Set #41231 Harley Quinn to the Rescue: LEGO DC Super Hero girls was a short lived Theme which lasted for only one year in conjunction with DC’s Super Hero Girl subline of creative multimedia IP. Which is a true shame as the Theme came with some highly unique and interesting build mechanics.

This particular set was one of the initial wave and one of the cheapest, it is also one of the only ones to include a male Mini-Doll character. Is it worth tracking down now that it has retired? Hopefully this review will assist in determining this.

Box/Instructions

Box: The box designs for this Theme were highly stylized including artwork of the specific character on the side which matched the Flash Animation found on Youtube. Warner Brother’s did a great job of cross promoting their IPs similar to how Lucasfilm handles Star Wars packaging. The back of the box shows all the features and play ideas for this set.

Instructions: A nice solid manual design. It includes some cross-promotions of the other sets from the first wave of this limited run theme and also has a nice Mini-Doll checklist. Overall very solid manual.

Parts

This set has mostly plain elements as stickers are used for a lot of detailing. That being said there is a printed tile for the arcade game cabinet which is part of the model build. It’s not as versatile as Friends or Elves sets for the colours, but there are still a lot of decent elements in the set.

Minidolls

Harley Quinn: Yet another interpretation of fan favorite in the LEGO world, this is the first Mini-Doll variant of the character with a very nice hair piece and a cute looking red and black checkered diamond print shirt. She has no accessories unfortunately.

Steve Trevor: One of only two male Mini-Dolls in the entire Theme, Steve is an employee at the Capes & Cowls Café as his torso includes uniform printing with the store’s logo on it. He doesn’t feature any other printing on the legs or any accessories aside from a coffee mug. He’s got a nice blonde hair piece too.

Green Kryptomites: These brick-built enemies are solid looking and share the same expressions, but different builds. There’s not much to discuss about these little dudes, but they make for some great antagonists for the Mini-Dolls to battle against.

The build

Bag 1: Harley and her Kryptomite adversary construct Harley’s hover vehicle and the first floor of the Café with this build. It’s an ok build, there’s a lot of sticker placement for windows and other details on the ground floor. The vehicle itself uses the old net launcher function which is actually nicely incorporated for once.

Bag 2: Steve Trevor and his Kryptomite jailer build the second story of the Café with this bag which includes a catapult and some explosive play features. You also find the cash register and the display window for cupcakes and pastries on this floor… oddly enough there are no stairs to climb between the two unfortunately.

The completed model

Capes & Cowls Café: This is a really impressive model, despite not having a proper staircase to reach the second level, considering most super heroes can fly or know someone who can it only hurts the normal non-powered cashier running the place to get to the cash register for work.

The first floor has a nice seating area and a very awesome looking arcade machine, there are stickers unfortunately, but that is to be expected. You’ll also find an alert for when Kryptomites are attacking on a fold out panel.

On the second floor you have an exploding window play feature, a catapult that the Kryptomite can use to defend against Harley and a single jumper plate where Harley can land her little hovering vehicle.

Speaking of the vehicle it features a net launcher and is basically a rocket that Harley rides around on which I don’t think is very safe. I mean it could explode at any minute if she isn’t careful, but this is Harley we’re talking about.

Overall opinion

This is a great set, it’s such a shame that they were gone fairly quickly as the only way to get this nowadays is on the Secondary Market. An undocumented play feature will be discussed in the next review, but this model is designed to interact with two of the models found in the second wave of the sets. I highly recommend getting these sets for fans of DC Super Heroes in general because there is a lot of imaginative ideas in the Theme and the characters add a lot of nice new Mini-Doll parts in the sets.