The illustrious man-of-wings, also known as Michael Keaton, is returning to the stiff-necked cowl of Batman in Ezra Miller’s The Flash. We… and we cannot stress this enough, do not care about the Flash. We do care about Keaton’s third “return” as the Batman, in the form of Lego’s Batcave Shadowbox, partly based on the 1992 film; Batman Returns.
The Lego Batcave Shadowbox’s name wasn’t chosen solely because it sounds cool. That was just a happy accident. It got its name because it’s a Lego set that’s designed to be played with and sit on your shelf. How that equates to being called a ‘shadowbox’, we’ll never quite know. The diorama is modeled similarly to that of Keaton’s own Batcave (his character’s Batcave, not Keaton’s personal Batcave) with a Batmobile and seven minifigures all for the price of a small nation’s GDP.
Why is Bruce Wayne here?
The 3,981-piece set isn’t just a plain-old Batcave set – which also happens to be the largest Batman-themed Lego model to date. It doubles as both a Batman-themed box with a detailed cutout of Batman’s emblem, large enough to offer a peek at the completed Batcave that lives inside. This, apparently, is preferable to openly displaying a full model of the Batcave in your home.
Swing open the door and you’re greeted with a replica of 1992’s hideout, though with a few minor changes here and there to match Keaton’s Batcave in The Flash. We get it, promotions gotta promo. We’d have loved the set to be entirely based on the original.
Coming in at 30cm tall and 50cm wide, the set includes the 1989 Batmobile – with its own set of tools to “repair” it, a set of dials to activate the car’s machine guns, and its own opening and closing garage door. The Batmobile’s cockpit can open to seat the Batman minifigure, though only when he’s equipped with his cloth cape.
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There’ll be seven minifigures included, with Christopher Walken making his first appearance in Lego form as Max Schreck. He’ll be joined by Catwoman, the Penguin, Alfred, Bruce Wayne, Batman (in his 1992 attire), and an alternate Batman suit.
There’s just one problem: nobody but Bruce Wayne can afford it. Releasing on 5 June for Lego VIP members and 8 June for the plebs, you’ll need to shell out $400 (roughly R7,700 before import taxes) to get this for your shelf. If you’ve got the dough, go for it. We’ll just continue to gaze longingly at it for the time being.
