BaneShake

This is, hands-down, the greatest X-Men build I have ever seen. I am still picking my jaw up off of the floor.

I've spent the last few days playing an evil playthrough of Infamous: Second Son. I played it first, with Good alignment, a couple of years back, and am now playing through to 100% this one and get the platinum trophy. It's probably just where my mind is currently as compared to back then, but I am appreciating the game more now than I did then.

Got a free Redbox rental, so my wife and I finally got around to watching Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and we had a blast with it. Very excited to see where the next movie goes with it.

Very much so. I find it weird that Superman has had three distinct movie-based figures (counting the SDCC Black Suit, four if you count the dual-molded legs on one of them) compared to two comic variants (one being the Clark Kent 'fig, ignoring the later minifigs using movie heads or hair). Wonder Woman has two movie looks (and only different in brighter colors, and optional hood and cape) to her four comic looks, Batman is somewhere in the range of eight live-action to forty-five trillion comic (not the official number). Even counting Mighty Micros only gets Superman even Movie to Not-Movie figures. Heck, Lex Luthor has one movie-figure to FIVE comic-figures; we have never once gotten a Lex duplicate!

Not entirely unheard of; the last comic-based Justice League lineup was off the shelves in about that period of time. I remember because I had put off buying the Aquaman/Black Manta set for what I assumed was a reasonable amount of time, before suddenly realizing that no one carried it in-store anymore. There is no indication of anything of the sort. Seeing as this is a theme that will be entering year seven of its current form with next year's sets, even though it is a smaller wave than what we have previously gotten, I don't see it ever getting quietly shuffled off with no announcement. If Lego ever decided to cancel it, which does not seem like a current likelihood, we would certainly get some sort of indication from TLG first. This is clearly a franchise they get a lot of mileage out of; we have gotten three new games based on the characters in six years, they have released several direct-to-DVD animated films around it, an entire blockbuster movie with sets that were spun-off into their own theme, another spinoff theme in Super Hero Girls, and several books based around the theme. If it's a powerhouse of a theme, Lego may simple be slowing things down for now so as not to oversaturate their own market. Unless we hear otherwise from a reliable source, there is no reason to worry.

It's beyond me. You'd think, since they've prioritized including him over any leaguer other than Batman, that he'd have gotten an update. Even if TLG was under the impression that only a classic Superman costume will sell (which seems like it would be a weird impression, since other toys sell Superman variants all the time), there is still so much room for improvement with updated printing. They've literally not changed Superman's comic torso since it was first used for the NYCC 2011 figure. Seven years is a long time to have a relatively unchanged licensed figure.

Since this Aquaman makes it clear that TLG will continue to primarily use Rebirth designs as inspiration for the heroes' outfits, it will be interesting to see who else gets a new look in later sets next year. I'm not even going to try and speculate, since we know essentially nothing, but it will be welcome for just about any character, as I mostly love the recent costumes. Except Huntress. I legitimately would be sad if we ever got a Rebirth Huntress instead of a classic Huntress.

After playing around with it, I definitely agree on using the black cowl. The metallic arms matching the color the legs came in looks considerably better than the black arms, especially the way they match the torso printing, so I'm not sure why TLG didn't just do that in the first place. This slightly-modified figure is hands down one of my all-time favorite Batman minifigs now.

Decided to pop Saints Row IV back in, just to work on completing stuff from my save file from a few years back. For anyone not familiar with the series, it is a GTA-type spoof that got more and more over the top with each entry. The original was pretty grounded, although a noticeably sillier game than GTA (also with normal free-aim third person mechanics before GTA adopted them, interestingly enough); the second game introduced huge amounts of customization, and made much of the action and humor more over-the-top than before; the third game broke out into outright zaniness and outlandishness, introducing straight-up science fiction and some truly bonkers humor. The fourth, and final "main game in the series, truly takes the cake; your customized gang-leader is elected president of the US, an alien empire shows up and puts you into what is basically the matrix, and your pals hack it to give you super powers while in the simulation. It's definitely not nearly as high-budget as GTA V, for example, but I absolutely adore these games. What I love about the series is that, despite the rapidly increasing weirdness the series embraced, it also managed to pull off really strong character work and story, especially 2 and IV. 2 was not afraid to show off some darker, more tragic, or more monstrous sides to the characters, reminding you that these gangsters are clearly still doing villainous things. The Third, while not quite as finessed with the story as the previous game, did do a very good job exploring the central concept: have the Saints, moving into more publicly popular arenas, gone through legitimate growth, or are they just losing their soul and becoming more artificial caricatures of themselves? And the fourth game, despite being one of the silliest premises in the entire medium of gaming, is written with remarkable depth. It becomes an outright character study at the same time as it is still a comedy; it tackles themes like how survivor's guilt can change someone, or how a supposed betrayal is far more nuanced than just blaming one side of the problem. It has one of the best-written plots from any game across the entire year, and it came out the same year as The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite! Do try not to attack me too hard, but I'd even go so far as to say that this game's story is better than GTA V's frankly overrated main plot. I highly recommend giving the series a try; read a quick summary of the first game (you'll have to just skip it if you only have playstation, 'cuz it only appeared on Xbox consoles), start with the second, and give the games a whirl. They're truly worth your while.

Me likey! Streamlined, but with plenty of detail.

The lobster revolution shall rise!

I'd far prefer a Baryonix to a Spinosaurus. The way JP3 shilled the Spino a little too hard made it much less desirable to me.

I've had that game on my radar for a while for ps4, but I've not yet picked it up. What are some thoughts you have on it?

Currently playing Superhot. If you haven't seen it, it's very stylized; enemies are red polygonal silhouettes, weapons and items are black, and the environment is white. It's a FPS and time only moves when you do. One shot kills enemies and yourself, but since guns need a split-second before firing again, you have to move frequently. It's almost as much of a puzzle game as it is an action game, and the story has interesting 1984-like overtones without giving you very many details. Highly interesting.

Reread Grant Morrison and Mark Millar's work on The Flash from back in Wally West's time in the winged mask, and I had forgotten just how good (and weird) they could make things. I particularly love how they introduced the Black Flash. Hands down, that grim reaper-esque figure is one of my favorite speedsters out there. My biggest reason for slowing down on new stuff is, mundanely, income. More than a year back, I was making enough to afford comics frequently. My previous job didn't pay terribly well, and my new job will take a little more time before I can afford to do so with regularity again. Apart from that, the biggest hurdle is just how difficult it can be to follow every single thing necessary to see the whole story to play out sometimes. I prefer trade paperbacks, since I like reading stories all at once instead of waiting in between issues, but that can make it really difficult when something like Superman requires you to read A, B, and C of the Superman series, then A and B of Action Comics, THEN the collected Superman event that was published as D and E of Superman and C and D of Action Comics, and, oh yeah, now it's also affecting significant events in Detective Comics even though that's a Batman title. That is the upside to reading them in single issue form; if you read them that way, it's much easier to read them in the right order. Don't get me wrong, I love how comics can be so much more interconnected than any other medium I've seen, but when Volume 1, 2, and 3 of a series is missing necessary context because events happened elsewhere than that series can be infuriating. I've still never been able to find a collection with Knockout's death DESPITE how significant it is to Secret Six, and I have Gail Simone's complete original run of that title.

Funny answers, everybody! Agreed; I had fun finding interesting screenshots to use, so I definitely want to see more of these.

Now I can't unsee it.

That is a fantastic collection!

That Aquaman is fantastic! I definitely agree; Aquaman's movie legs would work great on him. I'm definitely going to have to order some extras at some point.

That's been my suspicion for a while now. Lego does seem to be trying to ramp back the Super Hero lines a little bit now; probably focusing to keep a core line profitable instead of having so many offshoots and indulgences. I'll miss some of the fun that came in with these, but if cutting the multiple spinoffs (SH Girls as well) gives us better focus in the eventual main line's sets, I can forgive it.

My usual place is meeting with a weird guy in a back alley with pictures printed out on one page of a Microsoft Word document, but the other way probably works better. I'm surprised we haven't heard anything of Mighty Micros, if they're continuing on next year. Previous waves we've heard about them plenty ahead of time.

If they do that, I highly suspect this topic will turn into a hundred-strong series of posts just showing again and again.

Fantastic! Which is your current favorite?

I'm glad it's not just me that gets on discussions to enjoy the movies that I like. I like DC movies, and I liked TLJ, and I almost always wind up avoiding discussion boards about either because it just gets unpleasant.

Welcome to Eurobricks! Did you ever get to check out the Imperial Flagship from 2010? That is one of my biggest regrets as far as missed sets go.