Review: 41237 Batgirl's Secret Bunker
Posted by Shib,
The DC Superhero Girls line continues to expand its take on the DC Universe with Batgirl's second appearance, 41237 Batgirl Secret Bunker – Batgirl's hidden base of operations.
While it's not surprising to see repeats of popular characters like Batgirl so soon, fortunately this set does a lot different to 41230 Batgirl Batjet Chase.
Mini-dolls
This is the second minidoll appearance of Batgirl, featuring a slightly more armoured appearance than the last version. The lavender colour, while offering a significantly different look, doesn't seem to match her appearance in any of the DC Superhero Girls media I could see. It does however match a doll produced by Mattel called Mission Gear Batgirl, so it's likely this outfit will make a future appearance.
The minidoll features the same hood/hair piece and wings as the last, but all the other parts are new prints. The yellowish green print across the mask implies this could include some night vision goggles, which are always a useful addition for a character like Batgirl.
Mad Harriet makes her first appearance in the second episode of season 3, the season that LEGO seem to have taken most of their set inspirations from. She is a rather obscure character, and hasn't had any previous physical LEGO appearances. The minidoll matches the show design as well as can be imagines, including a new hair piece. The style of the skirt is the least accurate part of the figure but it's close enough for a good match. She is a good addition to Lashina from set 41233 Lashina Tank, but there are still several of the Female Furies who haven't yet made an appearance in any sets.
Brick Built Characters
As with all the DC Superhero Girls sets this one includes a Kryptomite. This is a green version – which is the basic version of the Kryptomites made by Lena Luthor. The limbs of this Kryptomite are finished with the 1x1 pyramid tiles introduced in Nexo Knights. This gives a decent spikey finish, but all the LEGO kryptomites are slightly inaccurate, having only 4 points when they should have five. To be fair the only way I could imagine a completely accurate version being made at this scale would require a new mould.
This set also features a small bat themed robot. The printing on the dome gives it a cute, friendly look which suits the tone of the theme well. From watching the show I saw no reference to this little Bat-bot but one of the classes featured on the show is advanced robotics so it makes sense that the technologically advanced Batgirl would have built her own robot.
For such a small brick built character I found myself rather impressed by the clever sideways build which gives an excellent finish.
The Completed Model
The first part of the set is the Secret Bunker. The construction is fairly simple for the most part, which is to be expected with this kind of basic structure. However, for a relatively small build it contains a lot of playability. The main door to the bases has a lever to open and close, I think I'd have preferred a slightly more complex system that allowed for the door to be left open, but as the entire set opens up that would have been an added bonus rather than a necessity.
The garage barrier also has a simple opening mechanism, which I found could be left open if the camera to the side of it is used as a latch. The camera is one of my favourite details of the set, the use of the black 1x1 plate with tooth either side to create a bat look gives a certain comic book charm.
There is also a few bits of gym equipment for Batgirl to train with. The weight bench is a very simple construction, and Batgirl has a bit of a tendency to fall off it easily is nudged, but the use of a minidoll foot plate would have taken away from the finish. There's also a punching bag, which is inexplicably attached to a periscope. I'm really not sure why this is the case, the only explanation I could come up with was to save on piece count. The periscope is such a minor thing, that looks too small to be useful that I think it could have been omitted or should have been improved.
Much of the detailing is achieved with the use of stickers, I don't mind this, but unfortunately most of the stickers are applied to transparent parts, which shows the flaws quite clearly. I do quite like the Kryptomite graffiti stickers, although it seems a little out of place in a secret bunker.
The inclusion of a zipwire so Batgirl can quickly get from the top of the bunker to the Batmobile is an excellent inclusion for playability. I did try it a few times, and it's a lot of fun, but because of the position of the attachment on the Batmobile it seems impossible for Batgirl to slide down it without crashing face first into the Batmobile at the end.
Given how many Bat themed vehicles LEGO have produced over the years for Batman it's little surprise that this set features a Batmobile of sorts for Batgirl. I've not found any reference to the vehicle in the show, so like Batgirls outfit and the Batbot I suspect it might be something that will appear in the future. The design is very square, which to my eye is unfortunately reminiscent of a tractor more than anything else, which doesn't seem a good fit. It could be based on something like a minivan/people carrier, but to me this is always going to be the Bat-Tractor.
There is a cage in the back, which seems a little unfinished to me, given the size of the minidolls it seems that Mad Harriet could simply climb out the roof opening. This is very unfortunate as it could have been fixed with a couple of plates which I doubt would have blown the budget of the set.
It seems that the lack of aerodynamic finishing doesn't stop this vehicle from flying as the wings fold down and the wheels tuck underneath to create a flying mode.
Overall
Without much in the way of reference material it's hard to say where the design of this set really came from. It's not a particularly impressive display piece, looking a bit on the clumsy and unfinished side. However it is packed with play features, and for the target audience this is far more important than an impressive, detailed design. Personally I'd say that 41237 Batgirl's Secret Bunker is a little overpriced for what you get, but I think it's a fun playset worth considering for young Superhero fans.
Thanks to LEGO for providing this set for review. The review is an expression of my own opinions.
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9 comments on this article
so someone explain to me again why Batgirl stole the A-Team's van
It looks like the new Supergirl also matches a mission gear doll. I'm wondering if that's also why Wonder Woman & Harley Quinn have new outfits.
Just thought, it might be to do with the full animated series next year on CN.
"...but unfortunately most of the stickers are applied to transparent parts, which shows the flaws quite clearly."
Well played.
I think the first wave was a LOT better. I'm not impressed by any of the builds from the second wave.
What bothers me about Friends/Princess/Elves/Super Hero Girls sets are not that they're made so unnecessarily pink is very single set (okay, maybe it bothers me a little bit) but that they're just so junior-ized. What makes TLG think that boys can handle difficult building techniques better than girls can?
Okay, I'll ask the question.
Is it a terribly "secret" bunker if the bat-symbol is printed all over the base? Up to and including the giant bat-symbol on the main window, or the bat-themed decorations on the building and security camera?
@BrickHeed 02 the Princess sets are for the youngest kids and are therefore just a step more complicated than the Juniors sets. But the Elves sets are aimed at an older audience and you can feel that a LOT. They use a bunch of technic pieces and are way more complicated to build than any City set. I would even argue that the Friends and Super Hero Girls sets are above City and more like Ninjago building wise.
To me, this set is mostly interesting because of the minidolls :)
I was thinking is this juniors? The car looks so blocky. This is not a set for me.
And why is there a half bat logo?
In a building so small it is strange to see 3 different sizes of arcs (different colors) and all odd-numbered.