Man-Bat is probably the most famous of the unmade prototypes,
in large part to having been the first one discovered
back in 1996, right
here at ToyOtter. As we can see from the
concept art, he was one of the few figures presented two
different ways. The top art was created first and shows
him in his traditional jeans. The second board has him
wearing some bizarre space-age underwear. While they didn't
go directly with the jeans version, the final sculpt appears
to show almost a hybrid of the two designs. It's possible
that he was slated to get some sort of snap-on attachments,
but we may never know the final answer to that conundrum.
We do know, thanks to Matt
Mensinger's Page, that he made it all the
way to steel tooling, which was a large cost for Kenner
to incur before dumping the line.
In any case, he would have been a very nice addition
to the line, as he almost qualifies as both alien creature
and Bat-Villain. He's still no Riddler. Man-Bat was the
only prototype to be missing from the files of the last
of the Super Powers line. Most likely, this is because
the missing one was used to create all the resin duplicates
that have been floating around over the years. This makes
sense as of all the completed sculpts, only Man-Bat was
a recognizable character, and as such was the only one
at the time that would be in demand for a fan of the comics.
Legend has it that the copies originated with staffers
at DC Comics in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It is likely
that staff members asked Kenner for the copies once it
was learned that the 4th wave would not go into production.
