Streets of Gotham hit the shelves yesterday, and like any good Clix addict, I was at my local shop picking up my case of the product. Over all, I'm pleased with my purchase. However, there are a few irksome issues that did arise. That being said, I'll start with those, so that I can finish on a good note.
First off, for those that aren't "in the know," Streets of Gotham is a nontraditional Countertop Display release. Like the Avengers Movie set, these displays come with 24 single-figure boosters and 4 team packs, packaged with 6 single-figure boosters and 1 team pack per mini-brick. All in all, the distribution within a single CTD is pretty good. You'll probably see about 3 dups, which is the norm in this type of release. Over the entirety of the case, you should get a full set of Commons, and it's possible to get a full set of Uncommons, but it's likely that you'll need to trade for 1. In my case, I was missing 2, which I think is excessive for the number of Uncommons that you're receiving over the entirety of the case. You'll likely pull 7 Rares over the Displays with 1 of those being a dup. In my case, I had 2 OMACs. With the team packs, you could conceivable pull all 8, although you're more likely going to pull 7 with 1 duplicate. In my case, I pulled the Outlaws twice and missed out on the Trinity, which is fine because my daughter wanted Starfire, and I have PLENTY of versions of the Trinity. If I don't get those, I'm not loosing any sleep over it. All in all, with the exception of missing 2 Uncommons, I thought the collation within my case was reasonable.
That said, where it became unreasonable is that the collation over the entirety of what was pulled at my store wasn't good. One of my closest clix friends pulled a mirror case to mine, done to the fact that we each had a broken Crux in our second Outlaws pack. The only difference we had was the he got 2 Questions instead of 1 Question and 1 Renee, which really isn't that different, since it's the same dial and 80% the same sculpt. The other problem was that only 2 people pulled Guy and Ice at all, and EVERYONE pulled at least one OMAC, and most pulled 2. What does that translate into? No one to trade with locally. That's a huge problem! It's one thing to have density within a case, but to have that same density across a number of cases is a problem. I don't mind having to trade, but you have to have people that get different stuff from you to be able to trade with. With that complaint out of the way, let's talk about what's good in the set.
First of all, the Team Packs all ended up being pretty fun, and outside of the HORRIBLE Batman sculpt, everything in the Team Packs look pretty fun. I got beat up on pretty bad by the Team Pack Birds of Prey, teamed with Blue Beetle, in a sealed last night. Seems like everyone played at least one guy from their Team Pack. I know I ran with Starfire from the Outlaws pack, and my daughter had Void from the WildC.A.T.s pack. Of course, she also had Scarecrow and Bane-Batman, with a Black Glove Demon. It was a pretty ugly team.
The paint on the figures is a bit blobby this time around, but for the most part the sculpts are passable. The only one that really looks truly terrible is the Batman sculpt that's used in both the regular set and Team Pack. There's something cartoony (in a bad way) about him.
One of the other things that I really like about this set is the fact that it complements the Batman set so well. There are a number of callbacks to that set. Blue Beetle is the perfect Bug pilot. Harvey can be Horrible Transformed into Two-Face. The Birds of Prey Team Pack round out the New 52 Birds of Prey to an even 400 points when teamed with Poison Ivy and Batgirl #025 from the Batman set. I'm sure that there are more that I'm missing, but those are some pretty strong examples in my book.
If you've bought your Streets of Gotham, and would like to chime in you're opinion as well, feel free to do so in the comments. If I get a chance to do another article over the Christmas holiday, I hope to come back with a "Playing the Comics" article focused on the various Birds of Prey configurations available thanks to the new set! My daughter and I are very excited to try some of those out.
