Wednesday, April 26, 2017

The LEGO Batman Movie Minifigures


My children and I loved The LEGO Batman Movie. It was great fun as both a cartoonish action movie and as an affectionate (and comprehensive) spoof of past TV and film Batmans. However, I have no urgent need to own a half-dozen new Batman outfits, or the Dark Knight's entire rogues gallery, so I only bought 9 out of 20 of the minifigures in this series. (Those minifigs are marked with an asterisk [*] below; eight of them are shown above.)

Barbara Gordon: This is Barbara as she's first introduced, the model GPD officer in formal uniform. She carries handcuffs.

The Calculator: This villain's space suit has a tile with a push button array on his chest, and "07734" (which spells "HELLO" upside-down) printed on his visor.

Catman: This Batman variant, in brown and yellow, has clawed hands and wears a utility belt that fits between the torso and legs.

Clan of the Cave Batman: This Batman wears furs and carries a huge club--essentially, the Bat as Captain Caveman.

Commissioner Gordon: Jim carries a walkie-talkie and a wanted poster for the Joker. One point of interest with the Gordons is that the movie-makers gave them light brown skin rather than the pinkish skin tone used for most licensed characters. This gives them a subtly non-white ethnicity that is never mentioned in the script, which makes that choice an even classier move for diversity in comics.

Dick Grayson: This is Dick before he becomes Robin--he has been given the dubiously useful shark repellent but no costume yet.

*The Eraser: This character has a pencil eraser for a head (a 1x1 round pink tile and a printed "metal" band) and a pin-striped yellow suit that makes him look like a No. 2 pencil. He has a printed tile to serve as a pad for noting people or things "To Erase!" but he seems to have erased his list, too. (His freakish head reminds me a great deal of Chairface Chippendale, from The Tick. )

Fairy Batman: This Batman wears a pink cowl, fairy wings, leotard, tutu, and ballet slippers over black tights, and wields a pink wand.

Glam Metal Batman: This Batman has a KISS-style '80's rock costume with spiky shoulder pads and an electric guitar.

*The Joker – Arkham Asylum: The Joker is dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, plus handcuffs. His head is two-sided, with a smiling side and a frowning one. The wavy, spiky green hair piece is a lovely part, and begs to be used in a D&D or Pathfinder game for a dryad or a gnome druid.

*King Tut: Tut's headdress and robes are both printed to match the 1960's Batman TV show villain. This (plus his pinkish skin) makes him nicely distinct from previous Egyptian-themed characters. His snake and staff, on the other hand, are unchanged from older LEGO parts.

*Lobster-Lovin’ Batman: Batman, dressed in a smoking jacket and his ever-present cowl, prepares to tuck into a lobster, which comes on a platter printed with a lettuce leaf and smears of butter. The lobster is a very nice-looking piece, but sadly has no attachment points except a single anti-stud on the bottom. (This makes it inferior as a potential building brick to the classic LEGO crab and scorpion, which are the same size but also have a stud and a point to attach a clip.)

*March Harriet: This villainess wears a light brown rabbit-eared hood, and has a corseted dress, boots, and cuffs of the same color. She wields a standard Tommy gun. March Harriet is apparently an established Batman character (not surprising, given the Wonderland-related name), but I will probably just keep calling her "gun bunny."

The Mime: This character wears a leotard and body stocking, white face paint, and a dark blue mohawk. She comes with two lighting blasts like those that come with Emperor Palpatine and some Ninjago weapons.

*Nurse Harley Quinn: This is a classic Harley outfit, dressed as a nurse to break "Mr. J" out of Arkham. The nurse's cap is a removable piece held on by a tiny pin (like those on tiaras and hair bow bricks), making it easy to resuse the head and hair with other outfits. Her only other prop is a medical chart with the Joker's picture and "H+J" written inside a heart. This figure's red-and-black palette matches that of her original costume rather than her more recent Suicide Squad look, which is a nice retro touch. 

*Orca: This figure is a re-issue of the Shark Suit Guy (from Series 15) but with an orca's black-and-white markings. The minifigure head inside is dark red, printed with a gaping mouth. This character is rather too small to serve as a mini for an actual orca (which are Huge in d20/Pathfinder terms), but if you remove the legs, you get a perfect Medium fiendish shark. (See Building the Bestiary #11: Aquatic Animals.)

*Pink Power Batgirl: This is an all-pink variant of Batgirl's costume, which is purple and gold in the movie. I would have passed on this gender-stereotyped palette, except that Barbara's hair is a great new piece: a wavy dark red 'do with a silver (not pink!) band. (See also my note about her skin tone under Commissioner Gordon, above.)

Red Hood: This character wears a tuxedo with a red cape, which consists of a cloth cape under a plastic shoulder piece designed to attach the bell-jar helmet brick. The building instructions show that the minifigure head underneath is a second red hood, printed with eye lenses.

Vacation Batman: This Batman wears a bat-patterned Hawaiian shirt (possibly a nod to Adam West's post-Batman role on Hawaii 5-0?), swim goggles, and flippers. He also wears a duck-shaped flotation device (which fits between the torso and legs, like Batgirl and Fairy Batman's skirts do).

*Zodiac Master: This villain's sky-blue suit is decorated with the signs of the Zodiac on his chest, back, arms, and legs. Strangely, several signs are repeated (Taurus, Libra, and Capricorn appear three times each!) while four other signs (Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius, and Cancer) do not appear at all on his costume. Zodiac Master wields two signs--a fish (Pisces) and a crab (Cancer)--as weapons. I believe this is the first time the crab has been available in pearl-silver, though the fish always has been. 

2 comments:

  1. Orca too small? How about a big figure Orca? Granted for your purposes a non humanoid brick built orca would be better.

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    1. Nice work! I'll have to keep that build in mind for future giant-sized monsters.

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