I love the Batman Brave and Bold show.  The lighter tone of most episodes males me happy.  The fact that Cartoon Network has changed the showing frequency so each episode is only aired once makes me unhappy.  I’ve missed two episodes since this decision.  CartoonNetwork.com now has the Shazam episode up, so I was able to finally watch it.  I am concerned that a lack of airing will drive demand for the toys down, causing the line to end an early death.  I am looking forward to the Shazam toy which might be coming for this line.

Let’s take a look at the first toy I bought for this line, Blue Beetle’s Bug.  This ship is great because of its tie to Blue Beetle II, Ted Kord.  The show even did a flashback which showed Ted working with Batman.

 

The ship breaks down like this.  Body.  Six legs, which are actually 3 pairs of identical pieces.  Pincers with launcher and missile.  Oh yeah, and a figure of Blue Beetle in an off color scheme.  That bothered me for a while, but I put up with it due to how cool the vehicle is.

 

 

One odd point of this set is that the Blue Beetle figure (all versions) is sculpted to be thinner than the basic figure.  The skinnier version has a reduced number of peg holes.  While the basic figure has 9 peg holes (2 shoulder, 2 elbow, 2 knee, 2 feet, 1 back), Beetle has only 5 (2 shoulder, 2 knee, back).  This means  he does not have enough peg holes to hold all of the legs from the ship.  Maybe you have to be a grownup to handle all those legs.

 

One of the cool things about having so many similar parts is you can give one to everyone.  Look, its a Reach army.

 

 

I love the ship.  It is nostalgic.  The figure, not so much.  The strange costume coloring is a turn off.  I do my best to ignore it.  Once again, the more pieces you have, the more combinations you can make.  We call this the "Beetle Tick".

 

 

 

But I can’t keep track of that starfish…

… again?

 

 


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