C3 Minimates Batcopter

The Batcopter is in the second wave of C3 construction sets. It is a large set, but has only 111 pieces, lower than the Batmobile at the equivilent price point. It comes with a Tactical Batman.

As this is a long and picture-intensive review, covering the packaging, the figure and the C3 set itself, you can use the links below to jump to a section.

Packaging | Tactical Batman | Batcopter


Packaging

The packaging is a large semi-window box. The Batman logo from the Batman cartoon appears at the top left. To the right, you can see the lone Minimate in the window portion of the box.



The C3 pieces are all bagged up in the main part of the box. The Minimate is packaged in a tray on the right hand side and has twist-ties holding it in.


The back of the box shows the cross-sell of the other C3 sets and a "technical specification" type drawing to show off the set itself. Like the other later C3 sets, it is in a purple colour scheme.


The Figure

Tactical Batman

The sole figure in this set is Tactical Batman, who is obviously going for a technical/futuristic look similar to Heavy Assault Batman in the Batcave set. The cowl is more of a helmet that covers pretty much the whole face, with a clear blue slit for the eyes. It seems to me that the helmet works either this way or turned round - the back of the helmet also has the slit for the eyes, maining it's up to you which look you want. Nice. As always, the helmet is removable. The face uses the "big eyebrows and startling blue eyes approach" that previous Batman Minimates from "The Batman" cartoon have, whilst the mouth here is very understated. A big difference from the angry expression on Street Justice Batman, at any rate.

The costume detailing on the torso block tries to convey the look of body armour, the detailing for the individual pieces is quite good, however overall I think the look is quite bland, with only the grey and blue colouration. The cape is attached to a shoulder piece which also has the large yellow Batsymbol on it. It is removable at the back so that Batman can sit in the Batcopter.

Tactical Batman comes with a shoulder-mounted gun which plugs into a hole in his back and then onto a post on his shoulder. Erm, the reason you don't see it in these pics is that I lost it. I think there were a couple of other small pieces too but, yep, lost those as well.

Overall, this is an OK Batman Minimate. There's nothing particularly wrong with it but I can't help feeling that it's just a bit unexciting.

MMC Score - 5 out of 10

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The Construction Set

Batcopter

The C3 construction set is the Batcopter. This follows sets such as the Batmobile and the Batwing, so previous entries in this price point have been highly regarded. Let's see how the Batcopter fares.

The Batcopter took a while to put together and parts of it did not want to sit right. The main problem I had was when constructing the cockpit early on that I didn't have it all pushed/snapped together to the absolute max. This caused problems in fitting on the rotor assembly later on, and I basically had to rebuild a lot of it. The frustrating thing was that it all looked OK as I went along. Despite this, it was an enjoyable set to build. Much like the Batmobile (and to a lesser extent, the Batcycle), this set uses some yellow pieces to emphasis the trim, and these pieces all have to go on the right way because the yellow isn't put onto the whole block, just one or maybe two sides. The colour scheme features much more blue than the comic-based Batman sets, making it an excellent companion to the Batcycle in terms of simularity of appearance.

The Batcopter appears to be quite a large vehicle, but most of that size is an illusion due to the rotors and the long tail along with the big fin-wings on the side. It's actually quite thin and the cockpit only fits one figure. The rotors are thick and give it a good visual look. The two fin-wings on the side are also distinctive, and big enough to perhaps allow the vehicle to pass as a jet if the rotors were taken off.

The cockpit has a steering column done in the same way as the Batwing. The canopy is quite dark, despite being tanslucent, so it's still hard to see through. The main gimmick with this vehicle is a good one. The bottom rear of the Batcopter holds a working winch system. The winch extends out about 8 inches and a red button can be pressed, which hoists the winch up. This is a very simple idea yet it is well implemented and offers tremendous play value. The winch comes with two additional attachments which connect to the winch hook. The first is a handle, which other Minimates can hold on to. This allows Minimates in trouble to be airlifted to safety. The other attachment is a cage, which is split into halves, which can be positioned around a villain and then hauled up, capturing them. Both of these attachments are great fun, and can be used with any 2" Minimate.

Overall, this set has a lackluster Minimate, but the vehicle is great fun and has one of the best features of any C3 release seen, amking it highly recommended.

MMC Score - 8 out of 10

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