Remember when ordering “Superman” ice cream meant that you were:
1) Between the ages of four and ten years old.
2) Going to get a scoop of generic red/blue/yellow ice cream that tasted like tooty-fruity vanilla?
Those days are long over! Since America’s officially comic book crazy right now, you can get your hands on superhero-themed anything — shirts, binders, socks, gummies. Just name it! Up until now, though, there hasn’t been an officially licensed superhero-themed ice cream.
Rising to duty’s call, Edy’s/Dreyer’s has partnered with DC Comics to come up with not one, not two, but THREE official DC-inspired ice creams, just in time to save civilians everywhere from the sweltering summer heat!
Edy’s/Dreyer’s decided to represent DC Comics’s three most iconic superheroes with their light ice cream offerings: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Aquaman, being the least popular of the Super Friends, wasn’t good enough to make the cut, I suppose. In any case, I decided to try all three flavors.
Krypton Cookie Dough
After removing the lid from this Superman-inspired ice cream, I realized that this is a far cry from the Superman ice cream that I remember eating as a kid. Instead of using an eye-catching rainbow swirl, Edy’s/Dreyer’s went in the exact opposite direction by making this quart a single boring shade of vanilla, with a few pale chunks to break up the monotony.
What’s the deal with everyone being so scared of color? It seems like everything that I’ve bought lately has just had the color bleached out of it. Would putting a little more dye into the mix-ins really cost Edy’s/Dreyer’s that much more money?
The taste of this stuff is about as plain as it looks. Unlike its tooty-fruity step-brother, this Superman ice cream is the kind of vanilla that only works well as a canvas for crazy swirls and jam-packed mix-ins. The problem is, this flavor doesn’t have either of those things. The blue sprinkles don’t taste any different from the ice cream’s base, and the red and yellow cookie dough pieces are so sparse that I only found three of them in my entire bowl.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts (1/2 cup): 120 calories, 3 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 14 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein)
Dark Knight Brownie Bite
I gotta say that this Batman-inspired flavor surprised me. Upon first glance, it may not be the prettiest ice cream ever, but it more than makes up for its lack of visual appeal in taste.
Digging in, it’s got that soft, whipped texture that pretty much all light ice creams have, and it actually works pretty well here. It keeps the chocolate from being too dense and heavy, and the overall effect makes the ice cream feel like a sort of frozen chocolate mousse or something. The downside to that is that the ice cream melts pretty fast, but I found myself not really minding too much.
Edy’s/Dreyer’s decided to get creative with the chunks in this flavor by shaping them into miniature bats. They’re cute, and they give a nice crunch to the base. There still aren’t nearly enough brownie pieces, but the ones that I could find were pretty yummy, and they reminded me of frozen Cosmic Brownies. The fudge swirl is nearly absent, but I found that the brownie chunks and the chocolate bats were enough to keep my taste buds entertained.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts (1/2 cup): 130 calories, 3.5 grams of total fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein)
Golden Lasso Twirl
Last up is an ice cream designed for the ladies!
Honestly, this one doesn’t look too different from Krypton Cookie Dough. The base is a little tanner, and the chunks changed color from blue to gold, but that’s about it. Chowing down, it doesn’t really even taste much different from Krypton Cookie Dough, either. The ice cream is almost identical, using the same plain ol’ vanilla to showcase the mix-ins and swirl.
Most of the caramel flavor comes from the chunks. There’s plenty of chunks to go around here, but I don’t think that they’re enough to carry the caramel flavor by themselves. The graham cracker “swirl” is similarly plentiful and tasty, but I don’t know that I’d really call it a swirl. In my opinion, swirls are supposed to be somewhere in-between gooey and semisolid, and these are definitely solid graham cracker pieces.
I’m a sucker for anything with graham crackers, so this was probably my favorite of the three, and I wouldn’t mind buying this flavor again. Next time, I’ll just make sure to buy extra caramel sauce to put on top.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts (1/2 cup): 130 calories, 4.5 grams of total fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 15 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein)
Overall, I feel that all three DC-inspired ice creams were pretty standard for something that would come from Edy’s/Dreyer’s light offerings. No single flavor was spectacular, and all of them had points that they could improve on, but the packaging on them is fun, and any of the flavors would make for a cheap and yummy way to cool off on a hot day. Besides, what kid wouldn’t love getting to eat superhero-themed ice cream?
Now, if only Marvel would team up with Breyer’s to make Avenger-inspired flavors!
Purchased Price: $3.00 (on sale)
Size: 1.5 quarts
Purchased at: Kroger
Pros: Super-fun art on the carton. Cheap and yummy way to cool off on a hot day. Fun mix-ins. Official, licensed, superhero-inspired flavors.
Cons: Not as visually appealing as generic “Superman” ice cream. Not enough mix-ins overall. Missing swirls. Nothing all that unique taste-wise from Edy’s/Dreyer’s other light ice cream offerings.