Review:76003 Superman: Battle of Smallville
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$49.99
€59.99
£39.99
$89.99
$99.99
Reviews
Berrybrick
Country: America the Beautiful Gender: Male
Joined: February 2010 
№ of Reviews: 46 
№ of Featured reviews: 1
Building Experience: Enough is enough
You are not entitled to view results of this poll.
Can the Fastest Man Alive outshine Batman in his own set? Will the Riddler learn you can't turn a dragster the hard way? Will Batman share his secrets of where to find a thong adorned with a metallic waistband? Find out on--eh, I'm not going to answer those.
- Set: Battle of Smallville
- Theme: DC Universe Super Heroes
- Pieces: 418
- Minifigures: 5
- Price: 49.99 USD / 39.99 GBP
- Brickipedia / Brickset
I wanted to do two things before this review: 1) Take pictures 2) Take a hiatus from Super Hero reviews. However, my sister is borrowing my camera and I noticed this set starting to show up on clearance, so I figured I should get a move on.
As usual, a handful of people were disappointed that this set doesn't actually include anything clearly identifiable as Smallville, such as, but not limited to, a farm, a silo, exploding 7-11, exploding Ihop, exploding Sears hardware store, or a combustible train. No, that's City's job. Super Heroes means that we get the vehicles that aren't involved in the action or taking care of cows or selling pancakes or whatever. So, if you are a City builder and looking for something, you should probably leave now unless you are interested in the military vehicle. Anyone else? Yeah, there probably isn't much here for you either.
The Build
There really is not much to it. You will start with the off-roader and then move on to the dropship. For the most part, it is just brick stacking. I guess that could be considered repetitive, but it isn't the exact same module each time.
Parts
There really is not too much here. There are a couple of decent dark tan pieces, but not nearly enough to make it a good parts pack. Otherwise there are four saucer quarters, a full sets of ellipses in two sizes (each made from four quarter plates), some black palisades, exclusive gray bubble canopies, some green hinge plates, a return of the Adventurers cabin (which has me excited), and various other pieces. It isn't a great parts back, but I suppose that most of them aren't totally useless. At 418 elements for $50 though, it isn't a great value.
Final Model
The final model is more or less accurate. In my two viewings of Man of Steel, I didn't spot the off-roader, though it is apparently in the background at some point. A plane would have been more accurate, but, and I say this as someone who abhors military vehicles in official sets, it is designed pretty well aside from the square mudguards (I like the technique, but it doesn't look right) and flick fire missiles. And it brought me another Adventurers carriage, so....
I am also pretty pleased with the dropship. It isn't quite to scale and there is no interior, but I'm fine with that. It was black in the movie, and black would probably be less dull than gray (especially if they kept the green and dark tan), but I guess that is okay too. Otherwise, the only thing is that the central bubble (depicted as the cockpit here) was opaque in the movie, but it doesn't bother me at all either. If you are into playing with vehicles, the ship does have some nice big missiles, but is awkward to hold and not easy to "swoosh." So, I guess that all around, this just adds up to okay. Not bad, but not necessarily good either.
Minifigures
Superman's shiny new costume also comes in the other two sets based on Man of Steel, and I already covered my thoughts in my review of 76009. The same goes for Zod, though his armor is not included in the smallest one. The other three minifigures are Faora, Tor-An, and Colonel Hardy.
Faora is very much like Zod with a unique armor piece, a cape, and interchangeable hair to switch out with her helmet. Actually, she shares her leg and her torso is of the same design, but with her family crest (which is covered by the armor) and more feminine printing. Her hairpiece was also exclusive at the time, and pretty desirable (spiky and black) if I do say so myself, but that has since become accessible through cheaper outlets. There probably would have been better decisions for her hair, but it did kind of sort of look like that at the beginning of the movie, even if the scene this set is based on takes place later. Faora reuses Wonder Woman's face, which is a shame and not really accurate since she is more stoic. If that face were to be used for a villainess, a femme fatale would make more sense, and Faora is not one of those.
I don't believe Tor-An was even in the movie. His torso is the same as Zod's, except with a warped T looking logo. He gets no cape nor armor. He also reuses a head, this time Lex Luthor's, but since he wasn't actually in the movie, I don't really care.
Colonel Hardy is, admittedly, a pretty bad figure. I guess military enthusiasts would be excited for his torso, but it is all scrunched up and badly proportioned. It would be nice if some of it continued onto his legs. The usage of both olive green and dark tan is also ineffective at balancing out the figure. Also, he reuses Bruce Wayne's old head, which is generic, and again, hardly matches the character or his personality. He was minor and not nearly as memorable as Faora, so it is tolerable, but it isn't earning the minifigure any points because it doesn't even look good.
Conclusion
Though the set does turn out okay, nothing about it is really must have except fans of the movie may want Faora, but neither she or the other two exclusive minifigures are very special (even though her armor is amazing). which is unfortunate. My original plan was to only get Black Zero Escape, but then I changed my mind and bought this too, for some reason. I can't say that I really regret it, but I'm lukewarm on the whole set. I didn't need it, and it isn't a guilty pleasure either. On sale for about $35 as I've seen it it might be a decent deal, but really only for fans of the movie, and then Black Zero Escape is a better choice.
| Building Experience |   2 / 5 |
| Parts |  2½ / 5 |
| Value for Money | 2 / 5 |
| Playability | 2 / 5 |
| Minifigures | 2 / 5 |
| Overall | 2 / 5 |
You know, I don't even hate the set, it just doesn't have much going for it.
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