Holy Batmodels!

Well I have to say i'm in a bit of a pickle at the moment. On the one hand, I have to admit to not being a real Batman fan, but I do love the Dark Knight trilogy (haven't seen latest yet, so don't tell me!) I did buy the odd comic in the 80's/90's Killing Joke, BatFink and a Judge Dredd / Batman crossover and grew up on the Adam West Batman, complete with Corgi and Husky Batmobiles. Hated the Keaton comedy Batman series, apart from Michelle Pfeiffer in latex.

Then after my son was born and got to the age to appreciate toys, santa brought him a large electronic Tumbler. Having seen the film, I was blown away by the new Batmobile design and secretly coveted it. Its about a foot long, with the usual assortment of noises, light up exhaust and two huge pop out, harpoon launching panels either side. In a rather rash move, I also bought myself a 7" Hot Wheels diecast Tumbler, which was nice and detailed, but essentially static, doing nothing apart from roll about. That disappeared on ebay a couple of years ago.

Just prior to the release of the new Dark Knight franchise, Corgi rolled out a load of Batman diecast cars and vehicles. As my son was a car fan as well and the Corgi cars were at a seriously discounted price, I managed to buy in a few of them. The series seemed to cover every Batmobile model ever designed, from the very early Detective comic models, to the ultra futuristic ones, which I struggle to name. The odd thing is that none of the models have the name underneath either, so you'll have to bear with me!

All the models are sturdy and well crafted, each having a small action feature, such as opening bonnets etc. The big deco finned version above, with Batman sitting proudly at the wheel, has an opening bonnet and the later black demonesque model here has a rotating turbine inside the canopy which moves as the mobile rolls out. These few models have all been rescued from Wills toy box, so are a little battered!

 This next GT style Batmobile is presumably a comic based model from one of the more modern series.

Presumably a packaging error, the mislabelled Bat Submarine is clearly the classic Batplane.

This model is considerably smaller and more delicate than the cars, and had a plastic tailplane which has sheared off. The wings fold in and are released by the square button at the rear.

These few models were part of a much bigger range, some of which I will look at in the second part of this series..