Batman has been around in comic book form since the 1940’s, and while he may not be able to fly or swing from spider webs of his own making, he has always had one thing that very few of the other superheroes have had: a really cool ride.

Playing Mantis (which owns both Johnny Lightning and Polar Lights) is coming out with a whole batcave-load of Batman-related vehicle kits in various scales and media. One of the first to come out is the die-cast 1960’s Batmobile in 1/24th scale. This is NOT the Batmobile from the TV show that we all know so well, but the Batmobile from the comic book. It is similar in many respects to the TV car, but it has some major differences.

I was happy to see Hasegawa reissue these kits as I have several of the "Eggplanes" but not the F-14. The kit comes in a sturdy top opening box - great for holding the parts as you work on the model. There are twenty-eight Gray plastic parts and one crystal clear canopy for the F-14 Tomcat and a colorful decal sheet with two schemes. The canopy is loose in the box allowing it to be scratched up a bit, but a little polishing and a dip in Future took care of that problem. Considering this is a humorous kit I was surprised to see a four-piece instrument panel on the decal sheet. There is a plastic nose weight included but I did add a few grams of extra weight to the nose of the F-14 to be on the safe side.

Yes, I love Star Wars- I have since I saw the first movie in a theater when it came out in 1977 (yikes). In 2001, Finemolds and their president Kunihiro Suzuki starting issuing intricately detailed and very well researched replicas of the craft from Star Wars. They jumped through X-Wings, Tie Fighters, and topped it off with the 2006 release of the 1/72 Millennium Falcon. This kit, which is currently OOP, had a massive parts count of 900 and detail that makes it one of the best kits of all time. The kit cost well over $200 when released (I know, as I am one of the guys that bought one). Last I saw, the collector price was pushing $300. These are expensive, long projects to build but in the end one is rewarded with a stunning replica. They are also now hard to come by except for E-Bay. This leaves us humans in a bad way when we need to go to that galaxy far, far away.