DC superheroes MOC wave: The Brick Knight Returns

[Mandalorianknight]

Welp, a half-year has passed since I first did this, and lego DC continues to wither away. The only sets we know are coming this year are a technic batcycle and a batmobile based on a very troubled production. So once again, I've decided to make a wave myself, this time incorporating some new criteria.

My constraints for this wave were as follows, to ensure it would be something lego could realistically do:

Standard wave type: I can't do 80 $800 D2C Batman sets. For this wave, as with the last, I've made 3 mech gimmicks like the marvel sets (still in the old style, as I dislike the ninjago limb style), and 5 standard system sets, as well as one polybag.

Iconicity: This basically translates to "Batman needs to be a focus", since, well, he's the most popular DC character, and what seems to sell best with kids. Maybe with the new DCU other characters will become more popular, but for now, Batman's the star of the show.

In addition, one of the sets is a tie-in to the new shazam film, as cross-promotion like lego tends to do with it's DC sets.

For each set, I also only used existing pieces in existing colors for the builds. (With one exception, you'll see it later.) This is so the builds can be built IRL if one desires. The figures, on the other hand, do not follow this rule, and have more arm-and-leg dual molding than would be realistic, just since Stud.io has a limited print inventory and I wanted to differentiate who was who.

For this wave I have also started dabbling in custom prints. Only two sets have it this time (two of the mechs), but I may try and make custom figure prints later.

Now that I've rambled for a paragraph, let's get started:

Additional images and descriptions for each set are in spoilers for space, but do not actually contain spoilers for anything. 

FINAL BATSUIT POLYBAG: 49 pieces

Spoiler

Build is a weapon rack, the Son Box (which is a chair for some reason in-universe), and a stand for the Final Batsuit armor. The figure is Final Batsuit Batman, or at least a minifig sized version of that suit.

 

SUPERMAN MECH: 150 pieces

 

Spoiler

 

So I figured I'd give all the mechs in this series some lore reason to exist, even though they're all gimmick sets. In this case, the dome and enclosed sides make this a kryptonite-proof mech for Supes. nothing really all that special about it otherwise.

FLASH MECH: 150 pieces

(again, flash helmet isn't in Stud.io, ignore the batman helmet)

Spoiler

Lore-wise, I guess this uses tech akin to the Cosmic Treadmill or something. Anyway, this mech's fairly standard aside from the lightning trail. The stud shooters on the hands are to shoot lightning from.

GREEN LANTERN MECH: 167 pieces

Spoiler

I mean, this is the easiest one to justify in lore; it's one of Kyle's mech constructs. (Which reminds me, Kyle is the included lantern)

BAT-GLIDER: GRID ATTACKS: 157 pieces

Spoiler

Batman/Cyborg team up. Main build is a rooftop where Grid's set up some sort of EMP-type device and a defensive turret. Batman's got a wingpack as well. Figures are Batman (standard suit for the wave, just with a wingpack instead of a cape), Cyborg, and Grid.

BAT-TANK: WAR OF THE GODS: 371 pieces

Spoiler

So I just loaded this thing full of projectiles. It's got 2 stud shooters, 2 spring shooters, and 16 flick missiles.

Cockpit's a bit cozy but does the job. Pressing that 1x4 tile in front launches the spring shooters.

Figs are batman (standard suit), Wonder Woman, and Ares.

BAT-COPTER: SHAZAM SKY BATTLE: 533 pieces

Spoiler

Tie-in to Shazam 2, with the figures and Wooden Dragon.

The Bat-Copter is loosely based off an Apache Helicopter. It's armed with 6 flick missiles and seats 1 figure.

The Wooden Dragon was a fun build, I don't normally make creatures. The head bears a resemblance to a ninjago dragon, I think the green one from the pirate wave.

Figures are Batman (standard suit), Shazam, Mary Marvel, and Dr. Sivana (who I know is from the first movie, but I thought would make sense to go against Shazam.

 

BAT-PODS: RESCUING BATMAN: 676 pieces

Spoiler

The Bat-Pods themselves. A little oversized, but not as much as the standard Batcycle tends to be.

Interior of Joker's secret hideout. The first floor has some containers (The one with the L is a Lexcorp box with a crystal of Kryptonite inside), and the second floor has a weapon rack, chains for Batman, and a pedestal where Joker would put Bat's cowl if he could just remove it without activating the cowl's emergency countermeasures. There's an explode feature on the second floor as shown in the first image.

Also included are some attachments for Firefly, a small wood ramp, and a flaming street corner with an explode function as shown in the first image. Figures are Firefly, Joker, Batman (battle-damaged version of the wave's standard suit), Batgirl, Robin (Jason Todd), and Nightwing.

BAT-MECH: DOOMSDAY: 948 pieces

Spoiler

 

I'm gonna be honest I REALLY like how this turned out. It's loosely based on the Hellbat suit, just at a much greater scale, and now I kind of want to go back, bulk up the limbs and shoulders a bit, and add wings to make a sort of "UCS hellbat".

It's got plenty of articulation too, and stud shooters on the hands. Those Technic ratchet joints used in BD-1 are super helpful with this.

There is, of course, a cockpit. Those 2x2 inverted tiles in trans-red would be printed black tiles were this a real set, the different color is just so you can see them. The batman figure in the set can store it's wings on the back of the Hellbat while he's in the cockpit, which also functions as a nod to the Hellbat suit itself.

And the figures: Hellbat Batman, Wonder Woman, a rather ragged-looking superman who didn't get to change out of his suit before the fight started, Flash, Aquaman, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern, and Doomsday. (Who is hulk, because that's the only bigfig in stud.io's inventory.

 

Let me know what you guys think!

Edited January 25, 2023 by Mandalorianknight

[Lemerbrix]

9 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

SNIP

Let me know what you guys think!

Petition to put you in charge of Lego dc

anyway my favorite has got to be the bat tank, really like how you kept the mechs the same instead of using the EVO joints like the 2022 mechs have

please, keep doing this series, maybe Wayne manor, or arkum asylum 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Clone OPatra
Please don't quote entire posts

[RedHoodPug]

Very nice! Some cool ideas here in the cross-promotional theme What If… Lego Made DC Sets Again? line. I like the idea of bringing Grid, Rayner and Doomsday to the fore. Well done, and worth the effort certainly.

[Clone OPatra]

Great stuff! Not even being a big Superheroes fan, it makes me sad how much excellent material is out there that LEGO is just leaving on the table for dubious reasons.

My only constructive comment would be that, apart from the mechs, all these sets look a bit drab. That's not out of character for Batman sets, but LEGO itself might go for a slightly brighter colour scheme for the building in the bat-pods set, for instance.

[Murdoch17]

11 hours ago, Lemerbrix said:

Petition to put you in charge of Lego dc

anyway my favorite has got to be the bat tank, really like how you kept the mechs the same instead of using the EVO joints like the 2022 mechs have

please, keep doing this series, maybe Wayne manor, or arkum asylum 

You can add my name to the petition as these are all awesome! My favorite is the Doomsday one... the giant bat-mech is too cool! My second fav is the superman mech, it's got that late fifties space-age look with the bubble dome.

Fantastic work @Mandalorianknight!

[Mandalorianknight]

11 hours ago, Lemerbrix said:

Petition to put you in charge of Lego dc

anyway my favorite has got to be the bat tank, really like how you kept the mechs the same instead of using the EVO joints like the 2022 mechs have

please, keep doing this series, maybe Wayne manor, or arkum asylum 

Haha, I think they could put anyone new in charge of lego DC and it'd do better than it currently is.

Glad to hear you like the bat-tank. And that I kept the mechs the same. The 2023 design is a huge downgrade IMO. 

Don't worry, the series will continue. It might be awhile (I primarily do star wars mocs), but I do have the sets for wave 3 planned out. It takes a bit of a turn from the previous ones, and the only hint I'll give for it is that the Doomsday fight doesn't go well.

7 hours ago, RedHoodPug said:

Very nice! Some cool ideas here in the cross-promotional theme What If… Lego Made DC Sets Again? line. I like the idea of bringing Grid, Rayner and Doomsday to the fore. Well done, and worth the effort certainly.

Thank you! My rationale was with Batman and a main leaguer in every set, there's room to throw in some new characters. Though not having a real doomsday fig (I refuse to count the mighty micros fig) is crazy. Even in the years when DC wasn't dead you'd think we'd have had one in that 2012-2018 era.

4 hours ago, Clone OPatra said:

Great stuff! Not even being a big Superheroes fan, it makes me sad how much excellent material is out there that LEGO is just leaving on the table for dubious reasons.

My only constructive comment would be that, apart from the mechs, all these sets look a bit drab. That's not out of character for Batman sets, but LEGO itself might go for a slightly brighter colour scheme for the building in the bat-pods set, for instance.

Thank you! I blame DC management. The movies can be blamed at least in part on just how successful the MCU has been, but we haven't had a proper DC cartoon in over a decade. Kids just aren't being exposed to the characters.

Yeah, the Bat-Pods set is definately a bit lacking in color. Realistically lego would have made it a green and purple joker-colored building, but I wanted to make something less cartoonish. That said, I probably could have put in some graffiti or something to give it some color. (Though that set pushes the lego-realisticness in a few ways, I'm not sure they'd want to put a rack with knives and a crowbar next to a captured batman.)

Just now, Murdoch17 said:

You can add my name to the petition as these are all awesome! My favorite is the Doomsday one... the giant bat-mech is too cool! My second fav is the superman mech, it's got that late fifties space-age look with the bubble dome.

Fantastic work @Mandalorianknight!

Thank you! I am very happy with how the bat-mech turned out. The superman mech thing was unintentional, but I'm now going to pretend the bubble canopy was meant as a nod to his classic roots.

[Lemerbrix]

6 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Haha, I think they could put anyone new in charge of lego DC and it'd do better than it currently is.

Glad to hear you like the bat-tank. And that I kept the mechs the same. The 2023 design is a huge downgrade IMO. 

Don't worry, the series will continue. It might be awhile (I primarily do star wars mocs), but I do have the sets for wave 3 planned out. It takes a bit of a turn from the previous ones, and the only hint I'll give for it is that the Doomsday fight doesn't go well.

Nice, I hope to see a cyborg mech soon.

[Mandalorianknight]

1 hour ago, Lemerbrix said:

Nice, I hope to see a cyborg mech soon.

I had to go back and check but yes, one of the wave 3 ones is a cyborg mech. I do need ideas for a third though. (Second is another batman one in the same way we've had two iron man mechs)

Edited January 25, 2023 by Mandalorianknight

[Lemerbrix]

7 minutes ago, Mandalorianknight said:

I had to go back and check but yes, one of the wave 3 ones is a cyborg mech. I do need ideas for a third though. (Second is another batman one in the same way we've had two iron man mechs)

How about a villain mech for poison ivy

[Agent Kallus]

Another great moc wave. I think I'd want to pick pretty much all of them up except maybe the bat-mech. 

As has been said, the bubble dome on the Superman mech works perfectly.

And I know what you were doing including Jason Todd Robin in the set with joker and a crowbar in an abandoned hideout  

 

 

[Lionbear8]

Very nice! Love the bat vehicles, always plenty of room in the batcave!

Well done! 

[Mandalorianknight]

9 hours ago, Lionbear8 said:

Very nice! Love the bat vehicles, always plenty of room in the batcave!

Well done! 

Thank you! I tried to make the bat-vehicles somewhat interesting, since they're all we tend to get.

On 2/3/2023 at 4:05 AM, Agent Kallus said:

Another great moc wave. I think I'd want to pick pretty much all of them up except maybe the bat-mech. 

As has been said, the bubble dome on the Superman mech works perfectly.

And I know what you were doing including Jason Todd Robin in the set with joker and a crowbar in an abandoned hideout  

Thank you! 

Shhhh.... all I'll say is that Jason does not appear in the next wave...

On 1/25/2023 at 5:17 PM, Lemerbrix said:

How about a villain mech for poison ivy

That could be cool, but I'd prefer to do a hero mech for how the overall wave is planned.

[rome00150]

Oh nice! I think the lair is my favorite of these. Always like buildings. This reminds me I need to finish that Batboat I was working on but ran out of black bricks 

[Mandalorianknight]

10 hours ago, rome00150 said:

Oh nice! I think the lair is my favorite of these. Always like buildings. This reminds me I need to finish that Batboat I was working on but ran out of black bricks 

Thank you! The next wave has 5-6 location builds, with 2-3 of them being the central part of the set and 3 being side builds. (I know I said I was gonna wait longer before the next one, but I've been procrastinating on actual work by doing this.) Only 2 left, the flagship set (A large batwing with some side builds) and a diorama. 

The wave's taken an interesting turn since I started it, and is now meant as a movie tie-in wave for a movie that doesn't exist. Sort of like the old Shadows of the Empire star wars marketing campaign.

[rome00150]

14 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

 The wave's taken an interesting turn since I started it, and is now meant as a movie tie-in wave for a movie that doesn't exist. Sort of like the old Shadows of the Empire star wars marketing campaign.

Which is probably why Lego doesn't do any official DC sets now sadly

[Mandalorianknight]

8 hours ago, rome00150 said:

Which is probably why Lego doesn't do any official DC sets now sadly

Ha! You're probably right. Tough to make movie tie-ins when half the movies don't pan out, and the other half bomb. (RIP shazam 2, I thought you were good.)

I meant that I thought it would be fun to do a tie in wave for a movie that was never real, not that I started one for a movie that was then cancelled. I didn't have an actual (released or cancelled) film in mind I was basing it off of, it's more like the shadows of the empire lucasfilm marketing thing where they made tie-in products without a film as practice for the coming trilogy. Just since I've done a couple general comic based ones, I thought it would be fun to make a plot throughline with the wave this time. (As a hint, I'll say that while it's not based on any specific medium, it bares some similarities to both a released film and a cancelled one... though with a bit of a lighter tone than both.)

Edited April 2, 2023 by Mandalorianknight

[rome00150]

18 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Ha! You're probably right. Tough to make movie tie-ins when half the movies don't pan out, and the other half bomb. (RIP shazam 2, I thought you were good.)

I meant that I thought it would be fun to do a tie in wave for a movie that was never real, not that I started one for a movie that was then cancelled. I didn't have an actual (released or cancelled) film in mind I was basing it off of, it's more like the shadows of the empire lucasfilm marketing thing where they made tie-in products without a film as practice for the coming trilogy. Just since I've done a couple general comic based ones, I thought it would be fun to make a plot throughline with the wave this time. (As a hint, I'll say that while it's not based on any specific medium, it bares some similarities to both a released film and a cancelled one... though with a bit of a lighter tone than both.)

Hmm only one that's popping into my head is that old Justice League Mortal film if we're talking live action 

[Mandalorianknight]

8 hours ago, rome00150 said:

Hmm only one that's popping into my head is that old Justice League Mortal film if we're talking live action 

Not quite. Here's a teaser for one of the sets, there's a different one on my instagram. I've only got one set left, so the wave should be posted by the end of the week.

[rome00150]

1 hour ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Not quite. Here's a teaser for one of the sets, there's a different one on my instagram. I've only got one set left, so the wave should be posted by the end of the week.

Ooh new wave is the movie one. Can't wait to see it

[Agent Kallus]

6 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

Not quite. Here's a teaser for one of the sets, there's a different one on my instagram. I've only got one set left, so the wave should be posted by the end of the week.

Is that not a T-wing Starfighter 

[Mandalorianknight]

On 4/4/2023 at 5:06 AM, Agent Kallus said:

Is that not a T-wing Starfighter 

Shhhhh...

Though if you want to get really technical, the T-wing is just a modified Batwing 

On 4/3/2023 at 11:44 PM, rome00150 said:

Ooh new wave is the movie one. Can't wait to see it

Here it is!