Batman

I just saw this great MOC on FBTB. rongYIREN made this great Batman.

Avengers vs Doombots

Mike Napolitan turns in another great scene: Avengers vs Doombots. Deep inside his castle, Dr. Doom watches the Avengers fighting his robot army.

Selena at home

Med PhotoBlog made this version of Catwoman's apartment.

Batmobile 2025

The Batmobile 2025 challenge is inspiring many interesting MOCs. Some of the most unique designs are from Lino, Shannon Ocean and Lsgc.

We need more heroes

Abeinspace isn't satisfied with just having Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, so he expanded to make more of the Justice League.

Marvel set descriptions

Over on FBTB, correspondent Bigospedros was at Toy Fair London and has a report on the upcoming Marvel sets:

Now, this part of the Lego stand was shrouded (quite literally) in secret, with only one or two people being allowed in at a time. I was shown the DC sets that we’ve already seen (and some of us have already bought). The one feature of the 6863 Batwing set that they were showing off was the pretty accurate shadow the batwing creates.

We quickly moved onto the Marvel sets, which were in a section of the stand where they had a bigfig / maxifig build of Ironman which was super cool.

I kinda glossed over the Hero Factory / Super Heroes combos because they didn’t really appeal to me.

We then came to 5 new sets from the Marvel line :

6865 Captain America’s Avenging Cycle … this was the only set on display to feature Captain America, who was sat astride a motorbike. The rest of the set was missing, because Marvel had asked Lego not to show it, because it would spoil part of the movie?! Anyway, there’s another un-named minifigure and vehicle … one can only assume it’s an enemy of some sort. Priced at £11.99, so a bargain whatever!

6866 Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown … Comes with Wolverine, Magneto and Deadpool … the figs were all pretty amazing. Wolverine has normal hands holding the claw pieces, rather than anything moulded like the collectable minifig boxer, as we feared. I can’t actually remember the vehicles included in the set, sorry! Priced at £19.99.

6867 Loki’s Cosmic Cube Escape … Comes with Loki, Hawkeye and Ironman. Hawkeye is driving a jeep type vehicle with Loki in the flatbed at the back … he comes with a custom headpiece and staff and the “Cosmic Cube” (a 1 x1 clear brick!). I spent most of my time drooling over the Ironman figure, which was brilliant. My fears over the head being too large were instantly eased and I was amazed to see that the front of the helmet lifts up to reveal whichever of the double sided printed head you’ve got facing forward. Priced at £19.99, this set is a must buy purely for that fig!!

6868 Hulk’s Hellcarrier Breakout … I think this was Bruce Banner’s lab? Not sure … but anyway, the set comes with Hulk, Hawkeye, Loki and Thor. The Hulk figure was pretty damn cool, articulated and I liked the fact the head was in the shape of a normal Lego minifig head, albeit it bigger to be in scale. The Hawkeye figure seemed to have a new bow & arrow type weapon. Priced at £49.99

6869 Quinjet Aerial Battle … A pretty substantial set, with the Quinjet being pretty large, very sturdy and eminently swooshable. Quite a bit of play features (moveable wings, cockpit, pop out undercarriage thingy) and minfigures Black Widow, Ironman, Thor and Loki. Priced at £69.99, I think … although I don’t seem to have written the price down!

These sets are due to hit in April, so not long to wait.

And that was it … no sign of any Spiderman or Green Lantern sets, so maybe they’re coming later or perhaps they’re retailer exclusives.

I've already shown the wall art featuring the Hulk and Captain America, so here is the wall art featuring DC characters. BTW, if you're interested, Bigospedros took photos of other wall art featuring figs from other themes, including some odd Ninjago monsters that I hadn't seen before.



BTW, just to add one more thought about the threat to Brick Will of Brick Heroes that I noted before. It's particularly galling that this threat shows up just as we are hitting Toy Fair. Yes, LEGO is not yet letting people take photos of the sets, but that restriction generally lets up by the time that Toy Fair New York rolls around, and it's pretty inevitable that we'll see good photos of these quite soon. So why doesn't LEGO just sort of ignore the fact that there are some illegitimate leaked photos out there? It's moot anyway. I repeat - it is LEGO's job to control their own information, not ours. They need to go after those people who violate nondisclosure agreements, not those LEGO fans who are excited about their product.

Toy Fair report

Huw Millington of Brickset was at Toy Fair. While he was not allowed to take photos in the booth, he did share a report.

The Super Heroes sets were in the top-secret area of the stand under netting so they could not be photographed in the low light or from above.

All the minifigs on display appeared to be the final versions and looked excellent. Iron Man's mask does indeed hinge up to reveal his face.

Some of the sets were not on display in their entirety: LEGO was not allowed to because doing so would provide spoilers for forthcoming movies, so while Captain America was on his 'avenging cycle' in set 6865, the other character and vehicle in the set was not on display. There was only five sets on display: the Spider-Man one wasn't there so perhaps that will be a store exclusive.

Other than thinking they all looked great, I can't remember much about them! They are to be released in April.

Toy Fair London

It's Toy Fair time! Over the next few weeks different toy manufacturers, including LEGO, will display their products for the coming year at events in a few different cities. It seems that London is first up. Unfortunately, attendees are not allowed to take photos in the LEGO booth, so we can not yet see the actual sets, but the blogger at Blogomatic3000 took photos of the publicly available artwork on the outside of the booth.



I don't think there's any real news here, as we already saw prototypes of these two figs at last summer's San Diego ComicCon and we saw artwork depicting them in an advertisement blogged here recently. Oh, I suppose one relevant note is that the same claw piece that Wolverine holds is also being used for the wolfman in the upcoming monsters theme. In that photo you can see the underside of the claw piece.

Batmobile 2025

The most recent building challenge over on Lugnuts is Batmobile 2025. Nathan Proudlove steps up with this great version.

Posters

Ulises Alfonso Farinas is a artist and cartoonist who made these awesome DC and Marvel posters.

Batjet

Okay, so here's a little story. Back in 1989 I was in the theater on opening weekend for Batman. At one point, the Joker has brought balloons full of poison gas in a parade through Gotham, Batman swoops in with his Batplane, snatches the balloons, and whisks them away from populated areas. Then the Batplane bursts through the clouds and is briefly set against the full moon, with the bat-shaped silhouette in front of a yellow circle looking like the Bat Signal. So at this point, the guy in front of me exclaims "No way!" Now remember, this is a 121 minute film (thanks, Wikipedia), and I'm guessing this is about 100 minutes or more in. So this is the first point in the movie that this guy found something unbelievable???!? It's a freakin' comic book movie, for Pete's sake. Anyway, that's all just a lead in to AlIeNiGeNa's great Batjet based on the 1989 film version.

Captain A

Ultimate Marvin made this Captain America poster.



I hope he's planning on doing the rest of the series.

Battle above New York's streets

Chris Phipson made this fight between Spidey and Doc Ock.

Coming in April

Over on Brick Heroes Will has a scan of an ad that I assume is from the LEGO Club Magazine. In addition to seeing finalized versions of the figs we saw at ComicCon, we also have news of an April release date.

Gotham City police headquarters

Jbuttles has made a great rendition of Gotham City police headquarters, completely furnished with details like a crime lab and Commissioner Gordon on the roof with the Batsignal (hmm, sounds like a game of Clue).

Dark Knight

DARKspawn is back from a LEGO hiatus, and he shares this medieval version of Batman. I hope he continues on with this idea, as I'd love to see the medieval take on the Batmobile, or the Batcave.

Wolverine

Mike Napolitan reproduces X-Men 133.

Superman - The Televised Adventures

Too Much Caffeine just posted this wonderful rendition of Superman - The Televised Adventures. Now if that by itself wasn't cool enough, you've got to check out the video to see Superman flying over Metropolis.

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes video game

We knew this was coming, but LEGO has finally announced the upcoming LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. I cannot find the official announcement anywhere on their site (rant to follow), so I'll grab the text from FBTB:

Batman is back to save Gotham City and the action will only build from here! Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games and The LEGO Group are teaming up once again to announce that LEGO® Batman™ 2: DC Super Heroes will be available beginning Summer 2012 for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the Wii™ system, and Windows PC, as well as the Nintendo DS™ hand-held system, Nintendo 3DS™ hand-held system, and PlayStation®Vita handheld entertainment system. The game is the sequel to the best-selling LEGO® Batman™: The Videogame, which to date has sold more than 11 million units worldwide.

LEGO Batman™ 2: DC Super Heroes complements the brand new, recently released LEGO® Super Heroes: DC Universe toy collection. The line includes five construction sets, such as The Batcave and three buildable, detailed action figures.

In LEGO Batman™ 2: DC Super Heroes, the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin join other famous super heroes from the DC Universe including Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to save Gotham City from destruction at the hands of the notorious villains Lex Luthor and the Joker. Batman fans of all ages will enjoy a new and original story filled with classic LEGO videogame action and humor as players fight to put the villains back behind bars.

“LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes builds upon the action and cooperative gameplay experience established in our best-selling LEGO videogame to date, LEGO Batman: The Videogame,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games. “We’re offering fans a rich and expansive Gotham City environment filled with cool characters, great customization options and plenty of surprises that families, young gamers and DC Universe fans can enjoy together.”

“LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes further extends and combines both the Batman and LEGO videogame experiences to create very fun gameplay,” said Samantha Ryan, Senior Vice President, Development and Production, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Fans of all ages are going to enjoy the action and light hearted humor that TT Games and LEGO provide.”

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes allows players to explore all new areas of Gotham City utilizing a variety of vehicles including the Batmobile and Batwing. In addition, they’ll be able to fight for justice by mastering new gadgets and suits, such as Batman’s Power Suit and Robins’’Hazard Cannon, and using all-new abilities including flight, super-breath and heat vision.

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is being developed by TT Games and will be published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. For more information, please visit www.videogames.LEGO.com.

Okay, now the rant. LEGO's pressroom is absolutely horrible. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but whenever I go to Lego.com, and go to the 'about us' section and look under 'press releases', 'product news' or 'corporate news', there's nothing up to date. They write these press releases and send them out, but I have to get them from various other websites. I guess Ace at FBTB is probably a LEGO Ambassador, and so gets them through that channel, but why the heck does LEGO make it so hard for their true fans to find out the same information that they are giving out to other gaming or comic sites? Google News is a heck of a lot better at informing me of recent LEGO happenings than the official LEGO site ever was.

Okay, also an admission. Perhaps this will get me to play the LEGO Batman 1 game that's been sitting on my Wii for so long. In my defense, I have very small children. I only ever really play the Wii with them, and they spend the entirety of the time running Batman and Robin into the big pool of acid on the first screen. No joke. Eventually I'll persuade them to give me the control and get them past this, but then we just get stuck in the next hurdle. Oh well, they have lots of fun running Batman and Robin around the screen, and aren't really all that concerned about completing levels. BTW, it's exactly the same with our Wii Dora the Explorer game. My daughter plays it for a while, then gets stuck, and Daddy ends up playing it to get Dora through the next area. Oh well, I guess I should be happy that my kids aren't addicted to video games (yet - they've got a lot of years in front of them for that I suppose).

Holy giant penny, Batman

Check out this great Batcave by Jbuttles. I love all the details, like the memorial to Jason Todd's Robin costume, the hidden exit for the Batmobile, and the trophy display (especially the famous giant penny).

Avengers, assemble!

Mike Napolitan is back to his old tricks, with a great rendition of Avengers #4.

Batwing

This has already been featured on Brick Heroes and FBTB, but it's way too cool to pass over, so I'll jump on the bandwagon and feature Hans Dendauw's amazing Batwing. He incorporated lights, so be sure to follow the link and check out the low-light photos as well for a great effect.

New polybag sets

Over on lego.com they post instructions for sets (so, for instance, when my son tore up the instructions to his new Cars set, we can still build it). Anyway, yesterday they added a bunch of new instructions, including for the upcoming polybag sets 30160, a Bat-jet-ski, and 30161, a micro-Batmobile. No release date on these yet, or even official names, but you can already download the instructions for 30160 and 30162. There's nothing too rare there, except of course the minifig, so you could probably build these today with your existing collection.




BTW, given the value on Bricklink for some of the original Batman run, and just the general collectible nature of Batman stuff, these polybag sets might be a great value to store a few copies away for resale in a few years. Personally I've never been a collector/investor in LEGO, I've pretty much only bought things I wanted for my own building. The one small SW promo set that I stashed away thinking I might resell later was found by my kids, who opened it up to play with. Oh well, it's not like that one set would have ensured their college fund.

Braniac attack

There are a number of great MOCs posted in the past couple of months that I didn't get blogged, so I'll try to get through them. Mr Xenomurphy's Superman & Young Justice vs. Brainiac is surely one of the best comic-themed LEGO creations I've seen recently. I particularly like his reinterpretation of the Daily Planet headquarters.