DECOOL 7105 - Batman Tumbler (bootleg) review

Along with Sheng Yuan, Decool is one of the most prominent Chinese producers of bootleg, or clones of LEGO minifigs and sets. Though I own a few of the minifigs (Mainly stuff TLG hasn't produced such as Fantastic 4, Punisher, Daredevil etc.) This is my first time ordering a construction set. It took approx 2 weeks to arrive direct from China, I ordered this set from one of the multiple sellers on Aliexpress, shipping is cheaper without the box and the whole lot was sent wrapped in bubble wrap and black plastic (Very nondescript!)

Not going to get into the ethics of buying bootlegs on here, everyone has their own moral compass regarding this, for my own part I'm glad to be able to own a set of one of the most iconic movie vehicles of the last decade, as the original (Part of LEGO set 7888 - Joker's Ice cream surprise) has been long since retired and commands a hefty after-market sum on ebay. The other options if you want an official tumbler are currently set 76001 The Bat vs Bane: Tumbler Chase or the 'Ultimate collector series' 76023: The Tumbler. 76001 contains a much smaller version in the camo colours as used by Bane in 'The Dark Knight Rises'. And the UCS version, though stunning, is out of my budget currently. Considering the options, this £10 bootleg is an attractive proposition.

So for that price, we get 5 unnumbered bags of parts and 2 minifigs (A Batman and a Joker in a Prison Uniform) we also get a few accessories including some handcuffs, a crowbar and a Batarang. There's a lot included here for a very small outlay.

The only thing that concerns me about these chinese sets would be the potential toxicity of the plastics used, I can't imagine there is much in the way of health and safety regulations when producing these knock offs. As this will only be used for display, I'm ok with it, but i would never let my kids have these products for themselves.

The Tumbler itself is a direct copy of the aforementioned official version, right down to the instruction manual. The quality of the parts, though inferior to genuine LEGO was a lot higher than i expected. I've read reports of people getting these with missing parts. Mine was all there, but one of the 2x2 slopes appears to be melted on one end, obviously a production error, QC Is never going to be up to LEGO standards so a few niggles are to be expected.

Not Wanting to use a genuine LEGO piece, I replaced this with a Mega Bloks slope!

The rest of the construction was trouble free, copying LEGO at least means we get a well designed vehicle. Clutch power was good too, I had planned on gluing this thing together before it arrived but this turned out to be unnecessary.

The rubber tyres are the only real let down here, they are not the best quality and don't sit on the rims as well as official LEGO wheels. The rest of the vehicle though, looks fantastic and includes all the play features of the original, including a roof mounted, spring loaded rocket launcher, 2 flick launchers on the sides, and a lift up canopy which seats 2 minifigs

Onto the figures themselves, these are the typical decent quality you find on Decool's products, printing is excellent quality on both. They come with print on both front and back and both have the same reversible heads as the official figures.

A word of warning, though there is a 2 sided head on Batman, the Cowl sticks to the head more than the head sticks to the torso, making it difficult to change. So choose your preferred face and stick with it! This is typical of these Chinese figs and not an exclusive problem here. I would have liked to see an Arkham logo on Joker's prison suit too, but I suspect it's just been cloned from another unrelated set (Note the pink skin on the neckline)

So overall a fantastic quality set for a bootleg, and excellent value for money. It looks like a legit model next to some of my other genuine LEGO vehicles, I would certainly buy more Decool sets if they produced any other desirable sets that are no longer in circulation.