21 February 2012

The Batmen of All Nations: El Gaucho of Argentina

Don Santiago Vargas! 

Extravagante!

Irresponsable!

Enigmatico!

One Bad-ass Action Figure!


El Gaucho de Argentina


Man, that Grant Morrison can spin a good yarn.  All the cowpokes here at the Flying Batmobile Ranch finish their daily chores and settle 'round the campfire for a reading of BATMAN INC.  One of the reasons his books are so popular with the boys is the fact that it includes one of our all-time favorite Batman stories, "The Batmen of All Nations".  Basically, the conceit of the Fifties Batman story was that Batman inspired crimefighters world wide to adopt similar methods.  Great Britain was protected by The Knight, Italy had The Legionary, etc.  On two occasions, these crime busters gathered with Batman to tear it up internationally.  Grant Morrison recently revisited this idea, expanding upon the team by adding the Native American Batman and Robin, and having them all represent Batman in his BATMAN, INC. concept.


Chief Man-of-Bats, El Gaucho, and The Knight

DC Direct definitely stepped up to the plate and delivered an impressive first wave of BATMAN INC figures.  Sadly, DC Direct is also known for dropping concepts after a first run and no future releases are expected for BATMAN INC figures.  We've come to the table with Hong Kong's very own Batgirl, Black Bat, and we now turn to this Cowboy Crimefighter to step it up.


Two great MATTEL action figures were used to make one great El Gaucho!
 Just as Black Bat was an easy modification of a MATTEL DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS figure, we went back to MATTEL for outstanding sculpts of street clothes.  Our design goal was Yanick Paquette's depiction of El Gaucho from BATMAN INC #3.  Other artists had given El Gaucho a deisgn similar to El Mariachi, which is from Mexico.  We really liked the rugged look of Paquette's figure: Wealthy Don Santiago would shrug off his finery for a leather jacket, work boots, and a simple mask to kick some Sombrero ass.  Our figure is the MATTEL Jack Knight Starman with the sleeves and modified jacket of the Mister Terrific figure.


Who should be the next member to join the team?

  Our dear friend from across the pond also decided to declare a love for all things super Argentina by creating Los Super Malon, the Justice League of Argentina, if you will.  We think she did a bang-up job with such a wild bunch!  Read about it here!

We salute the Batmen of All Nations!  Who should be the next member to join?  Sidekicks?

7 comments:

  1. He's just wonderful! <3

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  2. Thank you! You totally beat me up on this Blog Off! I concede!

    I really dig El Gaucho as my most favorite international Batman.

    I'm agonizing over who to do next...

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  3. I'll send you some aloe for the bruises! ;)

    Seriously though, I take that as a real honour as your work is always; Magnifico!!!

    How about the Musketeer?

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    Replies
    1. I'm sticking with the modern Inc team.

      Maybe Squire or Raven Red. I'm still holding out that *someone* will make Dick Grayson as Batman.

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  4. I missed this post before. Nicely done!!!

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  5. Thanks!

    I'd almost let MATTEL over charge my credit card for El Gaucho.

    Almost.

    ReplyDelete