Killer Croc & Baby Doll

When he first appeared, Killer Croc was just a human with a skin condition - weirdly, the Suicide Squad version of the character is the most comic-accurate to ever appear in any outside media. These days he's often drawn like an anthropomorphic beast; so how did the change take place? Blame Batman the Animated Series. Believing Killer Croc is a kindred spirit after she sees him on TV being sentenced for a crime, Baby Doll sets him free and goes on a crime spree with him before she starts to question his trustworthiness and her own judgment. When Killer Croc debuted on BtAS, he was mostly a straight adaptation of the comics... except for his mouth, which was vaguely skeletal, what with its exposed teeth and hollow cheeks. Within a few years, the comics published a story that said he was devolving, his goals getting more primal over time: sleep, shelter, and sustenance. It was in that story (Batman #521/2) that he changed from gray to green, a move that was copied when the cartoon redesigned everyone for Season 4. Honestly, it's a weaker look; more "realistic," perhaps, now that he has lips, but considering that that's the season that also brought us "blue-skinned Catwoman," we know they weren't afraid to get wilder than this. In fact, if you just looked at the individual parts of the design in a vacuum, no one would blame you if you thought the one with the weird mouth was the second version. The shape of the body is definitely more Bruce Timm than before, though. Croc is broad-shouldered and hunched, with lots of simple, sloping lines. This figure is, like (nearly) all the Animated Series figures McFarlane Toys is selling, a straight re-release of the figure made by DC Direct in 2015, so any quirks of the design can be assigned to them rather than Todd. Like, why does Croc not have knee joints? Why, when the arms are aligned "neutrally," do the elbow joints point to the inside rather than the front? Why does the neck joint make the head want to sit up higher than intended and leave a big gap where it meets the body? Considering how close this figure was made to the end of DC Direct's existence, you can really feel the lack of care put into the production. The figure is done in slightly darker colors than the official model sheets show - but since he spent nearly the entire episode underground, you can consider these his "night" shades. He doesn't have the "cel shading" paint the Target-exclusive toys have had, going back to the regular paint of Todd's earliest BtAS releases. The "scale" stripes on Croc's shoulders and arms are simply painted on, with only the ones on his stomach lining up with sculpted elements. The figure's claws are black, and his outlined eyes are yellow. The outlining around the teeth is thin but crisp, keeping it looking its best. We already talked about a few of Croc's joints, as well as lack thereof. Seriously, why did DCD make this figure without knees? He has swivel/hinge ankles, he has swivel shins, he has those old H-hips... why no knees? Yeah, we get that he was drawn with a sort of perma-crouch, but you can sculpt the legs that way and still have them articulated. All three joints in each arm are a swivel/hinge, though the fact you have to turn the forearms 90° off true if you want them to move properly is simply bad work: the shape of the arms looks wrong if you turn them that way, and messes up the look of the toy. Like Man-Bat, he gets a hinged abdomen and a swivel chest, but unlike that figure, Croc's barbell neck means he has an easier time looking up (or, if he's swimming, forward). When this was figure 09 in DC Direct's line, it was a two-pack: Killer Croc's big Season 4 episode saw him teaming up with another returning villain, Baby Doll. Originally appearing in her eponymous Season 3 episode, Baby Doll was one of the show's original creations. Not the most famous and successful one, obviously, but featuring in one of the series' most poignant episodes, right up there behind "Heart of Ice" - not many children's cartoons end the episode with the villain, unable to defeat the hero, choosing to shoot themselves while he watches quietly. Like all the great Bat-villains, Baby Doll is a reflection of Batman himself: Bruce Wayne is, emotionally, still the 8-year-old boy whose parents were murdered, unable to grow up; Baby Doll is, mentally, a 30-year-old woman stuck in the body of a toddler, unable to grow up. Mary Dahl has systemic hypoplasia, a rare condition which kept her from aging; at 20 years old, she barely even looked 5. For a time she was a successful sitcom actress, because she could play a child for a longer time and with more reliability than an actual kid could, but she quit the series to become a dramatic actress - a career move which totally flopped, since no one would take her seriously. Eventually she snapped and began kidnapping her former costars, trying to re-create the happiest time of her life. Bruce Timm's roots were showing when he first designed Baby Doll: she looked almost exactly like Elmyra from Tiny Toon Adventures. The redesign simplifies her, of course, and changes her hair from 1950s curls to two thick pigtails. This is the same Irene Matar sculpt from a decade ago, but Baby Doll manages to look different thanks to the way the eyes have been painted: on the old toy, the outlines were more toward the inside of the eye, meaning they nearly met at the top, and the pupils were painted lower; this gave her a big, wide-eyed epxression of innocence; this new figure outlines the eyes more toward the outside, so they disappear into her hairline, and the pupils are painted higher; now she looks like she's doing the Kubrick Stare out from under her bangs. Creepy! Baby Doll's articulation is minimal: head, shoulders, waist, and hips. Since her feet are so small and her hair is so large, it's very difficult to get the toy to stand on its own: you can, but she has to be leaning forward, and will still be prone to falling over. The old DC Direct releases of this line included doll stands, and even though the one in that set had Killer Croc's model sheet on the base, it was adjustable enough to keep Doll upright, instead. For this release, McToys has included a stand of its own, because that was better than relying on you to lean her up against something. Rather than a manually adjusted clamp to hold the figure, McToys has made it spring-loaded, clamping around the toy automatically. The set includes alternate hands for Killer Croc (more gripping than wide open), a roast turkey, and a baby bottle. Baby Doll can't actually hold that one, or anything else. The DCD Series 3 figure included the ball she carried around (secretly a bomb) and a stack of money that the two of them had stolen, but McToys dropped those in favor of a "reproduction animation cel," aka "a printed image we put in a cardboard frame to make it look special." Yeah, nobody needed that. I wanted to get the Killer Croc and Baby Doll set back when DC Direct made it, but never got the chance. It's sat on my wishlist ever since, so I'm totally in favor of McFarlane Toys doing these rereleases. In fact, there are many others I'd like to see Todd re-do, too - because either his will show up in stores and be super easy to get, or its existence will drive the original's price down on the secondary market. -- 12/04/24 What DCD figures do you most want to see re-released? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.

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