Joebot

Wow, these look really great so far. That genie is fantastic. The only one I'm not sold on yet is the barbarian / highlander. He seems a little bland. If it really IS supposed to be a Scottish highlander, then why not include a plaid kilt piece, sorta like the grass skirt piece from the Hula Girl?

Of course the workers are underpaid. That's the whole point of offshoring operations like this one. You send the work to another country where you can get thirty cents on the dollar for labor, and you don't have to deal with unions. Every manufacturing company in the world does this exact same thing for the exact same reason -- cheap, underpaid labor. Don't think that just because TLC makes cute little toys that they're not any different.

As I was watching the movie last weekend, I couldn't help but try to come up with possible Lego sets. Couple of ideas: 1) The Hydra submarine 2) Motorcyle chase 3) Red Skull's big, fancy car 4) The train sequence when they capture Professor Zola 5) Prisoner escape when Cap frees all the captured soldiers 6) Red Skull's gigantic plane (I know, that's probably not feasible) As far as mini-figs go, beyond the obvious Cap and Red Skull, some of the Howling Commandoes would be awesome. They get a little short-changed in the movie, unfortunately. They're never referred to as the "Howling Commandoes," and I don't think any of them are even given names!

Yeah, I'm holding out hope for some Fourth World stuff. Darkseid and Kalibak and all the rest of the New Gods would be amazing. That might not be mainstream enough though. I'm also trying to picture how a crystalline Fortress of Solitude might look in Lego form.

I would assume not, since an agreement to make sets based on the upcoming Spidey movie would have to be a separate license with Sony Pictures (the movie studio making that movie). From what the press release said, this new license is specifically with Marvel itself, which grants them access to the comic book likenesses, and movies that are produced by Marvel Studios (Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, etc.). That also likely means no movie-based Fantastic Four or X-Men sets, as those movies were made by Fox. Confusing, huh? Speaking of which (and sorry for derailing the thread a bit) ... did anyone see the new trailer for The Amazing Spider Man? It's another freaking origin story. COME ON! We all know the story by now! Skip it, and get to the good stuff!

That's a solid lineup. I'm curious to see if Nick Fury is comic book-Nick Fury (drawn as a Caucasian), or movie-Nick Fury (portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson). Along with his Mace Windu fig, Jackson could join the exclusive ranks of actors with multiple mini-fig representations from multiple themes. The DC lineup is almost entirely Batman and his rogue gallery. That's a little bit disappointing, since we've already seen all of those characters in the previous Batman theme. I would have liked to see more Superman villains, like Metallo, Brainiac, or Lobo.

When I first read about the larger, buildable figures, I hoped they might be the large characters, like a Sentinel or Galactus. You can probably imagine my disappointment when I saw what the actual buildable figures look like. Sigh ... Seems like a wasted opportunity there. A large, six- or seven-inch tall buildable Sentinel would have been amazing.

There are lots of toy / statue / collectible companies that have licenses with both Marvel and DC. For Lego to do the same is not at all unusual.

Wow, this is really, really great news. I think this is going to be a huge success. TLC has finally figured out that their strongest asset is the humble mini-fig. Hopefully the Marvel / DC sets are decent, but honestly, the appeal of these sets is going to be the figs. I agree with the above poster who said this could end up rivaling the Star Wars license. Marvel and DC both have thousands of characters in their respective catalogs. Now, granted, I don't think we're going to see Squirrel Girl or Detective Chimp in any upcoming sets, but even so, there is a massive depth of material and characters for TLC to mine.

In the confirmation message, I think it said that if you vote a second time, the second vote REPLACES your first vote. So, no ballot-stuffing allowed! The wording of the email is confusing. My first interpretation was that they're going to release an actual SET based around whatever mini-fig wins. But after reading this thread, and seeing where others are interpreting the "set" as being nothing more than a pack of the most popular figs, I'm not so sure.

I would argue that it was a failure in management. It's management's job at any corporation to forsee the impact of change, and to guide the company and their customers through that change as painlessly as possible. In that regard, TLC management was an utter failure. They implemented the color change with no warning, no announcements, no message out to the community at all. Then they seemed totally caught off guard by the fan backlash. It's astonishing really, how short-sighted they were. Did they really expect to slip the color change into production without any customers noticing?!?! It almost seems so. Now, you are probably right in that there weren't any serious financial consequences to the whole fiasco. TLC is still a well-respected brand and a profitable company. Man, I will never forget that initial Lugnet post where somebody first noticed the change and posted pictures of the new shades of grey. That thread EXPLODED. Not good times ....

You think so? It's really hard to tell. I can see horizontal lines on the roof, which I interpreted as the layers of slope bricks. I thought the white splotches were white slope bricks interspersed with the black slope bricks. I dunno, maybe you're right though, and maybe they are black plates with white tiles. The truck has me a little confused about the intended time period of these sets. The first two Winter sets were sorta vague and "timeless," without anything to indicate a specific time or place. They felt kinda Victorian-era, especially with the horse-drawn wagon, but you really could have made them fit in any time period that you wanted. Now, with the inclusion of the truck, that gives the Winter theme a more modern feel. Not saying that's good or bad ... just interesting.

I definitely prefer the roof technique on the new post office. The mix of black and white slope bricks looks great. I might have to retrofit the previous two buildings to match. I was never fond of the Bakery's hodge-podge of slanted plates mixed with slope bricks for the dormers.

No, but that would have been pretty funny. Dave's parents are all-new characters. No problem!! I threw that in there just for you!

My Airport Shuttle ie easily my most prized possession in my Lego collection. I traded a bunch of old Castle sets to some dude on rec.toys.lego back in the Internet olden days to get it, and I've never once regretted that decision. Whenever anyone sees my Lego town for the first time, the monorail is ALWAYS the first thing they comment on. But ... as much as I love my monorail ... I don't see TLC ever bringing them back. At least not in its previous form. The financial reality probably makes that impossible. So, then the question is, let's say that TLC comes out with some slick NEW monorail system that is incompatible with the old system. Is that something that AFOLs would embrace? I'm honestly not sure how I would feel about that.

The figs all look terrific, and it's exciting that these are starting to show up already. However, I am getting a little tired of the orange wrinkle lines on so many of the faces. When used sparingly, they can add some interesting characterization to the faces, but it's almost too much with this series. They're everywhere now. Like on the graduate for example -- it just seems unnecessary and "overdone." The lines around his eyes make him look sorta manic and creepy. And the cheekbones on the Inuit fisherman. Why would he need some starkly defined cheekbones? Does anyone remember when these orange lines started showing up? Was it Series 4? Also, why does the cavewoman have a big scratch on her face? I'm thinking the caveman from Series 1 had to put a beating on her because she burned the wooly mammoth casserole for the hundredth time. Our first evidence of spousal abuse in mini-fig history?

Hey everyone, The next chapter of the Unlikely Society is done and posted. This chapter kicks off a brand-new story arc, where we learn about Fluxington's "Golden Era" of superheroes. It's a little bit talky, with not much action, but I promise that won't last long. I also updated the Cast section of the website. I finally added a page for the "classic" Unlikely Society characters, which I've been meaning to do for ages. I also added a page for the Golden Era heroes, who we'll meet soon. As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!! -Joebot

I tend to agree with you. While there may not be a LEGAL reason why Lego couldn't hold a license with both Marvel and DC ... there would be some compelling MARKETING reasons why they wouldn't want to have both themes running concurrently. It's too much of the same thing at the same time. It's fun to speculate though. The fact that TLC attended an Avengers licensing meeting is very tantalizing ... I mentioned this in another thread on "dream licenses," but in my opinion, an Avengers license makes so much sense for TLC. They seem to have realized that mini-figs of recognizable characters are a HUGE selling point. Marvel has something like 5000 characters in their catalog. It's a perfect fit!

Disney doesn't just own the RIGHTS to Marvel ... they actually own Marvel itself. It really does seem like a natural fit for TLC. In my opinion, a huge part of the appeal to licensed Lego themes are the mini-figs. Everybody loves seeing recognizable characters in mini-fig form. Well, who has more recognizable characters than Marvel??

In my zoo, I've got an elephant, a camel, two ostriches, two polar bears (from the Arctic theme), a bunch of monkeys, parrots, and a reptile house containing snakes, frogs, and an alligator. I've also got a petting zoo with horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and sometime soon (as soon as I get the Mill Raid set) goats. So, you can put together a decent zoo using currently released animals. I tried using the Duplo baby giraffe, which is about the right scale next to a mini-fig, but I just didn't like the way it looked. Some new mini-fig scale lion or tiger molds would be very cool. A Zoo theme is one of those "well, DUH!" ideas that you just can't believe TLC has never produced (outside of Duplo, that is). It would have wide appeal to both boys and girls. It could have a whole range of sets, both large and small. It's a total no-brainer.

I'm in the middle of my 4th or 5th re-read of "A Game of Thrones" (don't have HBO, so haven't see the TV series yet). This is a really nice MOC! I envisioned the cell being a bit smaller though. I always wondered why we don't see more "Song of Ice and Fire"-inspired MOCs. It's a terrific book series. And the heraldry lines up well with TLC's Castle heraldry. Starks: Wolfpack Lannisters: Royal Knights Targaryens: Dragon Knights Baratheons: Forestmen Arryns: Black Falcons

Baseplates are indeed quite rare these days, and I agree that this set would look a lot better with one. This question has popped up a few times lately. Cost cutting seems to be the best guess as to why TLC doesn't use baseplates much anymore. I wouldn't mind it so much if they had a wide variety of baseplates for sale individually. The return of the blue 32x32 plate was much appreciated, but how about tan? White? Maybe brown or gray?

Thanks for the review! I've been curious to see this one reviewed. Unfortunately, my opinion hasn't changed much. It just seems like this set is lacking the detail and the charm that we expect from TLC these days. The overall effect is very empty and sterile. And that bridge?? Ugh.

Iron Man 3 is presumably post-Avengers movie, which means at least 2-3 years away. So, it could still happen. A Marvel license with TLC makes so much sense, and would be so freakin' amazing. Especially if it was an open-ended license with Marvel/Disney, and not with a particular movie studio. The Spidey sets were limited to characters/scenes from the movies because the license was with Sony Pictures, not with Marvel itself. But a licensing deal with Marvel, with full access to the hundreds of different Marvel characters?? Oh man ... As Aanchir noted above, maybe when the Megabloks deal expires. <crosses fingers>

That mini-fig, with her leg warmers and headband and pink boombox, is right out of the '80s. I like to think that she's listening to Kenny Loggins' "Footloose" on her boombox. God help us all when 80's fashion inevitably comes back into style. I wonder if I still have my parachute pants ...