his head while retaining the figure's articulation... a true forehead-slapping moment where I saw the greebles on my bench and attached them immediately. 

"Ah-- Doctor! We have not met you in this form! YOU WILL BE UPGRADED!"

COMING UP: THE ONE HONEST COP IN GOTHAM CITY, WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?

WHY SO SERIOUS?

Like many fans of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, I eagerly snapped up any bit of info I could about its sequel... I confess that when I read about Heath Ledger being signed to play The Batman's greatest adversary, I balked. I could honestly say that, while he was a gifted performer, he hadn't been in any movies I liked. The more I read about Ledger & Nolan's take on the character, the more I was intrigued: Glasgow smile, cheap green hair dye, filthy, no ID... then, like everybody else, I was stunned by Ledger's complete transformation into The Joker.

Not only had Ledger become Batman's worst enemy, but also one of the greatest movie villains of all-time.

Completed in May 2013, The Clown Prince of Crime was made primarily from a Marvel Universe Professor X and a third party head. This project has been YEARS in the making, as I intended to make The Joker using the same pieces when they were released as Destro from a San Diego Comic Con exclusive. However, since the set the figure comes from routinely goes for $52-$65, it wasn't exactly in the budget. Then Hasbro was awesome and re-released the figure as Professor Chuck in their Marvel Universe line!

Professor X is easily the best suited body I've ever worked with, so much so that I used him for a couple other upcoming pieces. It was definitely worth the wait, and I can't imagine using anything else. To me, this is my "Perfect" Joker, so I don't see myself revisiting this incarnation of character anytime soon. I've created my own iteration of The Joker specifically for my Batman universe, and have the perfect parts in mind... guess what I'll be using? 

Just like his nemesis (and possible love interest?), Joker's one of those characters that've inspired a number of custom pieces by me, going all the way back to grade school. I'll spare you that work, but do have a snapshot of some things a little more recent:

L to R: Dark Knight Joker mk I, "Classic" Joker, Dark Knight Joker mk II

COMING UP: WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN? THE ONE HONEST COP IN GOTHAM CITY

THE GHOST WHO WALKS

Lee Falk's Phantom is a character I remember from an early age because of the Defenders of the Earth cartoon of the mid-80s. Unlike Batman or Spider-Man, however, I didn't become obsessed with The Ghost Who Walks. I never read stacks of his comics growing up... like any great concept, I was more into the idea of The Phantom, and where I could take him and his pulp comic brethren.

Completed in Spring 2013, Kit Walker here is composed almost entirely from common table scraps on my bench: 25th Anniversary Snake Eyes upper body and lower legs/boots, random Cobra Trooper upper legs, and a Destro head. The parts were laying out, and I saw the Destro head in just the right light to sell me.

While I kept The Phantom's rings and silver pistols, I ditched the striped undies and skull buckle in favor of a military-style web belt to ground the design more in reality...  While I can see a man wearing this basic uniform without being too costume-y, I still can't explain the purple. I did try to tone down the brightness (he's a "ghost," remember?), and was in no way inspired by the costume from the terrible Billy Zane film from 20 years ago, hahaha.

Now that I've completed one Defender, there's a lot of temptation to finish the team... there's always room for a Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician... and Ming the Merciless would be an amazing rogue, worthy of even The Batman...


NEXT TIME: WHY SO SERIOUS?

IF ADVENTURE HAS A NAME...

For as long as I've been aware of the character-- which is pretty much as far back as I can remember-- I've wanted the "perfect" Indiana Jones figure. One of my greatest childhood memories is the day I finally tracked down a 3.75" Indy from Kenner's now-vintage line, and being completely obsessed, until I "lost" him in a random box of toys for about 10 years… since I didn't have an Indiana Jones anymore, I had to make one, but better than the one I had. It started with an "LBC", super-poseable Indy I made as a kid with my old A Real American Hero GI Joes: Tunnel Rat's legs with Grunt (mk 3)'s torso, Blizzard's head, a terrible fedora, but a very-cool, poseable whip made from copper wire. With varying toy lines, parts, and materials, I've been improving upon the recipe ever since. 

Completed in March 2013, this untold numbered attempt at the character started with the upper body of an Indy from Hasbro's awesome Indiana Jone's line, bashed onto the lower body of a movie Storm Shadow legs, for super-poseability. Hasbro's sculpt is amazing, but was ruined by their cheap paint job-- I just went in and cleaned up the excellent work that was already there.

I had been planning this piece literally for years, and every year the available pieces got better and better. Before this incarnation, I bought parts to make a more heroically-built Indy, using the body from a Logan figure from the Wolverine: Origins line. It was way too stylized for my more realistic take, however, but who knows… I could always use it to make a piece based on Jim Steranko's bad-ass concept art. I'm a HUGE fan of unproduced designs.

In addition to the super-articulated Joe version I made as a kid, past attempts at Indy have included some based on Hasbro's Han Solo POTF2 figures (to various degrees of success), and an awesome one from high school with swappable heads. With this piece, however, I really wanted to knock it out of the park-- go above and beyond anything I'd made in the past, and make my definitive statement on Lucas & Spielberg's brilliant creation. With this one, I'm 99.9999% there.

Recently I flipped through a coffee table book of the Lucasfilm archives and rediscovered some wicked pre-production art for the Indiana Jones films, but primarily for Raiders. I'm very intrigued by the Nazi villain with the robot arm and cybernetic eye implant-- he could be a lot of fun to work on and would fit in with my super villains perfectly. 

Just like the official version, my take on Indy is that he's a globe-trotting adventurer who has dealt with everything you can imagine in the field, from the wrath of God to dimension-hopping Aliens, double-crossing agents, and armies of the undead. In his travels, he's met everyone from fellow classmate Professor Broom (BPRD) and Hellboy, to Captain America and the Avengers, and even The Batman. Axis forces are always on the hunt for paranormal artifacts, which Dr. Jones seems to specialize in...

While I'm very confident that I won't be making an Indy better than this one for quite some time, there are a couple things I'd change to be fully, 100% happy: Indy being able to put his arms completely down to his sides (they sorta stick out slightly), and his jacket is sticky from the paint (which I'm going to actually fix).  Apart from that, though, I couldn't be happier with how Dr. Jones turned out. If I can find a "battle damaged" Indy from Temple of Doom for a decent price, I may have to attempt a jacket less version...

CAIRO '39

NAZI BASE '42

U.S. GOVERNMENT INSTALLATION  '41

NEPAL '38

COMING UP: THE GHOST WHO WALKS, WHY SO SERIOUS?

“You flee to no avail! ARNIM ZOLA has the resources to meet any emergency! You haven’t a chance, do you hear !? You can’t escape !”

Seeing pictures of Dr. Arnim Zola (or just "Arnim Zola") always confused me growing up. I didn't realize his "head" was a camera and that his "face" was actually a screen broadcasting his likeness and not actually some giant, freaky-ass head-in-a-stomach. No offense to The King, but Jack Kirby's art didn't help, so I combined the creepy visual with the bizarre name and wrote him off as some sort of Marvel cosmic villain, which I really wasn't into at the time... curiously, though, Zola wasn't too far off from Krang (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), whom I loved and thought was awesome. I think the difference was that I knew Krang's body was a robot.

Later I learned I how cool Dr. Zola actually is-- I'm always a sucker for a mad scientist, especially when they're bat-shit crazy, German, and possibly evil, evil Nazi scum. They make the best villains. Completed today, April 1st, 2013, Arnim Zola is basically an LBC (lazy bastard custom), based primarily off a GI Joe 25th Anniversary Battle Android Trooper (my favorite GI Joe figure/character). The camera head was kitbashed together from greebles on my workbench. 

Finding the right face for Zola took forever, with at least four different images and numerous false starts. Since the good doctor here is from the late 30s-early 40s, the picture is in black & white. At first I went with the Zola from Captain America: The First Avenger... then the one from the video game based on the movie, then I toyed with a bunch of pictures of Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark... then inspiration struck and I knew precisely who would work. My lips are sealed. 

One of the main reasons I wanted to use the B.A.T. as the base body (aside from the perfect spot on the chest for the screen) was because of its interchangeable arms. I see this robot minion as a virtually-indestructible avatar for Zola that is highly versatile, armed with a claw hand and particle beam weapon based on energy from the Tesseract (Cosmic Cube). He wears basic khaki coveralls to protect his components, but Zola designed his robot soldiers to be nearly unstoppable. 

COMING UP: IF ADVENTURE HAS A NAME..., THE GHOST WHO WALKS, GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED