Hello Again! Yes that’s right, 2 reviews in one night. I need to catch up. On the weekend I filmed 6 box openings, so now I have to write them all up – that’s just how this works. The videos I film with almost 0 knowledge of the set I’m opening, that way I get a true reaction to the cards as I see them. Then, for these write-ups I go do a bunch of research on Baidu.com, I know it doesn’t seem like but I really do try to figure these sets out. This DCEU set of Batman cards was a mystery – until I opened the box.
Table of Contents
The Box
I bet you’ve seen this sets on AliExpress, especially if you were shopping earlier this year when they were really being pushed hard. There are two of these, the regular DC set which is in a smaller box – more like the Dragonball or Inital D boxes. These Batman cards set is a little different, it has a much bigger box with two stacks of packs in a plastic tray.
Both of these sets are expensive, like crazy expensive for AliExpress cards. I paid basically $37 dollars for this, which is easily twice what a 2-yuan would cost. That may seem crazy to you, given you have 0 idea what will actually show up a month later when you order these. I understand that, but also know that I bought this after already testing a bunch of vendors with much cheaper orders – then I came in and bought this from one that seemed legit.
The back of this box is just crazy, it’s missing all the standard licensing markings you would expect. But it adds the introduction part of the… wikipedia page… for DC’s extended universe? I mean… I guess it’s informative? But did they have to copy it literally like that? At least it is centered well – maybe 9.5 PSA on centering there.
Here is the real finding though – this box is identical to that incredible Star Wars box. I know I said those were an iffy value but that was at 30$ – I now have a vendor who is sending them un-searched for 18$. At that price this set is a steal, I’ve ordered 5 and will probably order more. If it wasn’t from that mind blowing Doraemon set – I would have bought a case. But now I’m asking around to my goto vendors to see if any one can sell me a Doraemon case.
The Batman Cards Set
So like I said this box is identical to the Star Wars set, in fact I’m now 100% certain that this was manufactured by the same company too. You can tell because the pack count of 12 is the same, cards per pack at 2 is the same, the box has the same dimensions and feel to it. Even the plastic tray inside is exactly the same.
I always wonder about these… are they legit?… are they garage kits?… are they straight up counterfeits? In this case I’m really not sure. Everything about this from the wikipedia article on the back, to the packs having “Made in USA” printed on them, this set just screams “I’m not Legit”. But then they posted their full licensing papers, like copies of the signed final documents. I did my best to authenticate them and all the names/addresses seem to be legit.
That doesn’t mean the product is legit, they could have faked this too… but faking a government licensing document in China is a death sentence, literally. I highly doubt they would publish that unless it was truly authentic. So let’s assume these are licensed cards – just only for Asian markets. These were not meant for the west, despite the “Made in USA” markings lol
As you can see the fliers look great. And I can confirm that the Batman cards do not disappoint – they were both excellent from the pack I opened. The fliers tell us that we’ve got an interesting rarity system going on here. It isn’t they typical R, SR, SSR system. They seem to invented their own here, with AAA, AA, A, B, C — etc. It’s a weird system but pretty easy to understand. The AAA are highest rarity and it goes down from there to E which is the base rarity.
You’ve got a few chase sets in here, like the hot stamped auto cards. These are not actually signed, it’s a printed auto, but still it would be pretty amazing to pull. Then there are a few hidden rarities that feature the real characters like Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman. The rest of set focuses on DCEU characters which are mostly from the various television shows.
The Cards
So like I said before this was made by the same group that made those high quality Star Wars cards. These are also nice thick cards with excellent printing on them. For tech we’ve got stamping, emboss, and some foil inlay. I really like the way they layered the foil into Captain Cold’s eyes, if you catch the light right – they glow in a nice eerie blue.
Next up, remember you only get 2 cards in a pack, is Krypto. This is an E rarity so just a base, but it’s a dog! Who can complain about that? The backs have these really neat cosmic patterns, with different colors for each level. It looks plain on the scan, but on video these cards really shine. Krypto here is from the Titans TV Series, I never watched it but I might now that I know there is a dog in it.
Conclusions
So yeah… what to think about this one. On one hand, it might be actually licensed? On the other, it’s got a wikipedia article printed on the back of the box. The cards are great, excellent stock, lots of great printing tech – you can see the Star Wars lineage in these. This was an earlier set by that company. They are expensive though. At 37$ it is really hard to recommend this to anyone who isn’t a die-hard fan. But – there are vendors out there selling it much cheaper if you search around. I’ve got the other DC box on the way – I paid only 17$ for it. Happy hunting!