Batman Has a Rainbow Connection

Back in October, fellow S-C writers Kaitlyn, Leia, and I set out on a mission at NYCC—to purchase a complete set of rainbow colored Batman figures. I will admit that this project sounds insane, at first. But it was born of a weekend spent digging through cardboard boxes at the foot of every toy booth, sifting through a variety of faded Smurfs and armless Thundercats, searching for X-Men toys suitable for the tinies in Kaitlyn’s life. Somewhere in the middle of this mission, we noticed a strange amount of Batmen in a variety of colored suits. None of them looked like any version of Batman any of us recognized.

Seriously Why Are There So Many Versions of Batman

We managed to pull together a full rainbow, from Red to Purple, with one glaring exception: Green Batman is actually a really weird-looking Robin figure. For now. The Batmen were a gift to my roommate, who loves Bruce Wayne in all his iterations, and she was immediately all about this rainbow of Batmen*. Then it was Christmas, and I introduced my roommate to the world of Funko Pop with a classic Adam West Pop figure—complete with a vintage style Batmobile. (I like my roommate an awful lot.)

*These guys have names. Red Batman, because he looks like he’s wearing a regular Batman suit, just in red. Construction Worker/BDSM Batman, for all his strange criss-cross…ribbons? Toxic Waste/Please Recycle Batman, so named for the highlighter shade of his suit and his weird markings. Robin. Swole Batman OR Freeze Batman. Interpretive Dance Batman, who has very flexible limbs. Groom Batman/Will Arnett Batman for his resemblance to LEGO Batman. And finally Bride Batman, dressed in virginal white.

Exclusive Batman is Exclusive

Her birthday rolled around, and I saw a wonderful Target Exclusive Funko Pop of Batman Unmasked (his real name is Scandalous Batman). Roommate’s collection was growing, but becoming decidedly less-rainbow colored. Then, like a beacon of miraculous light from the Batcave itself, Entertainment Earth popped up on my facebook feed about two months ago with an exciting, and strangely relevant to my (read: Roommate’s) interests: a whole line of batman Funko Pop figures, exactly the same except for one distinct difference: there was one for each color of the rainbow. A true rainbow of Batmen, all exactly alike, except the color of their batsuits.

Funko frequently comes out with exclusive figures for specific stores (Hot Topic and Barnes and Noble come to mind instantly), but this is the first time I’ve seen an online retailer with not one, but a whole collection of Exclusive figures for an event like this. The line was created to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Dark Knight. That’s right—it’s been 75 years since Batman made his debut in Detective Comics—where he apparently also had a rainbow of batsuits. The collection of Pop Exclusives is a direct reference to this almost-too-good-to-be-true comic cover that is really quite delightful. Here’s a photo gallery to show you how amazing both collections look today.

Photos by Roommate, who happens to be Sub-Cultured photographer Hannah Fogler.

Jealous? Order you own Rainbow of Justice(R) from Entertainment Earth.

Jen Schiller
Staff Writer
Twitter.com/Jenisaur