GoldenNinja3000

Super excited for the 2022 MCU sets! I hope we get a good Mighty Thor figure in the Love and Thunder sets. Getting three exclusive minifigures in the Multiverse of Madness set with great prints makes me more hopeful for the quality of minifigures this year. I can't wait until the delayed mechs come out too, and the 18+ Mjolnir rumor sounds kind of awesome, actually. I'm a sucker for display pieces of iconic objects!

Yeah, 9090 pieces seems a lot more believable than 12,000. I'd say that definitely kills all hope of an interior, though. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a small section like the Grand Staircase, but even the Taj Mahal didn't have any interior detail (although that is a 2008 design, to be fair).

I've wanted a LEGO Titanic since I was 8 years old, so I'm really excited for this set. An October 20th release is way sooner than I was expecting, though! I still think $630 is an insane amount of money for this set since I expected it to be $300-400 max, but I'm hoping it's got a nice stand and at least some interior detail like the Grand Staircase for that price and piece count. It's crazy to think that we'll be seeing pictures in about a month!

I'm not a fan of the What If sets because both mechs are pretty bad builds compared to the good $30-40 Hulkbusters we've been getting for years. I like the appearance of the Sakaarian mech and the car transformation is cool, but IMO there's no excuse for such poor arm and leg articulation on both of these mechs. I really hate the limb builds.

Just built Bro Thor's New Asgard! I love the detail in the set but it's kind of smaller than I expected. Usually $20-30 Super Heroes sets are a good value but I feel like this one is overpriced. I love the Korg figure, though.

Iron Monger, Thor's living room, and Arishem are all standout builds this year for me. I don't want an entire wave of 4+ sets, personally. I'd take mediocre builds with more pieces over mediocre builds made of 3 giant molds since at least I can recycle the parts in non-4+ sets.

Yeah, First Flying Lesson is in no way part of the 2018-2020 system. Retail exclusives have often not been shown in the back of manuals and if it was meant to go with the older system instead of the 2021 one wouldn't its manual show it connected to those sets? The modular 8x8 sections (and the annoying grate plates) clearly mark it as part of the 2021 castle, and as someone else pointed out even the door section is the exact same size as the Chamber entrance. I love the exterior of the Flying Lesson but I think the interior is a bit lacking, and since I'm not very happy with the 2021 castle in general I think I'll be doing a bit of modification soon.

2021 being a reboot of the theme is what I was afraid of. I'm hoping it's a one-off anniversary year deal, but it looks like it's not. While I'll gladly get more Hogwarts sets in the 2021 style, I far prefer the 2018-2020 ones since the new exteriors are extremely lacking as others have pointed out. I do want more Goblet of Fire sets, though...

The only reason I haven't ordered from Minifigures Plus yet is because it says they won't ship until February 2022. That seems like a really long wait for a sealed box and the next series would be out by then. I might order from them anyway and still buy random packs in September, but I'd love to find a US seller that will ship in September/October. Edit: Apparently the Minifigures Plus website advertises a mid-September ship date. On Brickset it was February. Not sure why it's different but yeah, that price is unbeatable.

Whoops, okay then. I forgot about Brexit so feel free to disregard my comments. When I've shopped from other retailers in Europe like Brickshop, VAT was excluded from my total purchase price after putting in a US delivery address, although I don't know how the VAT laws in the Netherlands might differ. I certainly wasn't told about any way to reclaim the VAT amount and after the whole import taxes debacle that took weeks to resolve with Minifigure Maddness, I'm probably going to find a different retailer to buy a sealed box from this time. I looked into JB Spielwaren but sadly it seems like they only ship in Europe.

I've bought from them twice before (located in the US) and they have decent prices, but I feel like they're a little scammy for people in North America. They still charge VAT even though it shouldn't apply to US/Canadian buyers, claiming that it's to cover import taxes, but I still had to pay additional import taxes on my last order because the company hadn't covered them. That wouldn't be something to worry about in the UK though and my boxes have always arrived in great condition so I'd say go for it!

Yeah, that box doesn't make any sense to me. I like the little show logos with a couple of the figures but why on earth wouldn't the full lineup be shown on the top of the box like with every other series?

The back of the box says it's 17.5 inches (44.5 cm) tall and 19.5 inches (50 cm) wide. It's honestly not as tall as I expected, although I think that's a good thing since it'll be able to fit in more of my display spaces.

I don't know why Kamala's powers were changed and I'm hoping she still has the stretching in addition to the energy constructs, but it does make her fit in a bit better with Carol and Monica if she's now an energy-based hero as well. I'm glad that we'll presumably get a figure of her with normal arms and some purple Power Bursts but losing the arm stretching annoys me.

I'm honestly surprised at how well this set is being received here. Maybe it's because everyone had low expectations, but even though it's well-designed I still don't understand why a random stack of life-size builds was made. When I heard the D2C would be buildable objects I was hoping for something like the Horcruxes or the founders' objects (although I doubted that would happen because making a stable Sword of Gryffindor would be too difficult). I've just got completely mixed feelings on this set. I'm going to buy it and I really like certain parts of it, but I also intensely dislike other aspects. Part of that is because of the other sets in the theme - why give us a small displayable Hedwig if there's going to be a much better one a year later, and why skip Gringotts when it's so conspicuously absent from last year's Diagon Alley? I like the displayable HP sets LEGO has rolled out so far, but I have to agree with @Clone OPatra about the direction of the theme in general. I don't want half of the sets every year to be display objects. We got the Art mosaics, Fawkes, Harry & Hermione, and now this Hogwarts Icons set in the same year, not to mention the Wizard's Chess and Hogwarts Moments sets which are playable but not at all like regular sets. It's kind of overkill at this point IMO. I'm crossing my fingers for some great Deathly Hallows sets next year but I'm worried we aren't going to get any.

Yeah, I've got mixed feelings on this. It's an incredible piece of LEGO art but it seems like something the Noble Collection would release as a sculpture, and I'd have absolutely no interest in a display piece like this if it wasn't LEGO. Hedwig is amazing but we just got a display model of her last year. The bottles and Snitch are my favorite builds and I like the look of the wand and the books, but building the books seems like it's going to be a major pain in the butt especially since they only exist to provide height for Hedwig's perch. The golden figures are incredible though! I was hoping for Dumbledore but I'm thrilled to see McGonagall and Hagrid here as well. The Chocolate Frog card stand is also very well done. I'll still get this set since I have enough VIP points to get it for free, but this isn't really a Harry Potter D2C I would have ever asked for.

It's awesome to see the full Infinity Gauntlet included but other than that I think this calendar kinda sucks. I like some of the minibuilds like Avengers Tower, but we don't even have the rumored printed tile and the exclusive figures aren't very good. I'll get it when it goes on sale but I really expected more from our first Marvel advent calendar.

Yeah, that was my thinking. Would've been a nice touch if I'm nitpicking but the figure has plenty of accessories and is perfect without them, and those are super common pieces anyway.

Okay, I guess I'll rank them out of 10 since there are some characters that I don't care about but that have fantastic printing (looking at you, Zombie Cap). Captain America (Sam Wilson): 10/10, the best figure in the series for me. He has so much printing that it overwhelms me, but that doesn't make him a bad figure. I love the new wing mold, the new hair mold is awesome even if I don't think it works the best for him, and Redwing looks awesome too. Star-Lord (T'Challa): 10/10, a perfect figure. Love the new (?) hair mold, the new helmet mold, and the Chadwick Boseman face print. Only other thing I could possibly ask for is a couple of pieces for the feet to represent the booster rockets but I've got plenty of extra studs and cylinders to do that with. Zombie Captain America: 10/10, like I said I don't care for the character but the figure looks pretty much perfect and I really like the new shield print. Captain Carter: 9.5/10, this figure is gorgeous and she's one of my most anticipated characters in What If...? The only things holding her back from being a 10 are the potential lack of a mask print and the possibility that her hair is reddish brown in real life and not dark brown. Zombie Hunter Spider-Man: 9.5/10, don't love all the black lines on the suit and I wish he had the plastic cape instead, but the printing is good and I like the new Peter Parker face. White Vision: 9/10, I like the detailing on him but the gold is overkill and too distracting. I also really hate those one-hole capes because they stick straight out from a figure's neck unless they have a hair piece to hold it down at the back. His accessory is much nicer than I expected! Bucky Barnes: 9/10, there's nothing wrong with him but it's just a boring figure. The leg printing is a nice addition but if not for that, this could be a normal minifigure in a set. Loki: 8/10, the figure looks good and I love the face print and hair piece. Throg is a disappointment to me since his head is so ridiculously large and lacks the helmet, but I'm looking forward to seeing what his back printing looks like. The TVA mug is a very nice addition that I wasn't expecting. Gamora with the Blade of Thanos: 7.5/10, she's got good printing but she doesn't look like the show. There's no heavy chest armor there's no new hair piece, there's not even a good build for the sword let alone a new mold. This is the only figure that really could've used a new mold that didn't get one, either for the hair or sword. Monica Rambeau: 6/10, the figure itself is great but she's a useless addition to this series with the worst accessory. A figure like this should not cost the same as a figure like Sam Cap. I didn't expect LEGO to do anything with her legs since her pants were plain black and I love that she got a new hair mold, but she could've used a new mold for the SWORD drone as well since she's so lacking in other areas. Sylvie: 6/10, this figure looks nothing like her. The hair is way too flat and close to the head, her face print is absolute garbage, and IMO unprinted legs are unacceptable in a $5 CMF series even when she's got two new molds. She could've had dual molded black and gunmetal gray legs to represent her boots, or even a bit of hip printing to ease the detailed torso into the plain legs. Alligator Loki should've at least had printing for his horns if not a separate Friends accessory-style piece. Scarlet Witch: 6/10, the new hair mold is terrible and her face print is also bad. I would've taken a printed crown with the Endgame Final Battle hair over this. I don't know why LEGO struggles so much to make good Scarlet Witch figures when they did it five years ago. Give her a decent face, a cloth skirt, and red powers. No Scarlet Witch minifigure has all three and at this point I doubt they ever will. It shouldn't be difficult to make a better hair mold given what was achieved with Sylvie's hair and Thorin's back in 2014, or even Wonder Woman's in 2012. And it really shouldn't be hard to make a little cloth skirt.

What's going on with Peggy's hair? It's pretty clearly dark brown in the computer-generated images but in the "lifestyle" shots it's reddish brown. It better be dark brown when the series is released because reddish brown doesn't look anywhere near as good.

Throg looks really weird and I don't think I like it very much. Alligator Loki is cute but I wish he at least had printed horns. Overall the series is a pretty mixed bag for me - Monica getting a new hair mold is awesome, but I still can't believe you're paying the same price to get her as you are to get Sam Cap. Speaking of which, his wings look amazing! I much prefer the molded Civil War piece to the brick-built Infinity War design, so I love that LEGO found a way to split the difference and have a good-looking thin wing design that still moves. Captain Carter is incredible but I don't understand why her hairpiece and face weren't reused in the Hydra Stomper set. Looks like I'll just have to upgrade her stealth suit figure with a duplicate copy of her CMF figure. Gamora is kinda disappointing to me since she has no new molds. The sword could've used one, her hair could've used one, and she doesn't even have any shoulder armor piece. Loki looks good, Bucky is meh to me since I don't really care about him, and Zombie Cap is a fantastic figure but I don't like zombies so he's not one of my favorites. T'Challa Star-Lord knocks it out of the park, though! That is one perfect figure IMO. Can't wait to get all of these and hopefully improve some past figures too!

I actually made a YouTube video about this! I used the Iron Patriot and War Machine helmets on them, but I didn't love the little inaccuracies so I just kept the 2020 helmets.

Ah, okay. I couldn't remember if Aquaman had come a year later or if the set it was in released at the same time. I still think Peggy will have a new face print though, since reusing the Tonks face in a CMF series would be lazy. Hopefully she has her mask.

I hope Captain Carter has her mask in the CMF. I don't love the face used in the Hydra Stomper set and I highly doubt it would be used in a CMF series since it's not a new print. New prints have appeared in a CMF series and then gone on to be in sets, but I don't think I've ever noticed it happening the other way around. A new hairpiece would be awesome, too!

White Vision looks amazing. I think the face could be better if the stone was blue and he had blue pupils since he doesn't look mean enough to me, but I'm just happy the colors are good. However, this is another figure that I think is overdetailed. There's so much gold on him, way more than in the show, and what was in the show was super pale. I get that LEGO doesn't have a gold color as light as the show, but I still don't get why there are so many gold accents all over his body. I'm glad we're finally getting detailed Marvel figures but to me it feels like there's some kind of issue with every single one because they're so over-the-top compared to any other Marvel minifigure from the last 10 years or they have these little inaccuracies that I can't get past. I hope I like them more when I have them in hand because the series is turning out to be a lot more disappointing than I expected even after the lineup was confirmed.