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Tereglith

REVIEW: 6869 Quinjet Aerial Battle

  

76 members have voted

  1. 1. How would you rate this set?

    • Terrible, like having your brother try to destroy the world.
      0
    • Pretty Bad, like waking up after seventy years asleep in some ice
      3
    • Average, like not having superpowers, but instead being Scarlet Johansson
      4
    • Pretty Good, like having Agent Coulson save you while buying donuts.
      31
    • Awesome, like being a billionaire genius playboy philanthropist!
      38


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Review Updated!

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Full Set by Tereglith, on Flickr

I was overjoyed when I saw a few Marvel sets on the shelves of my local Wal-Mart (which is usually about a month late to the party with new sets). If they had had the Wolverine or Cosmic Cube Escape sets, I never would have bought this one. I could have waited until they did have the smaller sets, but I felt that I just had to have something more substantial than Captain America all by his lonesome. Was my impulsive buy a good decision? Let's find out...

Statistics

Quinjet Aerial Battle

Set Number: 6869

Piece Count: 735 (Box)

Minifigures: 5

Price: $69.99 USD

Box/Instructions

The box is extremely large, the same size as those of sets twice its piece count, as evidenced by this comparison with the box of the Volkswagen Camper Van, which has a good six hundred more pieces. The front features a bright, kinetic aerial action scene framed in the line's dark Marvel red, and it certainly stands out on a shelf, especially next to the comparatively more somber DC sets. I was able to spot it from halfway down the aisle.

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Box size by Tereglith, on Flickr

The instructions are packaged in the new premium standard first observed in the POTC sets, with sturdy cardboard backing and a plastic sleeve keeping them unsullied (Sorry I couldn't take a picture of this - I had already built it when I decided to do the review). The instructions are divided up into three books - the first one is tiny, and takes you through building the first bag. The second and third books are both standard large size, with the second being longer than the third. Color differentiation is strong and if there were any misprints I didn't notice them. Cap, Thor, and Loki pop up in the top right corner of the page to say hello every so often.

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Instructions by Tereglith, on Flickr

Random Pages:

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First book by Tereglith, on Flickr

The steps are usually fairly complex by today's standards, but you'll never be putting on more than six or seven pieces at a time, and there is the occasional useless 1-part step.

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Second and Third Books by Tereglith, on Flickr

In addition to the instructions we have a large comic, which is rather nicer than the tiny ones I've gotten in my (smaller) DC sets. Still no words, though, and don't expect a riveting story. The back cover and a spread on the inside showcase all of the marvel figures, including Spider-man, Doc Ock, and Iron Fist (!). No Nick Fury to be found anywhere, though.

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Comic by Tereglith, on Flickr

The sticker sheet is fairly substantial, and I think the model looks good with them on, though it would still look fine without them. They're all large and rectangular, which for me made them easy to apply accurately. At the very least I would recommend applying the large S.H.I.E.L.D. stickers, as they add a lot to the look of the plane and are big enough to be easy to put on.

Parts

Pouring out the contents of the box, it seems surprisingly full for its large size. There just aren't too many small parts in this construction, and a lot of big ones. Pieces of note include a wide variety of extremely useful new brackets, a ton of neat trans-blue grille plates, some useful fuselage parts, and a lot of curved slopes. With 735 parts it's well above the 10 cents/piece mark, and a significant number of the pieces are large and useful too. It's not often that a licensed set can be viewed as a good parts pack, but I think this set will be great for plane-builders, with many useful plates, wedges, and curves.

Here's a few of the most easily-gotten-to interesting parts. The new upwards-pointing brackets have been sorely needed for a long time, and they ought to make SNOT building in tight spaces much easier.

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Unique Parts by Tereglith, on Flickr

The trans-light-blue stud is included for comparison with the trans-blue(? I'm not sure exactly what color they are) grille plate. The grille plates look kind of icy and electric, and ought to be useful for all kinds of sci-fi MOCs. There's quite a lot of them in the set, too - 24 by my count.

Minifigures

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Lineup by Tereglith, on Flickr

We get five. In the order we're supposed to build them...

Loki: Neat, but you can get an identical figure in Cosmic Cube Escape, and with the cosmic cube to boot. Because The Avengers focuses on one villain and not a rogue's gallery the designers were sort of forced to overuse him.

Alien General: Identical to the one in Captain America's Avenger Cycle, but good for army-building. I got Cap at the same time, and putting the three aliens together with their vehicles/turret makes for a nice little phalanx.

Black Widow: Lego has consistently had trouble making female minifigures that don't look like Rosie O'Donnell, and Natasha here is no exception. Her black catsuit has the traditional printed curves, and some lines were added on her face to try to make it look thinner, but they just make her look old. Still, the resemblance is there, and the orange hair is neat, though it looks like her hair in Iron Man 2 instead of her hair in The Avengers. It's a laudable effort, but I would have preferred Nick Fury to be the exclusive figure in this set, or at the very least to be another exclusive figure in this set. Five is a little anemic for a $70 flagship.

Iron Man: Undoubtedly the best figure of the set. Also unique, though only on a technicality (check out the arc reactor in Cosmic Cube and this), Tony just looks great in real life. The helmet's size isn't distracting at all, and the shininess of the pearl gold printing and mask look phenomenal. The Tony-face underneath could use a little work, but it's recognizable. And why would you want to have the mask up anyway? The helmet looks excellent down, and I intend to keep it that way for display. The figure is interesting in that it's assembled with repulsor beams built right in - two trans-light-blue-studs on the hands and cylinders on the feet. They look pretty good as repulsors, but really I can take them or leave them. The figure look fine either way.

NERD TIME: This armor works as the Mark III, Mark IV, or Mark VIII armor, while the triangular one only works as Mark VI or Mark VII, so when it comes to acting out scenes from all three movies this one is more versatile.

Thor: Not unique, but still nice, Thor creates a sort of ying-yang with his brother. Green and red, helmet and no helmet, clean shaven and bearded - they are truly opposite in every way! Of all the figures in this set, Thor is probably the one who most resembles his movie counterpart. My only complaint is that Mjolnir is a little underwhelming, but at least it's approximately to scale, which is more than can be said about a lot of Lego weapons.

Four of the figures have back printing and three have alternate expressions:

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Reverse by Tereglith, on Flickr

deskp, ask and ye shall receive. One Black Widow with Dastan's hair coming right up:

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Agent Dastan Romanov by Tereglith, on Flickr

The dark brown is a little too dark to look like the character; however, this same hair appears in regular brown in the "Jungle Guy" CMF, so if you can get ahold of that it might look okay.

After trying this I also had to try some short orange hair. BEHOLD, AGENT NATASHA RONMANOV!

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Agent Ronmanov by Tereglith, on Flickr

It... didn't work out too well.

The build

The build is divided up into five bags. It took me a little under two hours to complete it, with occasional breaks. Let's go!

Bag 1 is the one that I see as the most likely target of pernicious "Single-Bag theft", because it contains a completeable model and an exclusive figure. Here's the contents:

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Bag 1 by Tereglith, on Flickr

It also includes one of the new orange brick separators, which I never had to use during the build, but it's a nice thing to have.

The cockpit is a nice little build all by itself. Check out the brick-built chair!

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Cockpit by Tereglith, on Flickr

Loki's chariot is an odd craft, but it fits in well with the other alien equipment from 6865, the other set I got yesterday (I highly recommend buying them together). It's a simple build, but contains those exciting new brackets!

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Chariot side by Tereglith, on Flickr

After that, Bag 2 creates the bottom of the fuselage, complete with seating area. Bag 3 builds up the fuselage and creates the right wing. Bag 4 makes the left wing and connects the different bits of the top of the fuselage and wings together. Bag five finishes off the top and the wings, and smooths everything out, and you end up with the completed model.

The build is fairly straightforward. It never gets boring, even when the parts you're building are symmetrical (like the wings) and it keeps you interested with fun little features like a fire extinguisher in the cabin or a particularly neat method for a play feature. However, after my last two major builds (the new X-wing and the Volkswagen camper) I felt as though I'd just been given a building lesson. Here, I didn't feel that way. It's a fun built, but not particularly innovative or challenging.

The completed model

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Quinjet diagonal by Tereglith, on Flickr

The model is a sight to behold, looking like a flying tank (no, not like in the A-team movie).

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Quinjet top by Tereglith, on Flickr

Even though it's an airplane and not a mech, it's very poseable. The wingtips, wing fronts, jet engines, and cockpit can be moved around on their hinges to convey different types of flight, from fast and predatory to slow and cautious.

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Quinjet predatory by Tereglith, on Flickr

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Quinjet slow by Tereglith, on Flickr

It rolls quite easily on old-school landing gear (unfortunately non-retractable, but you can't have everything).

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Quinjet Bottom by Tereglith, on Flickr

The model pulls off the balance between bulky and sleek quite well. It's very beefy for an airplane, but it looks aerodynamic enough that it looks as though it could fly. The very large jet engines on the back bolster that impression.

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Quinjet side by Tereglith, on Flickr

The cockpit and upper deck open up smoothly, with the upper deck revealing a nice sitting area with room for two heroes (Cap and Iron Man are best, as Thor's cape gets rumpled). Note the little fire extinguisher. S.H.I.E.L.D. follows FAA regulations!

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Sitting area by Tereglith, on Flickr

But what's this control panel in the sitting area for?

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Control Panel by Tereglith, on Flickr

Well, that's up to the neatest play feature in the set to explain. Here we go...

THE VIDEO WON'T EMBED

SO CLICK ON THIS POEM INSTEAD

It's the adorable SHIELD Drone!

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SHIELD Drone by Tereglith, on Flickr

I'm not exactly sure what the SHIELD Drone does, seeing as it has no weapons or tools of any sort, but I'm sure we'll find out on May 4th. In the mean time, maybe let's just assume it flies around knocking people over? It's a pretty big robot, I bet it could do some damage.

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Agent Coulson, you've changed! by Tereglith, on Flickr

Through the sitting area, we can see how the function works. The landing light presses the peg out of its hole, and the entire assemblage drops down on the two axles at the back.

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Going a little bit further back, we find a trap door on the top of the Jet. This might be a problem for some people, because if you try to have the Avengers do a barrel roll they'll find they've got a huge drop in cabin pressure on their hands, since there's nothing to keep the door from flopping open. It leads down into an empty storage area.

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Storage top by Tereglith, on Flickr

The same storage area can be accessed from a click-hinged door on the back of the jet.

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Storage rear by Tereglith, on Flickr

What's it good for? Well, it can store a nontrivial number of Avengers:

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Chillin' by Tereglith, on Flickr

But it can't really store much else. Big Hulk won't fit in there - not that I own him, but I've seen other people's pictures. More importantly for me, Cap's motorcycle is too big to fit in there. The cycle seems like sort of the perfect thing to put back there, so it's a little disappointing that Lego didn't see fit to make either door big enough to accommodate it.

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My bike's too big again by Tereglith, on Flickr

I'll probably wait until the movie comes out and then MOD that part to contain something from it.

In all this concentration on the Jet, I nearly forgot about Loki's Chariot, but you don't when the model's on your table. It doesn't seem like an afterthought as many smaller enemy vehicles do. It's actually a fairly substantial model on its own, at a little over 5" long stretched out. It shares the same striking aesthetic as the vehicles from the Cap set, which make it stand out from the military look of the Quinjet. The splash of green that Loki's outfit adds only serves to make it pop more.

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Chariot above by Tereglith, on Flickr

The midsection looks a bit spindly sometimes, but when you can't see that part the vehicle is rather intimidating.

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Chariot Front by Tereglith, on Flickr

And when everything's put together, it looks excellent (and is also too big for my makeshift photo studio on my coffee table).

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Full Set by Tereglith, on Flickr

Summary

I suppose ratings are expected? All right, let's go...

Parts: 9/10. The parts are very nice, and there's certainly a lot of them. The new brackets are a big plus, as are all the curved slopes. Still, there's not as many really neat parts as there could be, so only a 9 instead of a 10.

Design: 8/10. The more I look at the jet, the more I like it. It looks just like the Quinjet we've seen in the trailers. However, I'm taking a couple points off for the uselessness of the rear storage compartment, the awkwardness of Loki's chariot from most angles, and the lack of retracting landing gear are in order.

Minifigures: 7/10. Tony, Thor, and Black Widow are great, but the baddies are a little lacking. For me to give the set a ten, Loki would have to have a better face and torso, Black Widow would have to have movie-accurate hair, and the set would either have to add Nick Fury or Hulk/Bruce Banner.

Playability: 10/10. The drone is fun to play with, its play feature is great, the heroes are fun to play with, the poseability of the jet is neat, the jet itself is extremely swooshable and sturdy, you can roll it on its landing gear, things open and close - you get the idea.

Build: 8/10. Fun but unextraordinary.

Price: 9/10. The price is entirely reasonable for the model, but when I pay more than fifty dollars I want to get more than five minifigures (I really want a Nick Fury, goshdarnit!)

Overall: 8.5 rounded up to a 9/10. From the looks of things the Quinjet is going to be an integral part of the movie, but even divorced from the movie tie-in, this is a great model. It's the true center of the LEGO Avengers universe, it's really fun to play with and it looks great. If you have the funds, I definitely advise you to buy it.

And to close us out:

As the Avengers fight bravely outside the Quinjet...

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100_2134 by Tereglith, on Flickr

Edited by Tereglith

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After the exploitive POTC theme I was convinced this line would be as bad...

...but this set is just awesome and would be a stand out set in any theme. Great minifigs, great design, play features for the kids and enough nice little elements (like the brick built pilot seat) to keep everyone happy. Well done Lego!

...oh and the price isnt too bad either

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I would like to see black widow with Dastans hair. if you could get a pic of that it would be great!

preferably both sides of her head.

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Great text review, 'Tereglith'! I can't wait to see the pictures! :classic:

I'm still contemplating on picking this set up. The figures are nice, but I think I'm going to pick-up all the other sets, leaving the only new figure of this set to be Black Widow. Judging from the box, the jet looks nice.

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Thanks for the Black widow hair images, and for the rest of the review!

I think the "Dastan hair" mold is better suited for Avengers Black widow than the current one, once we get Boromir hes hair should work well on her.

I did a little photoshop on one of your image:

vqk7l2.png

Edited by deskp

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Agent Coulson? :laugh: It was Fury who sobered Tony up at the donut shop. :wink:

Despite this little error, this is the rating that I'll have to vote for. The only thing that keeps this set from being outstanding is the minifigs. I'm glad that we get Black Widow and Iron Man's new suit, but Widow certainly could have been done better, and Loki could really use a less generic/boring face. I would have gladly payed a few extra bucks to get Nick Fury and maybe the Hulk with this set as well.

Thanks for the cool review. I shall soon be able to finally get my own hands on this great set!

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Agent Coulson? :laugh: It was Fury who sobered Tony up at the donut shop. :wink:

Coulson has some shenanigans going on while buying donuts @ a gas station.

Its in "A funny thing happened on the way to Thor's hammer"

Edited by deskp

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Thanks for the review! The chariot looks magnificent! It's a very nice stand-alone thing in my opinion. However, the fact that it's manned by a "general" is slightly irritating since if you had this set and the cap set you'd have two generals and only one foot-soldier!

The mini-figures look very nice, though Black Widow's face is really off-putting! As you said, she ends up looking old. Not good. :hmpf_bad:

As for the jet itself, your review does it justice. It looks great! The amount of detail put in is incredible! I like all the control panels and its posability. It looks great! However I think, as you've said, the back door may need some work. I'll be interested to see in the film if the Hulk is supposed to fit in there, 'cos if he is, some moddings gonna be necessary. :laugh:

Great review, the set looks really nice!

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The Quinjet looks really nice. It's got this chunky angular near-future military aesthetic (for want of a better term, hard to describe, but I know what I mean!) you see a lot in movies and video games, but not so much in Lego. Maybe some of the Star Wars sets, but this really has it's own look.

Thanks for the review. A bit pricey for me, but easily the best Avengers set in my opinion.

Edit: With regards to the look I'm talking about I think Aliens (Dropship, APC etc) is probably the best example.

Edited by Ash

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The main cockpit really emphasises how lacklustre some of the recent Star Wars sets have been for detailing.. Compare that to the T6 Shuttle for example, it's worlds apart.

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Nice review! I think I'll skip this set. The plane looks a bit to bulky. Not like anything I'd expect from S.H.E.I.L.D.

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The plane looks a bit to bulky. Not like anything I'd expect from S.H.E.I.L.D.

Well it's not like SHIELD is known for their sleek, aerodynamic, flying vehicles. I'm looking at you Helicarrier and Flying Cars! :laugh:

Edited by Ash

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Thanks for this review 'Tereglith', cool aircraft with cool minifigs. :grin:

Interesting cockpit design, more thought put into this than in quite a few Star Wars space craft. :wink:

A jumbo size box eh ? Film marketing ? :wink:

This is another set on the buy list....at least there is only going to be six Marvel sets this year, it shouldn't break the bank. :blush:

Brick On Review On 'Tereglith'. :classic:

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I would have gladly payed a few extra bucks to get Nick Fury and maybe the Hulk with this set as well.

Same here. My ideal version of this line has this as an 80 dollar set with Hulk and Nick Fury (and a bigger back door), with the $50 price point not wasted on the thrown-together-looking Helicarrier diorama and instead being a down-scaled version of that big baddie vehicle we see at the end of all the trailers. It would be really great to have something bigger for the bad guys, because the entire alien "army" looks pretty pathetic facing off against the Quinjet. As for this...

Agent Coulson? :laugh: It was Fury who sobered Tony up at the donut shop. :wink:

\/ He speaks the truth \/

Coulson has some shenanigans going on while buying donuts @ a gas station.

Its in "A funny thing happened on the way to Thor's hammer"

There's a lot of donuts in the MCU.

Thanks for the review! The chariot looks magnificent! It's a very nice stand-alone thing in my opinion. However, the fact that it's manned by a "general" is slightly irritating since if you had this set and the cap set you'd have two generals and only one foot-soldier!

I'm not exactly certain which is supposed to be which - it might be that there's two footsoldiers and one general. It's not as if it really matters, since even though the figures have two distinct designs, they pretty much look the same. They don't exactly have rank insignias :laugh:

The Quinjet looks really nice. It's got this chunky angular near-future military aesthetic (for want of a better term, hard to describe, but I know what I mean!) you see a lot in movies and video games, but not so much in Lego.

I know what you mean. That aesthetic is all over the place these days (It's really noticeable in, say, the helicopters and shuttles in Avatar), and I agree that this set is the one that best embodies it.

Nice review! I think I'll skip this set. The plane looks a bit to bulky. Not like anything I'd expect from S.H.E.I.L.D.

Maybe not the S.H.E.I.L.D. of the comics, but this is an absolutely fantastic rendering of the ones from the movie:

avengers_ad_1.jpg?width=600

(By the way, check out the plane from Helicarrier Breakout chilling off to the left there.)

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Nice review. I'm looking forward to getting this set, but I'm going to hold off until the LEGO store Hulk promo starts before I buy it. I'll be buying Cap and the Magneto sets first.

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Thanks for this review! I'm surprised the US pricing is so good compared to Canada. Actually, not really :tongue:

The ship is really nice, but the figures are nothing special especially since Iron Man is available in a smaller set, albeit with a different suit.

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This is without a shadow of a doubt my favorite set of the line. This suit is much more versatile than the triangle one, as you said, and Thor is just. :wub:

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Thanks for the review man. I'm really surprised at how well the whole set comes together, but on a side note the adjustable wings aren't doing anything for me and they almost seem a bit floppy. Other than the disappointing black widow mini figure this set is a win. :thumbup:

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Thanks for the review! After looking over the pictures, I had to have it. I ended up ordering it from Target.com, with free shipping and $5 off. I really don't like the Black Widow head, but other than that, this set is pure win.

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Great review. I think this is a great set, probably the best of the marvel line. The Quinjet itself looks to be an accurate rendition of the source material and is a very substantial model. It actually looks to be good value for money which is not something that can be said for a lot of licensed sets. Its perhaps a little disappointing that buyers of this set aren't rewarded with a better exclusive mini-fig than Black Widow but then I think the quality of the model more than makes up for it. I hope to pick this one up fairly soon.

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Thanks for the review! I was eagerly awaiting your pics and now having them I have to admit this set looks like 1) lot of fun 2) a mean war machine exactly how I like it 3) a great collection of lovely figs.

Just the Widow minifig, how were they able to screw this one up so entirely? They have the chance to make a minifig of Scarlett Johannson and come out with this? 5 managers and 2 designers sitting together and agree, yeah, that's great? Puzzling. Hope they not mess up the Jean Grey fig as well..

I will definitely consider this set, but the probable 90€ mark (120$) over here in EU is way too high. Also, no sign of the Super Hero sets anywhere outside the official lego stores yet = no chance for a nicer price..

(By the way, check out the plane from Helicarrier Breakout chilling off to the left there.)

Looks like a Harrier. This is one part I don't understand about the Hulk-set. Called heli carrier but has no jump jet. Very weird.

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Looks like a great set. Like others have said, it begs comparison to Star Wars vehicles and comes out the clear winner. I don't think Black Widow looks that bad - the problem with BW as a character is that she's totally nondescript, a real generic super-femme-fatale, so I'm not surprised her minifig has the same problem. The real letdown for me here is the villains. Bad enough having Loki again, but those alien warriors look absolutely terrible.

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