EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 79
stickers: 192 (1-192) + 36 cards (1-36)
starter pack: € 4.90 (album + 5 sachets)
packets: € 1.00 (4 stickers + 1 card)
box: 36 packets
Limited Edition: hard cover 1000 copies € 49.90
comment: on some occasions it is fortunate to have to wait a few days before doing the review, it helps to study the product better and not get caught up in a small disappointment instead of new emotions. Panini has decided to change the formula that had characterized previous albums (from Tex to Mickey Mouse), no more paperbacks and no more hardcover for shops. Only stapled standard and limited hard cover edition always in an elegant case.
This editorial earthquake has displaced everyone, wrong to stop at the form, better to think about the substance. Obviously to appreciate the Batman album you don’t have to be only collectors of stickers but also lovers of comics, in this way really getting caught up in the emotions and also by the memories for the less young is a moment.
Semi citing a Woody Allen film: “Everything you wanted to see on the Marvel Super-Heroes album but you didn’t find”. Funny that Panini, publisher of Marvel Comics in Italy, manages to make a great album on “competition”, that is the most beloved hero of the DC Comics universe.
It is limited to call it an album, more correct to browse it like a small encyclopedia of Batman in stickers. The first pages have the flavor of the myth with the first appearances of the Dark Knight back in 1939, which continues with the best of the character through the years. Following the world of Batman, from the Bat-Cavern to the countless gadgets and the Bat-Mobile.
Space also for the many comics characters, with spectacular splash pages with shaped stickers, great heroes and friends Robin, Batgirl, Batwoman, Alfred and James Gordon. The great enemies Joker, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Penguin and many others.
Still missing much at the end of the album, from comics to television with animated series and absolute joy for us “old”, as many as 9 stickers dedicated to the classic TV series with Adam West. From TV to the big screen with all the movies with Batman as protagonist, from the first of Tim Burton to the last “all american heroes” linked to the Justice League.
Comics, TV series, movies … how to finish the album? Of course with the stickers also of video games! Complete, exciting, COOL, with many special figurines, 24 holographic and even more 24 that light up in the dark. There is no more suitable album than this where to put them.
The album though stapled has an internal page in cardboard, after the cover the checklist of all 36 cards, at the bottom of the album the box to be detached to contain them. Also the cards are really beautiful, the first 18 dedicated to the covers from the historical to the most recent ones, from 19 to 27 the various Batman costumes over the years, from 28 to 36 all the cars of the Dark Knight!
Then the limited box set, printed in just 1000 numbered copies. By the way, unlike the previous ones, we find the number even outside, nothing changes, but happy to have an important number like nr. 100. The box contains the hardcover album with a beautiful silk-screen print inside and a second box to put the 36 cards, exposed in all their splendor.
So let’s go back to the starting point, if the first thought was of disappointment for the changes that took place with this Batman and Donald Duck albums, a more detailed analysis makes Panini’s choices not only acceptable but also understandable. The Deluxe Limited has really become an object of high quality and aimed only at collectors, the intermediate versions did not give credit to this choice. Furthermore it is probable that sales of not limited hardcover were not such as to motivate the continuation.
Although Panini does not declare it, I believe instead that the choice to stop producing the paperback with envelopes inside is linked to the need to protect the environment and the progressive elimination of plastic. I think we are right at the beginning of a path that probably Panini will continue in the months and years to come, I want to think and believe it is so, with the absolute curiosity to see what will happen next year with the Calciatori Adrenalyn 2021!
Final judgment: 10/10 with honors (for the limited and for the ecological choice)
(EN)