REVIEW | 80028 The Bone Demon

[VBBN]

Set Name: The Bone Demon
Set Number: 80028
Price: US $119.99 | CAN $ | UK £
Pieces: 1375
Year of release: 2021

Hello, and welcome to the continuation of 2021 in Review! Today we will be look at The Bone Demon, part of one of the latest waves of Monkie Kid to be released. Over the course of 2021, I have had the great chance to review some truly impressive, large-scale display focused LEGO sets. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to mess around with a play-focused set though, so I was really excited to dive in and check out this intriguing entry into the Monkie Kid series.

I’ll begin with a disclaimer that I haven’t consumed any media surrounding this theme. I’m sure there are features, references, etc that will fly right over my head – let me know if there’s anything interesting to know when it comes to this set. As well, this set was provide by Lego for us to review, but as always the opinion in this review are my own, and my focus is always to show you the set as best I can for you to decide for yourself what features you like or dislike.

Box

Like most Lego action themes, the front of the box does a good job of showcasing the large amount of content packed into the box. It’s certainly bold and will easily capture attention on store shelves. Note the “Glows in the Dark” logo – if you haven’t caught on, this set has glow in the dark parts. A lot of them. 76 of them!

 

The back of the box showcases the other main gimmick of this set. Indeed, this set is actually quite a variety of smaller builds that can be combined into one larger build. As a fan of combining Transformers and the like, this was one of the most intriguing aspects of the set for me. How well does it work? Considering we are still at the box phase of this review, I have no idea, but I am sure we’ll find out shortly.

 

Instructions and Stickers

Like many large scaled sets, the instructions and other thin goods of the set are packaged up in plastic wrap. Unfortunately though, there’s no cardboard sleeve or any other supporting material here. Mine was rolled up as a result. Not enough to damage the stickers, but enough to be an annoyance for a product that costs over $100. 

The set includes a medium sized sticker sheet (with clear backed stickers). I prefer clear backs, as long as you use a good set of crafting tweezers then you can apply these without much fuss and they look far better on the finished set. (It’s especially appreciated here as when applied to a glow in the dark piece, the glow can still be seen through the sticker.) It also includes a soft vinyl set of banners. These have a nice metallic sheen and feel pretty durable.

The set also includes three instruction booklets. To make this review nicer to follow, we will not follow the order given in the instructions as it’s a little all over the place. But, you know, family building and whatnot. 

New / Interesting Parts:

Here’s the parts of interest I noticed. With the endless amounts of elements released now & the fact that this set was released a few months ago), this may not be everything, but it’s definitely the highlights for me. We get 4 chains in trans light blue (exclusive to this set), as well as a smattering of different GITD pieces. 

Minifigures
Monkie Kid

Here we have Monkie Kid himself. This version includes his headphones and closed jacket. Back printing and alternate face sculpt also pictured. Overall, I do dig this figure, it has a great amount of detail and is pretty striking, though I assume if you collect the entire MK line that you’re going to end up with quite the stack of MK variations. 

The set includes another size of The Golden Staff that can be held by the minifigure, built out of candlestick pieces. This works pretty well, though it’s worth noting that it does cause the figure to be pretty unbalanced, so you’ll need to ensure he’s mounted to some studs if you plan to pose this.

 

Mei

Here we have Mei, who includes an alternate face sculpt and a sword; she can also be equipped with a helmet, small jetpack, and blaster as an upgraded form. She has another evolution which we will observe momentarily.

Bone Spirits


The Bone Spirits are built identically. Overall, they look pretty cool as far as “hooded, floating creepy guys” go. The real star of these figures is the additional GITD elements that really bring them to life. 

Lady Bone Demon

Lady Bone demon includes the options to swap her out into two different looks. Her hair is a rubbery material, which you can clip a GITD bone into. I must say, this is a truly fantastic looking figure, I love the bone motifs printed here, and especially the molding on the rear of her hairpiece. 

 

Monkey Kid Mech

Next, we will take a look at Monkie Kid’s mech. If you are familiar with the Marvel minifigure mechs, this will be pretty run of the mill. 

Here’s another staff, this time one that can only be held by the mech. As demonstrated above, it can also be mounted to the mech’s back. 

Flipping to the rear of the mech, you can see the technic pin used to mount the staff; there’s also a flexible tail mounted back here. 

There’s some pretty open gaps on the sides of the cockpit, though. The Mixels joints offer a decent range of poseability and stability, though it’s worth noting that the hips sometimes are a little loose and he might fall into a split. 

Cloud Board


The cloud board manages to incorporate some nice shaping. The front disc can rotate, which is helpful for the next feature-

The board can split up, with the main portion of the board used for the mech, while the wings mount to Mei’s jetpack we saw previously. (Note also that her sword can be clipped on to her gun)

Bone Scuttler & Bone Spiders

Moving on, we get to the smallest of the bone constructs in the set. The Bone Scuttler is a simple little build, but looks nice enough.

The Bone Spiders are slightly more substantial. Each features a good range of articulation thanks to the mini balljoints and the hinged front legs. They also have  a cauldron with a GITD bone, two skeleton legs and skull.

Crypt Gate


Okay so I’m not totally sure what this piece of architecture is, but my assumption is it’s an entranceway to the actual Bone Crypt itself. It’s alright. The head looks a bit ridiculous here, and once you remove it, the rest of the gate doesn’t actually integrate with the larger mech build. 

Bone Crypt

The next build we will look at is the “Bone Crypt,” or as I like to call it, the obvious torso in disguise. 

The crypt’s main feature is this tomb-ish build, which can open to reveal the Lady Bone Demon. The entire tomb can also be removed, it’s only held on by a few studs:

It looks decent enough as a hidden torso, but there really isn’t much playability to be seen here outside of the above.

 

Bone Scorpion

Now we get to the best of the smaller builds, the Bone Scorpion!

The scorpion is definitely the most well-developed element of this set. The shaping, coloring, and detailing overall all looks really nice here. It’s a substantial build with some heft. 

The tail is mostly fixed in place, to support the weight of the combined build. The top tip of the tail can move though (and using small ball joints, can fix itself more permanently).

 

The rear of the tail houses most of the GITD pieces for this particular build, as this will serve as the front of the combined form. 

Articulation is pretty good – the mouth-pinches can close and open a little, the arms have shoulder, elbow, wrist rotation, claws, as well as the tip of the tail and two small pincers up there. The frontmost of it’s legs can also move, through the rear four are static (for support purposes). 

Swords

At some point you also build these two swords for the combined mech. They don’t really store anywhere, it would have been nice if they had found way to integrate these into the crypt or crypt gate. 

The Bone Demon
Before we discuss the combined form, I’m going to attempt to describe the combination process as concisely as I can:
-Flipping up the legs of the Bone Spiders
-Removing the head from the entrance
-Removing the banners from the crypt and reattaching them further back. 
-Folding in the ribcage and flipping the collarbones down
-Removing the arms from the Scorpion, locking the upper tail segment, flipping the frontmost legs upward
-Adding the Scuttler onto the Scorpion’s tail, plugging the torso onto the tail, adding the arms, plugging the Spiders to the shoulders, adding the swords, and the head. 

The Bone Demon is a seriously unique and cool looking set. All of the components come together in a very cohesive final look.  

It’s also extremely stable. While it’s lower body has some unique curvature, ultimately it’s a stable base and the weight is centered, so there’s no worries about this toppling over. 

The back is the definitely the roughest view of all. It’s still decently armored, though the scorpion’s face is basically, it’s, uh, tail? 

Articulation is alright. The arms are the best part, having hinged shoulders, elbows, rotating wrists, and articulated fingers. His body can rotate at the waist, and that’s about it. Unfortunately, the head is clipped on by a single piece, so it has no articulation (tilting it up just results in it falling back down instantly due to the weight). 

Complete Set

SCORE

9 PARTS
In my opinion, there’s a lot of good stuff to be had here. Obviously the main draw of this set from a parts perspective is the generous amount of GITD elements that you get – but you also get a good amount of function ball joint elements, some large action figure pieces, a decent selection of minifigures, and a varied yet consistent selection of parts overall.

9 VALUE FOR MONEY 
I had to rate this pretty high. Keep in mind, my perspective is from the point of view of USD value – I know exchange rates are not always used equally when it comes to this set’s cost in other countries, so do share your thoughts on value in the comments. But for $120, this set does sit comfortably on the “price per part” ratio at 1375 pieces, if you value sets in this manner. What truly delivers this sets value is in the amount of stuff you get. The hero minifigures feature numerous playability aspects and abilities to combine with their respective larger builds. Many of the bone-based constructs serve as either small set pieces or creatures in their own right. They also all combine, a fun feature within itself, into a mech that has a good amount of poseability and stability. Not to mention, the finished set is quite impressive in size for a $120 set in 2021, and you of course have the added experience of having the “conflict in a box,” typical of most Lego action themes. With that in mind, I believe this set truly maintain a great value for the sheer amount of stuff & playability you get for the price, especially relative to other sets in such price range. 

7 BUILDING EXPERIENCE
The mech is pretty standard fare, and given the amount of smaller builds in the set, you don’t really have too much in the way of innovative building techniques or complex builds, though that is to be expected from as set of this brand. With that said, the best feature of this build is that it never gets repetitive, as you are constantly changing up what you are putting together.  

8.5 FEATURES
Okay so for a set like this, I feel the need to clarify how I rank features vs the next section, playability. Features refers to the actual play features that a set contains. In this case, the play features include the ability to combine the elements into the final mech model, the articulation the various components feature, and any other moving parts/gears/technic function that a set includes (which, in this case, is the small removable crypt-box thing for Lady Bone Demon). With that in mind, I rated this category pretty highly, as there is a great deal of play features in this set. Glowing in the dark is also a pretty cool aspect of the set and it works very well. Ultimately, I can’t think of many technic features that would make sense here, though I was surprised that there was a lack of some kind of launcher/shooter mechanism that is so common in action and adventure sets like these, and quite popular with kids. 

8 PLAYABILITY 
Playability, on the other hand, refers to how well a set will actually handle under play conditions. Is it durable? Is it easy to use the play features? Can it float? Things like that. I rated this set above average; the combination gimmick is relatively easy to do (and easy to remember the steps), very minimal disassembly is required. You can move all of the various points of articulation without fear of breaking the limbs off or knocking off other pieces. The set is also stable despite its odd proportions. A few detriments include the Bone Spider’s cauldrons (the bone pieces inside of those will be lost very easily as they have no true way of staying in), and pieces on the ribcage have a tendency to break off while manipulating the figure. The GITD pieces seem to pick up light pretty easily – I’d recommend using a UV light as it charges the pieces up more intensely and instantly, but my studio lighting also charged them up well. They do lose their glow relatively quickly, though.

5 DISPLAYABILITY
This one will always be up to your own personal preference. As a completed, combined model the Bone Demon is a pretty cool and striking piece, and paired with the GITD features it could look quite nice on a shelf (plus it has size in its favor as well). I think it would be tough to display all of the individual components of the set though, as many of them are limited in the dynamic poses they could do, and some elements like the Bone Crypt are lackluster in appearance and quite clearly just the torso in some disguise. So, this set gets about half points for me

CONCLUSION
Overall, this set score about a 77.5% after I reviewed my rankings above, which of course is closer to 80 than it is 70. I think that feels right: this isn’t an absolute all-star set that will blow you away in every regard, but it’s a set that managed to pack a lot of content and playability into one package for a pretty decent playset-based price. It was a fun entrance to the Monkie Kid lineup, and I personally feel that this is enough to be a fun set in it’s own right without requiring any other sets from the theme to enjoy it. 
 

[Lyichir]

Good review!

Regarding storage for the swords, some of the alternate pictures of the set show that they can be rested on the back of the crypt section (with the blades resting between the Technic connectors and large curved slopes, and the crossguards sort of hanging on the Technic angle connectors). It's not the most polished storage solution, but it does get them out of the way if you have the mech separated or just want it to fight bare-handed.

[Pchan1983]

Great review, I always wanted this but local store not yet going to 20%+ discount yet.  I did buy the minifigs via Bricks & Pieces though.  But the hood isn't available =(

[Lego David]

The one Monkie Kid set that I actually ended up buying. No regrets, this set is awesome. 

The build is large and imposing, the amount of GitD elements is insane, the Minifigures are amazing, and the fact that it can split into different smaller builds is just the cherry on top of the cake. 

After a (in my opinion) fairly mediocre year of releases, that seemed to have more focus on the "adult" sets instead of the actual LEGO themes, this set was truly a breath of fresh air for me. 

10/10 set for me, might be the best of the entire Monkie Kid line. 

By the way, @VBBN could we maybe have a couple of pictures comparing this with the Monkey King Warrior Mech? I didn't get that one, and I am really curious about which might be the better set. 

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Great review, I like the construction technique of the bone robot!

Amazing minifigures!

[neithan]

As other mentioned: great review!

 

Have this set myself, the Demon is standing next to the Monkey King Mech and the Bull Demon - it really is a great trio!

[Jim]

This set is quite special. Thanks for doing this review. Was interesting to find out a bit more about this theme.

[Feuer Zug]

Excellent review. The set is quite a piece. All the glow in the dark gives it an interesting presence. Might actually take a look at this one.

[Lady Bone Demon]

My favorite set (so far)- I mean that comes as no surprise given my username, but it's such an absurdly good set. I love the elements of deconstruction, reconstruction, glow in the dark, the sheer size of the thing... it really feels like a massive undertaking with the side builds that pepper it even when everything is combined together. Just a massive feat in engineering from Lego.

[karmajay]

I finally finished building this set. I can say I did not really enjoy building all the smaller sections. I mostly build to display not to play so it actually sat on my desk 3/4 complete for like 6 months until I finally needed to make room so needed to finish it. After building the last small section, putting the parts together to complete the "Bone Demon" was fairly simple. Final Bone Demon looks really good and the minifigs are great also.