Thursday, 18 January 2018

Minifigure Mini-Reviews #2 – Black Vulcan & Dr Hugo Strange

Time to look at a couple more minifigures from The Lego Batman Movie Series 2! Today we take a squiz at Black Vulcan and Hugo Strange.

Black Vulcan

Truthfully, I don’t know much about Black Vulcan. Initially I assumed he was a member of the Flash family, given that he has the same “helmet” as the other Flash characters, and comes with these power bolt thingies as accessories. But it turns out he’s a character that was originally created for the Hanna-Barbera Super Friends series, and rather than super-speed he has electricity powers. Kind of like another African-American DC character with electricity powers, you say? You would be correct.  Turns out that originally the plan was to have Super Friends feature Black Lightning, but there was a rights dispute, so an ersatz workaround was created.

I’m fairly ambivalent about Hanna-Barbera cartoons in general, but I know that they’re a big part of plenty of people’s childhoods. It’s nice that Lego is getting the Hanna-Barbera Super Friends characters out there, but this is the figure I’m least excited about in this series. The leotard look doesn’t work for me.


Hugo Strange

Possessed of the most famous neckbeard in comics, Hugo Strange has a much longer history with Batman than most might realise. He was originally introduced all the way back in 1940 as a mad scientist, yet I would argue that it wasn’t until the Arkham series of video games that he really entered any kind of mainstream consciousness in association with Batman. As a result of his appearance in the games, he’s become much more prominent in Batman media, most notably showing up in the Gotham TV Series, portrayed by B.D. Wong.    

It’s nice to see a “new” addition to Batman’s Rogues Gallery, I’m still fairly cold on Hugo Strange. He’s a genius, but he’s not as megalomaniacal as Lex Luthor, and he’s creepy, yet lacks the disturbing edge of someone like Professor Pyg. I’ve just never felt like I could care that much about why he does what he does. Nonetheless, it’s a solid rendition of the character and the shelf wouldn’t be quite complete without him.  

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