Tim Burton’s Batman was a life changing experience for me. I was 5 years old in 1989, and as a young comic book fan (Batman and Spider-Man being my favs, even now), the movie absolutely broke my brain.

Yeah, I can watch it now with a more critical eye and see how “off” it was for a Batman movie and what not, but that movie was a defining experience. I can watch it now, 25 years later, and spout off entire sequences of dialogue. I lived for that movie as a kid.

Unfortunately, the best option we had as a kid for a Batman action figure (which - of course - I needed), was this guy, from Toy Biz. I remember being so happy getting him for Christmas in 1989. Countless fruitless searches at Woolworths, K-Mart and other stores paid off, no more searching through pegs of Bob The Goon!

Toy Biz was still relatively new in the world of action figures. Made off of a modified Super Powers mold, I remember their early figures feeling cheap, with paint that would easily flake off. Not really the best look for a defining character of my childhood.

I mean - Batman needed to be a part of all of my childhood play scenarios, but his figure was not so great, and didn’t really stand up, especially that weird grappling hook belt. I’m pretty sure I lost his grappling hook gun almost immediately. The Batmobile was pretty cool though, even with its crappy plastic “cocoon”.

Less than a year later, Kenner took over the Batman license starting with the Dark Knight Collection line. At its center piece were two fantastic Batman and Joker figures. The “Crime Attack Batman” figure was absolutely perfect, and everything I had wanted as a kid - even if it wasn’t screen accurate. I’m pretty sure this guy is still in solid condition somewhere at my parent’s house - although I definitely lost all of the accessories.

Since then, however, there have been many many Batman action figures, but very few that have been what I’d call “movie accurate” for the ‘89-styled Bats.

Last year, Mattel made a solid attempt at 1989 Batman figure as a part of their “DC Multiverse” line. However, the small scale and relatively high price turned me off. At least it had a masked and an unmasked version.

Enter NECA Toys.

NECA, over the past decade (roughly) has been the defacto replacement for what MacFarlane Toys was in the late 90’s and early 00’s - the source of high quality pop-culture based action figures.  They’ve done many lines, including horror characters, Aliens, Predator, those awesome Pacfic Rim figures, and they even own Kid Robot now.

As a part of their ongoing “Classic Video Game” line, which featured characters like Jason, Freddy and Predator based off of their NES games (complete with retro boxes and limited color palettes), NECA blew everyone’s mind with a figure based on the Nintendo Batman game.

Look at it! If it weren’t colored so odd, it’d be a perfect Keaton-era Batman.

Sadly, said NECA, their agreement only allowed them to release it specifically in that colorway.

Or…did it?

Yesterday, NECA officially unveiled - and put up for sale - a very special edition of the new Batman 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray. I’m not sure how they convinced Warner Bros. to make it happen, but the combination of NECA’s screen perfect Batman figure and a Blu-Ray have sold so fast, they temporarily broke the eBay listing.

That’s right, you can get this figure and Blu-Ray combo (with it’s amazing Toy Biz homage packaging) for just $30 on eBay. The combo ships on December 9th, just in time for Christmas.

I think I know what I want under my tree this year. Even though I already have Batman on Blu-Ray. 5 year old me deserves it.