This Lego Batmobile is all we want for Christmas

By topgear, 09 November 2019

Marty Scorcese might hate them, but there’s no denying the popularity of superhero movies.

OK, we’re in a particularly gluttonous glut at the moment, where studios have rebooted the main franchises more often than a malfunctioning computer, but there was a time when cheesy action biff-fests were a treat, not a main course.

And a particularly delicious (if entirely hammy) treat was 1989’s Batman.

It had all the right ingredients from the start – the slightly potty genius of Tim Burton in his heyday, a soundtrack by Prince – PRINCE, PEOPLE – and Jack Nicholson deploying full Nicholson Eyebrows to portray the Joker’s abyssopelagic depths of insanity.

It also had one of the best-ever Batmobiles – a turbine-powered, afterburner-equipped, jet-black menace of a vehicle.

A vehicle, that, as math fans might notice, turns 30 this year. But it’s not for this anniversary that Lego has released a 3300-brick-based Batmobile.

Nope, it’s to mark 80 years since the caped crusader first appeared in Detective Comics issue 27 in 1939.

Yes, non-comic-book fans, that’s what DC stands for. Also, copies of issue 27 can go for more than £1m at auction. But we, as ever, digress.

So, what does £220 buy you? Well, probably one of the best Lego interpretations we’ve seen, particularly considering the lithe lines of the original article. That’s helped by a proper wrap-around windscreen, a sliding canopy, pop-up machine guns and grappling hooks.

Or, to put it another way, everything your inner eight-year-old could desire, apart from an endless supply of Coco Pops and a farewell to bedtime. Also, who doesn’t want a Lego figurine of Nicholson’s Joker, complete with plum crazy purple suit?

STORY Craig Jamieson

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