HyperOnion

Go for it! The regular Hydra Henchmen is starting to go back up in price, but the Hydra Diver is still pretty cheap. Pop the flippers off, and the goggles/breath mask just make them look like they're part of an elite strike team. But yeah, you sorta need to buy a whole horde, otherwise the heroes WAY outmatch the villains.

Thanks! I think I have JUST enough room to include the Portal Beast. Will definitely update once that set's out and I have a chance to try to work it in.

Lego does about par for the course for toy companies when it comes to superheroines... which is to say, not that good, really. Some of that's source material (the MCU is WAY too dude heavy), but even taking that into account, there's stuff like Black Widow and Gamora only being available in the most expensive sets of their waves, or Maria Hill only ever being released on the Helicarrier. Or the comics based sets also being super dude-heavy--they couldn't find any women to include in the Spider-Men sets besides MJ and Aunt May? It's even worse in the Avengers sets--I'm glad we finally got Captain Marvel, but it's crazy we got Hyperion before She-Hulk, or Wasp, or Mockingbird, or Monica Rambeau, or Jessica Drew, or even Tigra. I know X-Men has licensing issues, but we managed to get Wolverine and Magneto twice, but the only women in a famously woman-heavy franchise is Storm? I guess we technically have Phoenix (and Jessica Drew), but I'm not counting SDCC exclusives... Or going even further--why was the SHIELD agent from the Miles Morales / Carnage set a white dude? Generic characters like that would be a great place to add some more diversity to the line up. Now, things are WAY better with this year's sets--Black Widow and Falcon being in the cheapest Civil War set was great, and I'm psyched we're getting White Tiger and a Spider-Woman (even if it's the weird Ultimate Universe costume that I feel safe in assuming was on the bottom of most people's "Spider-Woman I want" lists...), and hopefully they'll do as well or better going forward. But for the vast majority of the Marvel Superheroes line, if you wanted women characters, you were restricted to a small handful of characters locked in the most expensive sets of their waves, or a few "civilian" characters (Aunt May, or love interest characters like Pepper Potts and MJ). It's not just a Marvel problem either, though--I tried to make Lego versions of both me and my fiance (I've got a little scene of minifigure-us biking, my our cat on the back of my bike, and a basket full of her favorite stuff on hers). However, my fiance is black, and god forbid you try to find a black female minifig head--my options at the time were either some Star Wars alien with purple eyes, or Storm (who had either crazy angry controlling the weather face, or a determined face which... was the closest, but also not a great match for a "we are having fun on bikes" scene). "Black woman smiling" was out of the question, and god forbid I want something exotic like "black woman with glasses smiling". I ended up ordering a custom printed head, which works great, but it was pretty eye opening to how limited Lego diversity is.

Hey everyone! Pretty new here, but just finished building out a giant expansion of 76038. Took me a few months and did it in three steps--for the first, I just bought a second set and added another floor with more Iron Legion launchers. Then, after discovering BrickLink, I sat down and with the POWER OF MY MIND and an excel spreadsheet, I attempted to add four more floors and widen the whole thing by 6 studs. And uh... that was somewhat successful? Ended up with a bunch of extra pieces and a few sections where I was short pieces and was basically very confused during the build what the hell I had planned during the planning stages. Which lead to phase three, me learning to use LDD, and building a finished model (...well... technically there was phase 3.5 when I realized I had exposed studs where I wanted tiles, whoops). Anyway! After a whole lot of work, it's finally done, and I'm pretty happy with it. Apologies in advance for the photo quality--got a tiny New York apartment, so no room to build a real photo set up. Anyway, here we go! OVERVIEW Side views of the full tower, closed. 8 floors, 2 balconies. Aunt May, in her natural habitat--stuck to a wall with webbing, in mortal danger. Also visible: Quicksilver running fast enough to scale a wall, and Spider-Woman (custom). The exposed brick is reserved for one of the Spider-People from the Bridge Battle to stand on, using the new web piece to be saving Aunt May. On the other side, Black Suit Spidey (custom), and some visitors from another world, hanging out and battlin' on the side of the tower. BALCONIES Top balcony, with an attack by Ultron, against the MCU Avengers team. I try to keep only one of each character on display (duplicates and variants are stored on the first two floors), but I made an exception for Ant Man, since I want to have micro, mini, and Giant sized versions all out, and for Spider-Man (who I justify through handwaving that Spider-Verse is happening sooooo sure, buncha Spider-people are out.) So, you can see the microfig Ant Man on the roof taking part in the main defense, and mini-fig Ant Man being overwhelmed by Yellow Jacket behind the drone tower thing. Also back there, but not super visible--Loki, Dr. Doom, and MODOK. An alliance that manipulated Ultron and Hydra into doing the main brunt of the attack? Sure! That's definitely what's going on, and not that I wanted those guys out and didn't have another place to put them really. Lower balcony, with Hydra agents (led by Taskmaster and Crossbones) scaling the walls and overwhelming the SHIELD agents there. Iron Man, War Machine and Nova are providing air support, with Miles swinging down to assist. INTERIORS - FRONT Full tower, open. In addition to hinging open like the original set does, I added the ability to pull out the front section of each floor for floors 1-4. Like a series of drawers, making getting into each floor way easier. Floors 1 & 2 are storage for minifig variants. Each floor can store two trays of sitting / small leg figures, with the top tray storing 25 minifgs, and the bottom fitting 26. So, room for 102 minifigs total. Still have plenty of room for more minifigs, so... eventually will have to add another floor for storage as we get more variants. But hopefully not for a few more years... Floor 3 - Science Labs! Doing Science! are Tony Stark, examining Loki's Staff, Hank Pym working on some micro-scale suits (a display case holding all the micro-figs), two generic scientists doing Flasks near some microscopes and computers, and Pepper trying to figure out what's wrong with this Iron Man (is it that it's a custom, because an authentic SDCC figure is way outside what I can afford? It's probably that). Also present are DUM-E with the suitcase armor at the ready, and a deactivated Dalek ('cause uh... I guess you should study some other killer robots if you want to figure out what's up with Ultron, maybe?). Tools are mounted on the walls and in a stand in the middle of the room. But not on Tony Stark's side of the wall, which is displays and some controls, and oh yeah, a big 'ol sound system. Floor 4 - Item storage. Center table has the Infinity Gems / Stones in display cases (plus the Eye of Sauron and One Ring because ehhh why not), plus helmets. Mounted on the walls are a whole bunch of guns, and the Avengers weapons--Cap's Shield, Thor's Hammer, Hawkeye's Bow, Star Lord's Elemental Pistols, and Rocket Raccoon's big eff-off gun. Also, deactivated Chitauri, Han Solo in Carbonite, The Collector (custom, because again, can't afford the real thing), and Portal 2 items--a modified Turret, Companion Cube and Chell. Shelving unit is two stories, although I don't have anything (except Aladdin's Genie Lamp) to put on the second level. Yet. Floor 5 is the Iron Legion Launchers. Has room for 12 Iron Men. Floor 6 is War Machine Launchers. Room for 9 War Machines. Includes a custom War Machine made out of the Cyberman body since I wanted to have all the windows filled out while still being able to have a War Machine out and about doing stuff in the main display. Don't have a good image of Floor 7 (you can kind of make it out in the image of the lower balcony), but it's Maria Hill and Dum Dum Duggan at some controls INTERIORS - BACK Back rooms of floors 1 & 2 are storage for Big Figs (plus Dr. Octopuses with tentacles). If you ever wonder why I don't want many more Big Fig variants to be released... well, hey, I only have room to store one more. Back Floor 3 is the medical bay, with three of the medical beds from the original set, occupied by The Mandarin, Aldrich Killian, and the Extremis Solider. Tony's just trying to help them get better. Also, the MCU Hydra soldiers I have because I need to hide them somewhere, and sticking them behind the paramedic fig works? Anyway, the medical bay is paired with the science lab in the front. Back Floor 4 is intentionally left blank for now. I'm planning to try to fit the Dr. Strange set into this space, which just counting studs in the released images... I think will work? If I can't get the portal beast in there, all the mystic junk in that set should fill this space out. Either way, Dr. Strange Mystic Junk Storage will pair with the more science-y Storage Room in the front. Also, you can see what it looks like when the floors are pulled out of the main building. Also, you can see the cut out I made for the 2x16 plates that support the floors of each floor. This is where I intially messed up in stage three of building, having these studs exposed without realizing that would mean I'd only be able to pull out EVERY floor all at once, instead of having the ability to pull out each floor individually. Floors 5 & 6 are Armour repair / construction. Floor 5 has the Space / Scuba Iron Man variants in the front, and the Iron Spider in the back, Floor 6 has the Iron Legion drones in the front and Ultron Prime in the back. They're paired with the Iron Legion launchers in the front. Floor 7 is the SHIELD command floor--Nick Fury is at the center command, flanked by SHIELD agents definitely doing important SHIELD things and not playing Galaga. Pairs with Maria Hill and Dum Dum Dugan at their control in the front. Floor 8 is a bar, staffed by Mary Jane Watson. Leads out onto the balcony, where the Avenger's party was interrupted by Ultron (that dink). FULL COLLECTION Moved the rest of my collection over to get a group shot. I've got a complete collection of everything released in the US so far, with customs of the Comic Con exclusives and Dark Phoenix and Misty Knight (because I don't have super high hopes of getting official releases of them too, and they're AWESOME.) The rest of my Marvel collection, in their natural habitat on my Comic's bookshelf. Avenger's Tower, in it's natural habitat behind my workstation. Giant Man and Hulkbuster at the base. And a final easter egg: A minifig version of my fiance, as a SHIELD agent, having a great time and ignoring all that attackin' happening just outside the protective glass... Thanks for looking!

Just checking that I actually know how images work...

Technically Power Man and Iron Fist are part of the MCU, but they're in the same situation where it was through the Ultimate Spider-Man line. But yeah, as AmazingBricks pointed out the divide between X-Men/Avengers/Spider-Man is breaking down some on the Avengers/Spider-Man side now that he's in the MCU. But it is a bit surprising how strong the divisions between Marvel lines had been before then.

Hm. I was planning to just brick link the figs, but maybe I'll buy the XMen one, give a little more of a boost to more XMen sets...

I'm still not a fan of them--if those Star Wars Micro Ships didn't exist as an example of what the MM line COULD be, I'd probably be more okay with them, but... for now, they're still just disappointing me by not being the thing I wish they were. Maybe if I ever get around to building a modular comics shop and I can justify mixing them in with the rest of my collection as kids in costume, I'll be more excited about them. At least the two Spiderman MMs have expressions appropriate for two kids annoyed someone else wore their same costume... All that said, the Magneto head seems super useful, and X-Men appearing at all lends some credence to those stories of the Marvel / Fox relationship improving. Would LOVE new X-Men sets (although please, no more Wolverine and Magneto...) I take back everything bad I said, a (regular) Mojo would retroactively make the whole MM range AMAZING.

Well... Synthezoid, technically. An important distinction, since Synthezoids sometimes wear sweater vests. And I would really, really like Fancy Sweater Vest Vision. Re-enact the current Vision series with him. (but more seriously, one of the more eagle-eyed posters here pointed out a bunch of small differences between the current minifig, based on concept art, and the final Vision suit. Would be great to get a new, more screen accurate printing while they're updating the fig. Ah well.)

Huh. I'm glad it's (more) movie accurate, but as someone collecting every Marvel minifig, I'd rather it was either changed up more, or left alone. Slight changes like that only make me regret my completionist tendencies... Sort of like having to have 3 Doc Ocks from Spider-Man 2 that are pretty much identical save different heads (only not nearly as bad). Also: Hi everyone! I've been lurking here for awhile, and finally decided to sign up. Just finished a huge MOD to my Avengers Tower and wanted someplace to show it off. And since literally no one I know in person is into Lego, I figured here was probably the best place to do it.

Juuuust checking out if my profile picture is working.

Mostly, just popping in to say hi. I'm an AFOL, live in Brooklyn, mostly collect Marvel Superheroes. Also, curious if there's anyone else in NYC who might be interested in buying parts / selling minifigs / trading and the like? I mostly just collect the minifigs and sell off the pieces on EBay, but if there was someone local where paying shipping wasn't an issue, that'd be way better. Thanks!