Awesome set! The copy that I had had different wheels than on the box though.

The original Lego Batmobile!

The first Batman minifig finally appears! Clearly he sent Robin in first to make sure it was safe.

@jordanloveslegos97:
I got two copies of this set. I got lucky and both came with the wheels shown (51377). Turns out they created this wheel in 2006 and almost immediately retired it. They used it in gold for this and the Catwoman set, and they used it in silver for one Tiny Turbos set and one Designer set. Back in 1999, they came out with a functionally similar wheel (30285) that had four narrow, shallow spokes and a flat hub. Both wheels got scrapped in late 2006 when they rolled out a new two-sided wheel (55981) that had shallow spokes on one side, and recessed bolts on the other. Due to the short period of time that the 51377 wheel was available, prices on those are crazy. I used four when I was building "I am...Batmobile!", which is my take on what Batman would look like in the world of Pixar's Cars movies. I vaguely remember choking when I saw the prices being asked, but lucked out when I checked the copy of this set that I'd bought for minifigs and parts, and it turned out I'd been sitting on the four wheels I needed for about eight years.

This was a day-one purchase, for me.

Yeah, Two-Face was cool, and all. But it was the fricking Batmobile. I still remember, day I found out they were available, I went out looking for this set.

I used to say I wasn't going to get a Batmobile until they started releasing Batmobiles the size of Speed Champions cars - all the others were just way too big. Then they made the Speed Champions cars bigger, and suddenly they were the size of Batmobiles. So I went ahead and got a Batmobile.

LEGO Batman has a weird history. I designed my first Batmobile, Batwing, and Batman vignette no later than 2005. Like many people before me, I made up for the lack of a proper Batman minifig by designing my own using the Fright Nights Batlord helmet. I think I was already aware of an impending Batman theme, but my first real Batman minifig came to me months before the sets were finally released. Our LUG learned about a relatively new show in the area called Brick Bash. It had started the year before, but three of our members showed up to display the second year. The guy who ended up displaying next to me had a bunch of the first grey Batman minifigs (not the one from this set). They had no capes, and there was a pin back glued to the torso, but it was a _real_ Batman minifig at last!

I believe the first wave of Batman sets sold fairly well. They released two versions of Batman, plus Robin and Nightwing. In the other corner, there were nine villains, plus three goons and some hench-penguins. The two versions of Batman were the only minifigs that were repeated across that entire wave. The next year they only released two sets. A third Batman (my favorite from the original run) was shared between the two sets, but the villains were a problem. There were only three villains between the two sets, and two of them were repeats from one set the year before. Apparently sales on this wave were pretty weak, resulting in stores ordering a lot less for the third year, and The LEGO Company deciding to make that the final wave of the theme. The minifig selection was still pretty weak, with a fourth Batman minifig shared across three of the four new sets, a tweaked version of the existing Robin in the fourth, and a straight repeats (three of the villains, one goon, and two more hench-penguins). Besides the fourth Batman, and Robin's haircut, the only new minifig for the third year was Harley Quinn (who they misprinted for the initial run). Then, after the theme's retirement was a done deal, a funny thing happened. It was called "The Dark Knight". As soon as that movie took off, so did any Batman sets that were available. The final wave had barely landed and it was sold out.

Probably as a result of those brisk sales, in 2011, Batman was back (with Green Lantern in tow) as the start of the SDCC exclusive minifigs. The first retail sets wouldn't show up until the following year, but technically DC Superheroes started nine years ago. The only question is if they'll celebrate ten years of DC next year or the year after.

@Zordboy:
There hasn't been a Batman to match (though it's easy enough to cobble one together with existing parts), but three of the villains from the original Batman theme (Joker, Two-Face, and Harley Quinn) are clearly based off of their B:TAS appearances. A few details are off (Joker's hair is all wrong and his hands should be white, Two-Face's scar tissue should be sand-green, and Harley's hands should be black and red with white cuffs), but the prints on the torsos are undeniable matches.

@Norikins:
Two-Face has to flip a coin before he can shoot anyone. Since the game deals in studs and not coins...

@Isabella_and_Lego_Liker:
Here's hoping one year from now the RSotD is 7786! The Jack-o-Bat is hands down the coolest printed jack-o-lantern design they've come up with. I'd even call it a close match for the Scooby-Doo jack-o-helmet.

@MusiMus:
No, earlier copies got a brand-new wheel as shown in the box art. Later copies switched to a two-sided wheel and the wheel they'd just created was retired after less than a year. I doubt I own any of the depicted wheel in silver, as I never bought either of the two sets it came in, but I've got ten or twelve of them in gold. They'd always had widely different rim styles across a wide range of sets, with many only appearing in a single set. Around this time, it looks like someone decided they should homogenize their selection of rims, and suddenly they were making a whole series of rims that had similar styling. Compare parts 11208, 56902, 56903, 55981, and 55982, for instance. 51377 is the original rim designed for this set, though. If you don't mind Used parts, they're not too expensive to obtain. If you want new, though, the supply is very tight, and a full set of silver will currently cost you at least $15, while gold will run $26 before S&H. I have no idea what set included these in light-bley, but a few sellers have those listed. There's only a single rim in New condition in that color, and that one rim will set you back $72.