THE BACKGROUND
Every now and then I have to remind myself that Lego is largely
designed with children in mind, rather than the AFOLs. When the Mighty Micros range was first announced, I was
actually quite excited. The character line-up was a good one, and featured a
few characters who were either discontinued or had only been featured in sets
that were rather expensive. These would be a great way to plug a few gaps in my
DC and Marvel collections, and the spare bricks from the karts could be tossed
aside into a box somewhere, never to be seen again.
But then I discovered that they would be using the short minifigure legs instead of the
regular ones. I was very disappointed – this was one geared much more heavily
at kids than adults. I mean, it works for Robin, but who else would want a
short Flash, or Catwoman? And the funny thing is, I would have HATED the core
concept as a child. Why would The Flash have a car/go-kart when he’s the
fastest man alive? Did Captain Cold ever have a Zamboni-eqsue vehicle in the
comics? Granted, I didn’t understand marketing, cost vs profit, or being
deliberately (cynically?) toyetic as a kid, but the variant versions of main
characters that have no basis in comics or other media drove me up the wall as
a child. I suspect I’m not the only one, either – really, if you give just
about anyone the choice between a regular Batman or some kind of bizarre armour
variant, you’d probably pick the regular one, I’m guessing? Which is part –
though not the entire – of the reason that so many media-based action figure
lines pegwarm for months after the film has gone from cinemas.
I digress. I didn’t see myself with any other options for a
Flash or Captain Cold minifigure anytime soon, so I decided to bite the bullet
while I was in the States recently. These guys have been selling out left,
right and centre in Australia, so obviously the kids do like them; and I have to say they’ve grown on me a lot after
getting them out of the box.
THE BUILD
After that lengthy rant, let’s discuss the actual product. The
core conceit behind the Mighty Micros concept is that a bunch of Marvel and DC
characters are having Mario Kart-style races against one another. They’re
paired up in hero/villain teams (and before anyone points it out, yes I know
Catwoman isn’t really a villain these days).
The karts are loosely themed around the character driving
them. Captain Cold’s looks like a Zamboni, which is kind of fun even outside of
the context of this set. There’s not enough Lego love for ice hockey these
days. The Flash’s is a red kart-thing, with flames trailing out the back. It
doesn’t really look like anything specific but it works – and the flames do
give the impression that he is much, much faster than his rival. As is key for any toy car, both designs are very swooshable. And given the inherent fragility of plenty of Lego sets, rougher kids than I could probably have a pretty hectic demolition derby.
Additionally, both are paired with loosely relevant
accessories. Captain Cold gets his usual Cold Gun, and an ice-cream cone, while
Flash gets a can of “Power Bolt”, which is presumably some kind of energy
drink. This is continued across other sets, in mostly logical fashion – Red
Skull gets the Tesseract, Catwoman gets a carton of milk, and Hulk for some
obscure reason gets a chicken drumstick.
OVERALL
I like the concept, and it seems to be selling well – but I
really wish they’d used regular minifigure legs instead of the short ones we
got instead. As mentioned above, it would have been a great way to make more
obscure/previously released but rare characters more readily available – as it
is, it's a fun novelty.
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