The main problem is actually the soft plastic they use. It's PVC. That's what they use for nearly every part of the figure, except the ankles, which is what determines the balance of the entire figure. They should use something stiffer for the shins and feet. PVC can be rendered in varying degrees of stiffness.

what does that mean? eventual breakage? deformity? not standing?

Soft PVC bends easily, especially in moderately hot temperature. Even without hot temperature, the figures are often tied down very tightly or shoved into their packaging bubbles with little care, which causes the PVC to bend. This isn't a problem if it's only in there for a few hours; but they stay like that for weeks or months, eventually causing them to retain their bent shaped - ie, warped (or deformed, whichever word you prefer). When ankles are warped, they make it difficult for a figure to stand.

Breaking is not the issue.

Then couldn't this still be stopped by eliminating the packaging bubbles and ties? There has to be a better way to package action figures. With some lines, the toy is put in some dumb looking pose by an underpaid factory worker who could care less about the damage being done to the product; the thing that gets me the most is when hand/accessories are mangled from the rubber bands wound as tight as possible to secure the accessory in place. I guess they use the PVC because it is the cheaper route to take, but I am sure they could drop costs with less packaging that more times than not ends up in the garbage anyway.

These can't come soon enough. My absolute favourite DC animated series closely followed by The Justice League.

i am the furthest thing from a completist but hot damn i want this entire series so bad. these look so good im getting a display area ready. bullock, gordon, and montoya would be awesome addition to the line. if they make an alfred i'd go nuts

That's actually a good point. I definitely want that Joker and I hope there's a Harley coming down the road.

Not sure about the others, since I tend to waffle on whether I like BTAS or TNBA designs better than the other. It also doesn't help matters when I hear about toys breaking right out of the package (and not in a cool, Small Soldiers/Toy Story kind of way).

Having warped or damaged limbs is sadly nothing new. Several of my MU figures were like that, so I used the hot/cold trick to straighten them out but I couldn't do anything about the cuts and gouges.

The bubbles will probably stay, since they can't just have the toy floating around loose. But there is some hope that those rubber band ties may be falling out of favor within the industry. A lot of newer Hasbro stuff (mostly Transformer-related) do not have any twist-ties or bands of any kind.

Is it at all possible to think they will do an animated batmobile?

i dont think its out of the question. they made a'66 batmobile for the 6" line.

I think that they could design an outer bubble that fits the toy more snuggly so it won't flop around inside the packaging so much. That inner bubble is just a waste of resources that could go into the final product instead of the packaging.

No. If toys were packed that way, they would all break. I absolutely guarantee it. The inner bubble stops the toy from rattling around, while the outer bubble stops external objects from colliding with the toy. The toys have to be insulated like that to protect them.

I will buy this line, this show was one of my favorites growing up and still holds up.

I guess the toys from my childhood were made from better material or something, because they were never broken inside the package, and hardly any that I remember had that stupid inner bubble.

Perhaps a more shallow inner bubble to keep the product in place; one that does not envelope the entire figure and require it to be crammed into it by a poor factory worker who probably does not care about the finished product.

More like toy and safety standards/regulations have changed since then. There is a lot of stuff that toy makers did back then that they wouldn't dream of doing now.

Honestly, I think if they made an inner tray with a full top and bottom piece like a lot of import toys (TF MPs, Figuarts, etc), the bottom half wouldn't have to be so form-fitting and potentially damaging to the figure just to hold the toy in place.

Good call on that.