Alldarker

Yeah, you are probably right on both counts, and perhaps I was thinking too much about that specific set when I claimed that character choices might have been different. Yes, definitely the set which could have and should have featured Fury.

PM sent You're absolutely right of course; although especially movie licensed Lego sets often seem very much based on a certain scene in a movie, it would be very contrary to the spirit of Lego to only allow recreation of that one scene with what you get. For example, I know that my 6866 Wolverine minifig WILL in fact be allowed in the 6869 Quinjet, even though he's not featured in the set . That said, Batman will most certainly NOT be allowed (clash of the licenses would probably cause a rift in the space-time continuum).

I saw the Avengers movie yesterday! And it was good! Perhaps not 'Ironman' or 'Thor' good, but certainly better than Ironman 2. Joss Whedon's touches are unmistakeable, which, as a fan of his work, I can appreciate. I'll not spoil anything but as usual, the Lego sets based on the movie are... less than accurate to the movie . Especially the character choice in the sets is sometimes... surprising. Still, on the whole, most of the 4 sets are recognisable in the movie, most of all the Quinjet, which on the whole is surprisingly accurate.

I saw the movie yesterday, and of all the Avengers Lego sets the Lego Quinjet is definitely the best and most accurate movie representation. Very accurate in almost all aspects, but surprisingly inaccurate in one plot-centric aspect... You'll know what I mean, marcosbessa. I'm guessing that as usual (Prince of Persia, Pirates of the Caribbean) Lego only gets a couple of sneak views at movie models and plotpoints to base their models on. Not a problem for simple character and vehicle-based actionfigures and toys, but Lego sets are usually more 'plot-centered'. I'm sure this will probably explain some of the 'inaccuracies' between movie and Lego sets. Great job anyways on that Quinjet design, though, marcosbessa (I'll be honest, I have yet to build mine )!

Funny thing: I saw the Avengers movie yesterday ( ) and afterwards my wife also said the Quinjet reminded her a lot of the Firefly Class ship. Actually, she was joking that it WAS the Serenity. Without spoiling anything: the Lego version of the Quinjet is very good, and only (very) inaccurate in just a couple of 'interesting' aspects (naming one these aspects would in fact BE spoilerish, though).

No problems, and thanks. I know how annoying unconfirmed rumors can be, but Flump6523 on Brickset was a pretty dependable source (and actually, I think the post in which TC-14 was guessed was indeed removed from that topic).

I find your lack of faith disturbing... Need I say more???

Oops, I see I had my wires crossed. I thought we were talking about the May the Fourth promo fig, which will be TC-14. The blog is about another possible in-box surprise bonus figure, which might well be a new chrome C-3PO. In fact, I certainly hope so!

It's not actually going to be a new gold chrome C-3PO... But rather TC-14, the silver chrome female protocol droid from The Phantom Menace.

Perhaps they tried to write it as an archaic version of "George was here", as in this George...

This set seriously doesn't need many extra minifigs to look good. I guess you can't go wrong with a few extra Stormtroopers, but this set includes most, if not all, the main characters I'd associate with the Death Star. I guess more Death Star Troopers lioke the one included in the new TIE Fighter would be nice, but they're not exactly easy to come by cheaply at the moment.

I've seen previous US store exclusives sold in both Intertoys and Bart Smit here in Holland. When Toys 'R' Us still had stores here, they sometimes had the US TRU exclusives, but nowadays, ToysXL who took over those stores, just plain suck as far as Lego is concerned (and certainly do not have the TRU exclusives). BTW, even S@H exclusives (like the Medieval Market Village) will sometimes find their way into stores like Top1Toys. So I'd say just give it some time. Although personally, I couldn't wait and bought the Y-Wing from S@H...

Also interesting to note: the Death Star Trooper actually has a double sided face. On one side he has the face as seen in the photo, on the other side he has a black visor, comparable to the old Scout Trooper visor (but again with a strap). I have to admit, this set does seem overpriced, but in hand, the difference between this TIE-Fighter and the older versions is pretty obvious: this one is quite a bit larger and heavier. Not sure if that + the extra figures make up for all of the price difference...

Hmm... Gotta admit that Chewbacca actually does look quite good / accurate with those long legs. Not at all as silly as I'd expected.

I think this thread has some more insight into this, but generally, I do indeed think MB has probably lost the 'Amazing Spiderman' license. They've lost licences already, such as Cars and PotC, and I think studio's and marketeers are increasingly interested in the higher quality of designs and products and better known brandname of Lego when it comes to toy licensing for movies. I guess they've seen that MB only catered to kids with their licensed sets, while the Lego brand can also attract an older (and richer!) audience to the licensed products, AND that licenced Lego sets can cater to an additional larger audience who are perhaps not fans of the specific movie which is marketed, but who are fans of Lego. It's funny, I remember that about 5 years ago, Lego said they would be moving away from licensed sets... Looks like that decision has been well and truly reversed.

Wasn't the European release date for the DC sets moved back to May 2012? At least, that's what the October 2011 dealer catalogue pictures showed...

I too have plenty of unopened SW sets... Mostly due to either having them double (and buying a second one at clearance) or just not having enough space to display them. That also means it's the biggest sets which often stay MISB: currently UCS Millennium Falcon, UCS Death Star II, Dropship / AT-OT, 6211 Star Destroyer, 7675 AT-TE, Battle of Endor to name but a few, although I do have quite a few smaller sets MISB as well. I did recently sell a MISB Sandcrawler I had double... Hardly made a dent as far as extra storage space was concerned, though.

*** Now with much smaller pictures: apologies to everyone who saw this review earlier and had to wait for my crazy huge pictures to load!!! *** In recent months I have acquired a renewed interest in the Lego Adventures lines. I guess this does have something to do with being slightly disappointed in the Indiana Jones line and with the IJ sets being too limited to vehicles, in my opinion. I already mentioned acquiring a MISB 7424 Dragon Fortress from the Orient Expedition line for relatively little money, but I still haven’t had the heart to open this rare set yet… However, I also very recently acquired a slightly used but 99,7% complete 5988 Pharaoh’s Forbidden Ruins (also known as The Temple of Anubis) for the princely sum of €27,12 on e-Bay. Not bad at all for an eleven-year-old set containing 710 pieces (minus two gray parrots) and including all figures and instructions! The attraction of this set is obvious: the combination of an Egyptian temple, a hot air balloon and a truck make this the biggest set in the Adventurers Desert theme. However, the set came out in 1998, at a time when Lego wasn’t doing too well financially, and this set probably shows why. Having grown used to stickers in sets, my biggest surprise was to see the sheer amount of printed pieces in this set! It contains about 20 printed pieces, many of them very specific to this set. I can imagine the Lego accountants still shaking in anger at the need to print huge bricks that mostly only ever appeared in just this one set. Building starts with the figures and two palm trees. There are no less than ten figures in the set, including all the major characters in the Adventurers Desert theme (Johnny Thunder, Pharaoh Hotep, Dr. Kilroy, Pippin Read, Lord Sam Sinister, Harry Cane, Slyboot) and including three old style skeletons with loose hanging ball-jointed arms (one shown). I was also glad to see the palm trees are built using the old style tree trunk parts instead of the ugly modern one piece trunks. Truck Next, the instructions tell you to build the truck. It’s quite a big truck, the biggest of all the vehicles in the Adventurers Desert theme. It’s a three-axle flatbed truck with wooden railings and two crates. The cabin is a prefab cabin with steering wheel, stick shift and printed gauges. It is partially enclosed by a roof just high enough to accommodate the figures, which almost all seem to have quite tall hats. The excellent printed windscreen which features in a lot of the wheeled vehicles in this theme is slightly too short to reach the roof, but looks great on the truck. Hot-air balloon Next the instructions tell you to build the hot-air balloon. This too is a very fun and surprisingly detailed vehicle, with a slightly small balloon and a large basket with a barrel containing tools and even a gas cylinder. The basket is able to contain three minifigs easily. I especially like the net across the top of the balloon, which has a surprisingly clever attachment to the balloon. It’s a great vehicle, even in its own right without the rest of the set. The front The next step is the Temple of Anubis itself. The set contains two 32x16 base plates, each of which is built up separately. You start with the façade of the temple. Building is easy, with clear differences between the colours, but the instructions contain no parts boxes per step, so some attention is needed to build the set up correctly (random instruction page shown below). The finished front of the temple is quite high, but very narrow. Judging from the alternative name for this set, the front resembles a jackal: Anubis was the Egyptian jackal god of the dead, and in fact it’s not a terrible likeness. It’s just too bad that it is mostly made with a couple of BURP’s and the huge printed wall pieces (which do look good, however). A nice detail is the small campfire before the temple. What is interesting about this, in my opinion, is the fact that that this whimsical detail contains the only two brown 2x1 plates in the whole set! It is another of those crazy design choices which are good for the set, but not good for accounting. Nowadays, sets rarely contain more than one or two standard colours per brick type or per bag, due to cost restraints. This set however contains quite a few like pieces in several different colours. Especially in the case of this campfire they could easily have (and probably should have) left these brown bricks out, but they didn’t, and I appreciate this detail a lot for that reason. As stated before, this set is usually known as the Pharaoh’s Forbidden Ruins, although the name ruins does not do this set any justice. Discovery Channel showed us that the pyramids and temples were originally painted in vibrant colours. Let me say that the Temple of Anubis has stood the test of time very well! Unlike the hieroglyphics in the Lost Tomb, these seem to be as fresh as the day they were painted. Traps Where this set falls slightly short is perhaps the traps. When entering the temple, you are greeted by two skeletons on either side of the entrance. While inspecting these, there is a chance that one is crushed by falling rocks from a trapdoor in the ceiling, or severed in half by the dropping axe also linked to the trapdoor, but these are quite easily avoided, especially as the drop down axe doesn’t work very well. After avoiding these traps, nothing stands in the way of entering the courtyard or opening Pharaoh Hoteb’s tomb, which has been placed in the right wing of the front of the temple. Climbing a ladder to the second floor, there is also a second trapdoor through which one can fall, but then the way is pretty clear to the treasure chest containing no less than 4 gold pieces. For some strange reason, they are coins with modern numerals, proving that Egyptians were WAY ahead of their time. Jewels or gold artefacts would probably have been a better choice as ancient treasure… The courtyard The second base plate contains the courtyard area of the temple. This area is a lot smaller than the front of the temple, and seems to suit the name ruins slightly better. Showpiece in this area are the two gray crocodile altars, both set with tools useful for performing rituals. This set is in fact the only Lego set ever to contain dark grey crocodiles, another example of the strange choices of the designers of this set (although the colour is quite realistic for some species of crocodiles and alligators). The courtyard also contains a nice scorpion altar, featuring a jewel under a glass dome. Behind this, at the back of the courtyard there is a wall with a skeleton. When you turn the secret wall around, it reveals a magnet which pulls the dome with the jewel from its resting place, and by turning the wall further, hides it behind the wall. It’s an interesting mechanism, but slightly useless (the jewel ends up outside of the temple). On the floor of the courtyard, the real threats to our adventurers are the scorpion and the three snakes crawling around. The courtyard is shaded by one of the two palm trees. Again, for a location which seems to be set outside, the courtyard too has stood the test of time very well. Conclusion This is a great set, with great parts, great vehicles, great figures, an excellent theme for playing with and a fun build. Some points of criticism are needed, though. The courtyard area is structurally a little sparse compared to the front, and construction design is lacking somewhat in the whole building. This set is mostly facade and little else. Secondly, the traps could have been more intricate for such a large set, Thirdly, I would have liked to see a gate or door or even a moving rock as the entrance to the temple, instead of the gaping 8-stud-wide hole the entrance is now. Finally, as in most of the sets in the Adventurers Desert theme, I’d have liked to see a lot more influence of 3,000+ years of sandstorms, grave robbers and general decay on the design of the set. Perhaps if this set had contained a couple of disciples or priests of the ancient pharaoh it would be more believable that the temple is still in such an excellent condition. In that respect, Indiana Jones’ Lost Tomb does a better job of looking somewhat realistic. Speaking of this last set, these two sets just scream out to be combined into an Egyptian temple or pyramid MOC. I think this set shows very nicely how in the past Lego got things very right and also very wrong. Very right in the sense that the set is a great setting for children’s adventures and play. Very wrong as far as business sense is concerned, considering the amount of printed pieces, the huge size of the printed pieces, the uniqueness of the printed pieces, the uniquely coloured pieces and the inclusion of the same pieces in diverse colours. I can imagine this set probably still being used by Lego accountants as an example of bad design choices made back in the late nineties. Not that I’m complaining of course. I love this set, as a great display piece, as a testament to the follies Lego used to make, and lastly, as a source of some excellent and unique pieces! Round up Playability: 10/10 Figures: 10/10 Pieces: 10/10 Design: 7/10 Swooshability / structural soundness: 7/10 Price: 10/10 Overall: 9/10

I have both of the ComicCon figures with card, and although I'd definitely like for them to be as exclusive as you think, I'm gonna have to go with Macoco's reasoning that they are nothing but previews, and that they will be released next year in these exact versions. Although on the other hand, I'm not entirely sure about Green Lantern. The Green Lantern movie happened and didn't make much of an impression, so a sequel might not be forthcoming. And I don't think any specific Green Lantern sets have been announced. Lastly, GL is hardly a well known superhero in Europe, unlike Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman (even I initially though they were talking about a Green Hornet movie when it was first announced). So Green Lantern might get left off the roster...

I can only agree with you in saying that this is one of the very best sets ever developed by Lego. It is perfect in design, perfect in play-ability and perfect in parts: there's simply nothing to fault it on. I am slightly ashamed to say that, yes, I am lucky enough to own this set, but no, it has never been built and it still remains MISB . Many times have I held the box in my hand, looking at its promises and marveling at its size and features. But the lack of space in my room and the backlog of other sets I still need to build sort of hinders me in finally cracking open this set and admiring its glory in real life! Funny thing with the Orient Expedition sets is that they seems to have been an extreme inspiration for the creators of the (later) Playstation 3 game 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves'. The many common ideas in both the Orient Expedition sets and in Uncharted 2 are almost uncanny!

Thanks for the review! I'm extra interested in your review, seeing as I ordered this set this Sunday, and am now waiting for it to arrive. BTW, both the Toys'r'Us price and the S@H price here in the Netherlands (and the rest of Europe?) is currently €99,99 (and not the straight $ to € conversion which you have put in your review). For everyone here in the Netherlands a tip: www.toysrus.nl currently has a 20% reduction(!) for all combined orders worth over €100, which I made good use of for this set.

See the wiki on the term 'canon' right here. In short, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base.

The SDCC Lego Advent Calendar does indeed have 'fancy packaging' along with a limited edition Greg Hyland drawn print. From what I read on FBTB, both the packaging and the print are numbered from 1 to 1000 (same numbers). Anyhow, all the information can be read here on FBTB.net.

Well spotted! I too was expecting the Bat Cave to be the flagship set, but your evidence undoubtedly shows that it will be one of the smaller sets in the first wave. What would be a realistic price breakdown for this first DC Wave? Say five sets: perhaps something like $109.99, $69.99, $34.99, $19.99 and $14.99? I'm really hoping an Arkham Asylum will make a comeback, especially if it's the largest of these sets...

I'm pretty sure the head wasn't pushed on 'properly' by Lego in the first place for some good reasons: probably because it would scrape and damage both the neck AND the head. It would't surprise me if the head won't actually even fit properly on the neck without using brute force™, and finally getting it on would most certainly mean never being able to get it off again (combined with the risk of actually splitting the head). Getting the tolerances right on a cast gold object is probably a lot harder that it is on regular ABS plastic. I'm even guessing that the hollow inside the head might have filled up just slightly with residue molten gold, making it impossible to fit on the neck. I can't imagine Lego had enough budget for these prizes to be able to 'discard' any gold figures due to flaws in the finished product .