Well, I can finally talk about this! The greatest showdown ever depicted on screen or on page was of course gonna be a superhero brawl. It is just the sort of thing that lends itself to spectacle, really, and this year we've got some good ones! Maybe we will be treated to a couple of heroes who, due to a few poor choices and misunderstandings, find themselves at odds over fundamental questions of authority and freedom...or maybe we'll just have an illegal alien and a whiny rich orphan beating the shit out of each other for reasons. With all that in mind, I present to you the REAL showdown of the century! Batman (Cereal) vs. Superman (Cereal)!
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| Because actually putting the name of the hero on the box is so last year. |
This first review will focus on that fan favorite, Batman! I did not read Batman comics growing up. In fact, the first real Batman comic story I read IN a comic was "Batman vs. The Hulk", because I was much more a Marvel fan during my comic collecting days. Still, then as now, DC was rocking the animated adaptations like a boss, and My Batman is the "Batman: The Animated Series" Batman. Even though I was slowly exiting my "afternoon cartoons" phase, I made a place for Batman, because Batman. It didn't hurt that the movie came out and sort of wiped away a lot of the campy, 1960s TV show public consciousness about Batman either. Sorry Adam West, you are no Kevin Conroy.
Of course, today's Batman is most informed by that of Christopher Nolan's masterful "Dark Knight" trilogy, and this cereal is only a touch removed form that. Look at that box! It's all broody and dark, and doesn't even have the name of the hero on the front! Pity the one dude who doesn't know who Batman is, am I right?
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| Uhhhh...I think you forgot to tell us who this is? |
Chocolate Strawberry Cereal? What the ever loving crap. That doesn't make a ton of sense. Does it?
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| The back of the box is only slightly better.. |
Anyway, for a dark, brooding, adult themed movie, they sure are hawking the cereal like whoa. Most "movie tie-in" cereals tend to follow a pattern: Generic sweetened corn cereal with marshmallow pieces that may or may not resemble things from the movie. I have to hand it to General Mills, this is TOTALLY not that at all. I mean, LOOK!
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| It's almost like a real breakfast! |
Bold move, making a Chocolate Strawberry Batman cereal. I mean, how is that even a theme? Dark and brooding on the outside, sweet and fruity on the inside? Wait...you know what, never mind. Let's just take a look at the shape: Okay, it's a bat. Very clearly a bat. Covered in cocoa. The scent is of fakey fake strawberry heavily coated in cocoa powder, which is a very distinct scent apart from just chocolate. This is why Cocoa Puffs smell different from Cocoa Krispies (which is hardly Cocoa at all). Anyway, it certainly looks like a Batman Cereal. On to the taste!
It tastes like Cocoa Puffs and Frankenberry had a brooding angsty love child before they both got shot exiting a theater. It is just BIZARRE how these flavors blend. Mix Strawberry and Chocolate Quik together and you will get some semblance of this flavor. The cocoa portion is almost overwhelming, and yet the strawberry manages to punch its way through to your taste buds. The fact that the cocoa flavor seems to be delivered by copious amounts of cocoa dust only adds to the Quik-ish experience. It's not a bad flavor really, it is just so unlike anything I was expecting from a goddamn Batman cereal.
On the FACE Rating System, I give this 1 smiley face. I don't love it, but I find myself enjoying the novelty of the flavor and mouth feel, even if it isn't particularly "nice". It's just unlike any other cereal I've ever had, and that intrigues me to no end. It is vengeance! It is the Night! IT! IS! BATMAN CEREAL!
Next time, we look at the (in theory) brighter, shinier counterpart...
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