Lego Batman at Argos and Review!

El Nick

So the new Argos catalog came out, and as I suspected, it does have Lego Batman in it. Specifically there's this Batwing/Joker helicopter combo, and this recreation of the Batcave. I bought both. Of course, being a Lego fan and a Batman fan my opinions are colored.

So the Batwing/helicopter set is pretty cool. Comes with a Batman minifig, a Joker minifig and J. Random Crook (in a purple jumper.) The helicopter bit is great for collecting green and purple pieces, and has some neat fold-out missiles. There's a mechanism for dropping bombs too, which I wasn't too impressed with (too easy to operate - the bombs just fall out all the time.) The pieces are relatively re-usable, with the exception of the helicopter canopy and the big rotor-blade piece that they've taken on from Jack Stone/City lines. I really hate those. The Batwing is... lovely. It's got popout missiles as well (you have to move the wings into "attack position" to see them) and a rubber misile firey thing. It also comes with a stand that locks the Batwing into a vertical position. Great stuff for displaying it on the mantelpiece (it's going beside my AT-AT when me and my son have finished playing with it.) Yes - If you look at it from the top it looks pretty much like the bat-symbol (albeit slightly stretched vertically.)

Gotta mention the minifigs again. Batman in Lego form is almost as cool as Darth Vader in Lego form, y'know?

The Batcave is big. Like really really big. So it's a bit of a long build. It's a playset kind of set, obviously aimed at kids rather than adults. So it's heavy on the "action features" and with heaps of biggish bricks. There's a lot of thick baseplates and smooth plates and a set of spiral staircase bricks and those godawful "rock face" bricks - If you liked the Hogwarts Harry Potter sets you'll be at home here. So I'm not wildly impressed.

The places where the set wins as far as this fan is concerned are as follows. Firstly - The minifigs. Mr. Freeze and the Penguin, Batman (a different Batman than the Batwing one, with a black/gold costume rather than the classic black/grey one) and Robin. We also get Alfred, Bruce Wayne and a couple of goons (I see myself getting Biker Bob and some of the crooks from Lego City and having a serious POW! SPLAT! KABOOM! punch-up going.) Mister Freeze is a lovely minifig. We also get a Penguin sub (yes - it's shaped like a penguin) and a bunch of blocks that combine to form attack penguins, armed with those pistol tools. It's worth mentioning at this point that all the Batman sets come with Batarang tools and some modern weapons (one looks like a tommy-gun. It's cool.) Whether or not Lego breaking its "no guns" rule is the right thing is a different conversation.

There's a bat-vehicle with the set too; some sort of bat-hydrofoil (wtf?) (not the batboat - That's in a different set.) This seems pretty delicate to me (more on the five-year-old-son test in a sec) and I'm not mentioning Robin's crappy little boat yoke.

So me and the wee man played with the thing for a while. He was mad keen on rounding up the villains into the Lego City jail and closing the door - He's got a bit of a Robin fixation, so Batman made it in there on at least one occasion. The Batwing's a little delicate - The cockpit fell off a few times, and the Bathydrofoil is just pretty much unplayable. I *love* the combo gun in the Batcave - There's a dart gun attached to a primitive net-gun. The net-gun is tough to load and tougher still to aim, but the lure of firing a net over the Joker in the Batcave is strong.

Shiminay

I couldn't believe it when I saw they were making this stuff, nearly creamed my pant when I saw it. 2 of my favourite things ever together at last! I'll be treating myself to a little Batman Lego something - I'm seriously broke so can't get a big Batman Lego something

Thanks for the review - you big child!

PS: OMFG!!! Didn't know they were doing this one too...

irlrobins

Does look kinda cool. If I had money to burn I'd buy the lot