McDonald's Happy Meal POG 2019 - Batman Save Gotham City
A Dark Knight Worth Tracking Down
Welcome back to the collection corner! If you've been following along with the sprawling Warner Bros. POG 2019 Happy Meal wave from McDonald's - particularly the European release - then you already know how deep this set goes. Today I'm shining a spotlight on one of the DC-themed entries that collectors tend to overlook: the Batman Save Gotham City disc from the 2019 McDonald's POG wave. It's a small piece, but it carries the kind of classic superhero energy that earns it a permanent spot on the shelf.
About the POG 2019 Wave
The McDonald's POG 2019 promotion was a primarily European Happy Meal campaign that leaned heavily on Warner Bros. properties. The set is enormous - easily one of the larger disc-and-spinner waves McDonald's has put out in the modern era - and it draws from multiple Warner Bros. universes simultaneously. You've got Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Taz, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, and Road Runner. You've got Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Machine crew. And then you've got a substantial DC Comics section that includes Superman, Supergirl, the Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Green Lantern, Cyborg, and - right there in the middle of the hero lineup - Batman saving Gotham City.
The wave also features some original POG-style characters and a handful of thematic discs with graphic artwork rather than sculpted figures. The breadth of this set is genuinely impressive, and for collectors who love both classic cartoons and DC superheroes, it offers something in just about every direction.
The Toy Up Close
The Batman Save Gotham City piece is a POG-style collectible disc - flat, lightweight, and printed with bright, comic-inspired art. The design centers on Batman mid-action, with the Gotham City skyline framing the scene in the background. The colors are bold and confident: deep blues, grays, and the unmistakable gold of the bat emblem. For a promotional disc, the print quality is sharp and well-registered, which isn't always a given with this kind of toy.
The disc itself is made from rigid plastic with a smooth finish - not laminated, but sturdy enough to hold up through ordinary play. It's lightweight in hand, approximately the size of a standard POG or small drink coaster. There's no articulation, of course - this is a flat collectible rather than an action figure - but that's exactly what makes the POG format interesting. These discs reward you for hunting the full set, and each one holds up on display when grouped by theme or character universe.
Scale-wise, the piece sits comfortably alongside the other DC discs in the wave. Display it next to the Superman, Green Lantern, or Supergirl entries and the visual continuity is obvious - same art direction, same format, same clean presentation. It belongs in the set, and you'll feel that absence if you don't have it.
The POG 2019 wave is one of those promos that rewards patience. It looks chaotic at first - Scooby-Doo next to Batman next to Tweety - but once you start sorting by universe and lining them up, the cohesion of the whole set becomes clear. The Batman Save Gotham City disc is one of those pieces that anchors the DC section and makes the rest of the superhero run feel complete.
Collector Notes
For display purposes, POG-style discs are underrated. They stack cleanly in small risers, line up beautifully in acrylic cases, and their flat format means they take up almost no shelf space individually. The Batman Save Gotham City disc has particular display appeal because of its high-contrast art - dark blues and grays pop against lighter backgrounds or white shelving. Group it with the other DC entries from this wave for maximum visual impact.
Play value is naturally limited for flat discs, but the POG format has its own nostalgic play tradition - stacking, flipping, and matching. Younger kids respond to the bold superhero imagery even if the format doesn't offer the articulation of a figure. For adult collectors, the appeal is almost entirely display and completeness. This is a set you want whole, and Batman is a required piece for anyone building out the DC section.
Condition is relatively easy to maintain on disc-style pieces - no paint chips, no articulation points to stress. The main thing to watch is print quality on secondhand pieces, where scuffs or scratches can catch the eye more than on textured plastic figures. Inspect the face of the disc carefully if you're sourcing one outside of a sealed meal.
I have this one marked in the Collectiblz app alongside the rest of the POG 2019 DC run - it's a satisfying feeling to see the wave fill in piece by piece. If you're tracking your own Happy Meal collection, the app makes it easy to log what you have and flag what's still on the need list across multiple waves at once.
The POG 2019 set as a whole is worth chasing seriously. The Warner Bros. crossover scope is unique, the DC section is deep enough to satisfy superhero collectors, and the Looney Tunes entries add genuine charm. Batman Save Gotham City is one of the stronger individual pieces in the DC portion of the wave - clean art, recognizable subject, and exactly the kind of small-format collectible that quietly elevates a Happy Meal display.
- K.M. 🎁
