Bookworm

McFarlane Toys may have started doing comics-only Dozierverse characters now, but that doesn't mean they're giving up on the actual TV show. The Bookworm is a professional criminal who specialized in crimes that involved books. Like most of the Batman '66 villains, Bookworm had no kind of backstory or origin presented on the show - he just showed up with his gimmick fully intact and the Caped Crusaders already knowing who he was from some unseen previous encounter. There was a Golden Age Sandman villain in Adventure Comics #70 who lines up almost perfectly, though the odds that the TV producers knew about him were pretty slim. One attempt to adapt the character into the real comics, decades after the show was off the air, was a serial killer named Alexander Wyvern, which is pretty far off the mark. However, like Egghead, the true version did show up as a member of the faculty in Gotham Academy; he was the school librarian, naturally. Bookworm only appeared in one (two-part) episode of the show, which I suppose is a very roundabout way to say he appeared in two episodes. It wasn't until season three that there were single-episode stories. The episode is pretty unremarkable, save for the portrayal of Bookworm himself, who's sneakier than Riddler and more unhinged than Joker. He was played by Malcolm McDowell-- sorry, I always get these two confused, he was played by Roddy McDowall: Cornelius in Planet of the Apes. He's delightfully hammy in the role, and it's a shame the character only appeared the once. Like so many Batman villains, Bookworm is basically just a guy in a suit. The arms and legs are reused from McFarlane's Joker, which is a fine enough choice, but his jacket is new. It has no lapels, which is accurate to the show: rather than a normal cloth coat, like a human would wear, his was made of leather; the idea was that he didn't just love books, he even dressed like them, so his suit was made of the same stuff as old book bindings. His hat has a flexible reading light clamped around it, and according to the TV show, his thick-rimmed glasses have radio equipment in them - that would have been super-high-tech science fiction in the '60s! His hat light is tocked off to the side, rather than sticking out in front of him, probably to help avoid breakage, but it still doesn't look as cool this way. Bookworm is definitely not as colorful as most of the Dozierverse Bat-villains. His suit is brown (glossy because it's leather, of course) with gold trim. Or maybe brass, like his head-lamp. He wears gloves, because he doesn't want the oils from his skin to ruin those old books, and there are a few silver details painted on his glasses to suggest their extra tech. So he may not be super flashy, but the toy matches the show very well. None of these Batman '66 toys have superlative articulation, unless you just woke up from a 30-year coma. God, remember when ToyBiz made a "superarticulated" Spider-Man that stood out above the crowd because it had hinges in the shoulders instead of only swivels, plus balljointed hips and plain hinged wrists and ankles? That was 1992, and it was a phenomenon. Technically Bookworm doesn't even move as well as that figure, because his hips are just a T-crotch, his ankles don't move at all, and he just has a waist swivel rather than a balljointed chest. He does match the swivel/hinge shoulders and the hinged elbows and knees, and his wrists are swivels instead of hinges but he does at least have something there. The head is a balljoint, though the socket is so far in the part there's not a ton of range. When Todd made the Ceasar Romero Joker, the figure's right hand was inexplicably in a very wide gripping pose, despite the fact the only accessories it came with were those stupid sound effect pieces. Since Bookworm's hand is the same, you might think they'd give him a giant book to hold; it certainly looks like it's sized for one. But no, what we get instead is his oversized magnifying glass. It is something he used in the episode, but because the hand isn't shaped to hold it, they've had to put a loop on one side of the handle like a Barbie accessory. Quality work, team. At least it's sculpted to look like a strap designed as part of the magnifying glass, not just something sticking off the side comically? Bookworm is not one of the most memorable Batman '66 villains, but he's surely got his fans. I completely forgot that Funko did a toy of him in their 4" line (also that they had a 4" line at all), but it's pretty wild to have a real figure of such an obscure character. -- 09/11/24

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