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Tereglith

[Review + comparisons] 76031 The Hulkbuster Smash

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When we first saw the pictures, I thought that the Age of Ultron lineup was pretty uninspiring, with one big exception - the Hulkbuster! Even if the set didn't look great, the suit's been the centerpiece of the AoU advertising. It was up to Lego to do it up right, but I couldn't really tell from the pictures whether they'd delivered.

When the set went up on Amazon for roughly 48 hours a couple days ago, I zipped right in to buy it, and a couple days later it arrived at my door. Now that I have it in my hands, I like it way better than I thought I would!

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The box has sort of weird dimensions - more square than most sets its size. It showcases the major aspects of the set quite well, and has that lovely Marvel dark red as its main color. It feels a little light for its size, and the reason for that is soon clear.

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The build is divided into three bags, and for the most part they're waaay too empty for their large sizes. You also get a bag with the Hulk in it, a single instruction booklet, and an underwhelming little comic book of the type we've all gotten used to, plus a sticker sheet with the two decorations for the hexagon flags. (I didn't apply these stickers because I might want to use those pieces for something else someday without the stickers on them.)

16462749189_535181dca9_c.jpgBag 1 pieces by Tereglith, on Flickr

The incredibly empty first bag nevertheless has some huge pieces in it, making up the little cage for the Hulk. Of particular interest are the 45 degree angle pieces, the grey hexagonal flags, the clear pole that holds up Scarlet Witch, and the Galaxy Squad trans-blue sword pieces she uses as magic. (There's also a little cameo from my swiss army knife in the corner, kept on hand to snip open bags and such).

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Here's the finished contents of Bag 1. Scarlet Witch hovers above the cage on the clear pole which is mounted on a frictionless pin. When using the super jumper you can have Iron Man fly up and knock her down, but I neglected to use this figure because a) it's pretty lame and b) I've heard the super jumper can damage the legs of figures.

16648904135_2fe1b36119_c.jpgBag 2 pieces by Tereglith, on Flickr

Bag 2 has a more substantive piece count. The most interesting bits here are the three trans-blue skeleton arms (one extra!) and, of course, the Hulkbuster head. I know many people dislike the use of CCBS pieces in system sets, but they kept it to a minimum here - there are only 4 CCBS pieces in the whole thing, forming the suit's upper arms.

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Bag 2 builds us a big ol' torso, and there's a few pieces left over as well.

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Bag 3 finishes things off with the arms and legs, and the pieces here are perhaps the most mundane. Plenty of brackets, though. This is also where we get the final minifigure of the set, the Ultron drone/avatar/thing.

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And here's the whole thing! The Hulkbuster is the obvious star, and the perfunctory little cage thing can't help but be shoved off to the back when trying to photograph it. It's probably a bit too large compared to the Hulk bigfig, but until we see more shots of them together than we get in the trailers it's hard to be sure. What is clear is that the Hulkbuster suit is definitely larger than the Hulk, so at least it's qualitatively accurate, if not quantitatively.

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The figure selection is great - we have a new Iron Man suit, the new, Ruffalo-y Hulk with his techno-pants, the lovely Scarlet Witch (who shares her angry face with DC winter's Supergirl figure), and an Ultron who could pass for the comics version with its red mouth.

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The three normal minifigures are endowed with double faces. Ultron has a closed-mouth face that also functions as the back of his head in his main configuration. Scarlet Witch has a generic female face without creepy red eyes. And Tony has the normal double-sided head we've all gotten used to him having.

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The three of them also have nice back-printing. Scarlet Witch's skirt rides up onto the back of her torso, so it'll be tough to use the torso separate from the printed legs if you care about little details like that.

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The Hulk is the real star! With his new Olive Green skin, comic-book-style purple pants with Avengers printing, and mussier hair, he looks great and very accurate to his appearance in the new movie.

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Here he is compared to the old Hulk, who looks positively comic-booky now. The long hair on the old hulk is much closer to how the character appeared in the 2008 version with Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. As you can see, the entire face print has been redone to evoke Mark Ruffalo's version of the character. Needless to say, the olive green is far more accurate to the movie version than the old figure's bright green.

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From behind, the differences in the molding are much more apparent, particularly the seam across the new Hulk's back. This is not separable by the consumer, so I assume it's to aid in the manufacture of future bigfigs who have the same buff physique as the Hulk but a different head.

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The Iron Man Suit is familiar-looking. Round arc reactor, gold and silver highlights. It looks good, but you'd be hard-pressed to tell it from some past versions of the figure at a glance. The only substantive change is the new printing of lines on the helmet, which are very sharply printed and look good.

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Mama suit and baby suit! Note how the Hulkbuster's hips are mounted on axles that extended a couple studs further than they need to. This actually aids in posability, as you can widen the suit's hips as necessary.

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Yo dawg, I heard you like suits, so we put a suit in your suit so you can fight villains while you fight villains. I... what's that? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm being told that 2007 is calling me asking for their Xzibit meme back.

Anyway, this fold-open feature isn't strictly necessary, since the Iron Man figure can be slotted into his spot just be lifting up the head, but it does look pretty cool to raise the chest up and encase the smaller suit.

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Not too bad a likeness! If anything, the figure's head is too large in relation to the Hulkbuster suit around it, which seems like a discrepancy until you remember than the Iron Man minifigure itself has a notoriously oversized head.

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And here it is in all its glory. The print on the new dome piece is spot-on. It really sells the appearance of the Hulkbuster suit.

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The side profile is pretty good, dominated by that beefy gorilla arm.

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As in many official Lego models, the back gets short shrift, though the inclusion of directable rear thrusters is nice and really helps the appearance of the back of the torso.

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It poses quite well. Here, for example, it might be reeling from a punch delivered by the Hulk. It's also showing off that the bottoms of its feet have integrated trans-blue cylinders to indicate its ability to fly.

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Remember what I said earlier about the extended hip axles allowing for better poseability? Here's where that really comes into play. By pulling the right hip all the way out to its greatest extent, you can recreate Iron Man's most famous pose: the three-point landing!

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And here it is winding up to throw a punch. With shoulders, elbows, fingers, hips, knees, and ankles, really the only point of articulation that's lacking is the ability to turn at the waist and neck. Unfortunately, these are biggies, since they're the junctures that determine the action lines of a pose. The Hulkbuster can only direct its action dead-ahead. Still, it's not too big a detriment to its poseability

Comparisons

So how does the Hulkbuster stack up to some other Lego mechs?

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Well, it's just a wee bit smaller than Metalbeard. No wrist-mounted attack shark either. This would definitely be a fight worth watching.

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And the poor Hulkbuster doesn't stand a chance against my modified version of Lex Luthor's power armor! Seems that the poor buster doesn't have many things its own size to hang out with...

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Aww, that's more like it. They're the exact same height! This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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Until Hulk comes in and smashes it, that is...

Final Opinion

When the first pictures came out, I was skeptical - the Hulkbuster looked like a bit of a mish-mash, and too big for its own good. But now that I've built it and held it, I have a great appreciation for what the designers managed to do. They packed a ton of detail and articulation into one of the smallest Lego mechs yet, and the end result is really slick. And when it comes with three great figures and an awesome new version of the Hulk too? Well, that's just icing on the cake. (The weird little cage thing is irrelevant, as always). I give it a 9/10.

Thanks for reading!

Edited by Tereglith

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Thank you for the review!

It's interesting how the Hulkbuster suit is the same size as Groot, both of them are oversized to be with the rest of their Lego Marvel companions.

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Thank you for the review!

It's interesting how the Hulkbuster suit is the same size as Groot, both of them are oversized to be with the rest of their Lego Marvel companions.

Yeah, it really emphasizes how oversized Groot is. From the looks of things in the trailer, the Hulkbuster suit is probably somewhere around 14 feet tall, compared to the Hulk's 8 or 9 feet. Groot is no taller than 8 feet most of the time, so it's pretty ridiculous that he's the same height as something that's oversized to be nearly twice his height.

I can forgive Groot a little though because he is in scale with the also-oversized Rocket :classic:

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Tereglith, wow! Thank you for your review. I didn't know that the Hulkbuster is so poseable. The minifigures assortment is equally excellent. I am looking forward to get mine too. :wub:

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tereglith,

Thanks for comparing the various mechs, and for getting pictures of all the parts laid out neatly. You've done some nice upgrades on Lex's power suit.

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Thanks for the review and great pics. This looks like a great set which I will now be picking up. Ultran is really cool and who can't use a 14th Iron Man?

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Thanks for the great review, I love how its posed for the first image, I will try something like that for the moc I'm planning.

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Great review :classic:

The set looks amazing and I can't wait to get it. Sadly it didn't appear on any European "section" of Lego set. There are all of them, except this and the "Hydra Fortress".

Btw as soon as I have the chance the Hulkbuster will be a "must buy" for me :classic:

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So it seems you really can't find this set anywhere, it's sold out EVERYWHERE even on the Lego shop. Good thing I am saving buying the Avengers sets for later.

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So it seems you really can't find this set anywhere, it's sold out EVERYWHERE even on the Lego shop. Good thing I am saving buying the Avengers sets for later.

In Europe they are still available but I gave a look at US site and even the Quinjet is on backorder. It seems in the USA those sets had the "Slave I effect", they sell very fast.

In my country they didn't even make into the daily best selling sets. People here are buying the new pirate sets more than the wonderful Avengers sets. I'm very puzzled :classic:

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This set is sold out in hk .........

I suppose it's just "backordered". It is happening everywhere but luckily restock time seems very short: about 3 days according to what I read on Lego shop site :classic:

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I suppose it's just "backordered". It is happening everywhere but luckily restock time seems very short: about 3 days according to what I read on Lego shop site :classic:

Restock here today in department store and quickly sold out again......

I still remember everyone was complaining about the bad look of the hulkbuster.......

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Restock here today in department store and quickly sold out again......

I still remember everyone was complaining about the bad look of the hulkbuster.......

Well as long as they plan to restock it is not "sold out" and if you place an order they will send you one when it's back in stock, of course :classic:

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Well as long as they plan to restock it is not "sold out" and if you place an order they will send you one when it's back in stock, of course :classic:

Nice, just ordered 2 more. 1 additional for me for moc and 1 for my friend. :grin:

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Nice, just ordered 2 more. 1 additional for me for moc and 1 for my friend. :grin:

Usually they restock faster than they say on site. Here in Europe they say restock time it's just a couple of days. I suppose they have more stocks on their way to the warehouses :classic:

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That's why I need another pack !!!

OMG

It would be nice if someone would share the instruction on how to shorten the height of the HB like the one in the pic!

Edited by wilson3a10

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Just thought I'd add an addendum about the relative sizes of the Hulkbuster vs. the Hulk - in the new trailer that came out today, we see our most direct comparison yet between their sizes, and it shows that the Hulkbuster's legs alone are very nearly the same length as the Hulk's body when he's in a hunched-over pose similar to the bigfigs. The Hulkbuster is indeed nearly twice the size of the Hulk, making the Lego version only slightly too large to be in scale.

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Great review and I especially love the posing you used in your picture. It really brings some life to the set.

Am I the only one that intensely dislikes this new Hulk? I know they were going for movie accuracy, but it just doesn't look right to me. The older version just looks so much better in my opinion. Much closer to the comics, which is obviously my preferred look for the character.

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Just thought I'd add an addendum about the relative sizes of the Hulkbuster vs. the Hulk - in the new trailer that came out today, we see our most direct comparison yet between their sizes, and it shows that the Hulkbuster's legs alone are very nearly the same length as the Hulk's body when he's in a hunched-over pose similar to the bigfigs. The Hulkbuster is indeed nearly twice the size of the Hulk, making the Lego version only slightly too large to be in scale.

I'll build the set very soon but from what I saw I don't have issues with the Hulkbuster's size. Even if it is a bit off scale it still looks a very nice set, in my opinion.

Beside like you said the Hulkbusters really looks "twice the size of the Hulk" so the inaccuracy is not that bad :classic:

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