Navy Trooper Fenson

Hydra destroyed the Nazis in the MCU and took over their role in the second world war. There is no problem, just make all the Nazis belong to Hydra and everything is fine. If anything there is a bigger problem in that they do the next movie as a political thriller and it is questionable how this would translate into sets. The later Harry Potter books went in the direction where there was little action to work with which led to declining sets, cancellation of the line and a revival in time for the last movie where they mostly only reissued sets.

I wouldn´t go as far as to say the amount of sets per year because that varies wildly but TCW and movie stuff is a given. ROTS may be depending on how much time LEGO takes for sets to make concepts for and produce. The decision to release 3D ROTS a few weeks after AOTC was made much later than the date for 3D AOTC. It still can be that they didn´t plan for a ROTS release and aren´t going to. Direct to DVD seems unlikely since the show is expensive to make (2 million per episode). It seems easier to just do a season and show it on Disney XD. It´s not like TCW isn´t being watched. Other companies were glad to have a moneymaker like it. Oh, I bet the next show will also feature a deformed cartoon look like every other CG show on television and won´t have a realistic art style. LEGO will keep up the tradition.

Actually they do part it into DC and Marvel on S@H. But I don´t think the number of themes in the making has something to do with the sets they can produce. Star Wars gets 20+ a year and a timely movie tie-in gets 8. If it has anything to do with other sets it would be the total amount of sets and at the moment they have gone far back (according to Brickset 380 sets this year and 720 sets in 2012, most of the other years are between 450 and 500). I believe LEGO has something that they are holding back. It would be a ludicrous idea to have the license contracts limit the amount of sets made to six per company when Star Wars is hanging out right next to them with 20 sets if it has a bad year. Maybe there is even a winter wave that we don´t know about because it comes out in November/December and thus is already counting for next year. I could see them doing something like 2 or 3 sets Thor: Dark World and 2 or 3 sets Beware the Batman. Batman premieres around summer and Thor starts after Halloween. Wouldn´t be the first time that the film comes earlier than the merchandise. Thor getting the Dark Knight treatment of utter ignorance seems out of place. He is somehow kid friendly and right behind Iron Man in the box office. It would be more believable for them to only do one or two Captain America 2 sets with the films characters being mostly humans that use guns and real weaponry (unlike Iron Man) and the plot being a political thriller according to interviews. But I really hope everyone gets his fair share of sets and characters.

Sam892 summed it up nicely how it is with the comics. When I read about the stories from the last decade it doesn´t seem like something anyone would allow their kids to read. So the shows and movies are the only things left over to appeal to adults and kids at once and Daredevil seems to be dead since the 90s and Panther got his first true appearance in the now cancelled Avengers show. As to the rest: LEGO already had Spider-Man and Batman. Spider-Man sets were kept in some stores until 2006 or 2007 and Batmans last few waves were stinkers (though that had more to do with the repetition of villains in wave 3 and the expensive/weird choices for Wave 2). They probably don´t want to take a huge risk at the start and warm up in the next (few) years. Superheroes certainly has the potential to become a second Star Wars (≈20 sets a year) for LEGO. Material to adapt is plenty. I would go as far as to say Marvel and DC each could have their 20 sets instead of having to deal with a measly six. I thought Ant-Man was slated to appear between Guardians of teh Galaxy and Avengers 2 in 2015? Aaaawww maaan... Powers don´t seem to be important. Iron Man has only his four pieces to show him as flying at most but he could need a few more tube pieces for the longer blasts. Mr. Freeze only gets a little gun with lightsaber blade and two BURPs to freeze a person. Poison Ivy has flowers only in Arkham if I remember correctly. Mr. Fantastic could just use Woodys long arms and legs from Toy Story and Giant Man could simply be a bigger fig. They already do bigger figs for their lamps (but without stud connections sadly) and they could save on additional molds as it is reuseable for other characters like The Thing, Hulk and Solomon Grundy. The only problem seems to be the Hulk molds they made for that one Avengers set and the designer or marketing people that decided to make him stylized without leg joints could feel a little silly.

Don´t April 1st jokes happen on April 1st, or am I mistaken? Naaah, seeing how they ruined Avatar with only two sets and are still producing half-assed Spongebob models with every cartoonier figs. They can sink a bunch of money into head/hair combo molds (like Toy Story) and do Spongebob style sets that are representations of the shows content in name only. But in the wake of Teenage mutant ninja turtles they could also focus on vehicles (civilian cars would be a nice addition with the right designs) and maybe a few playsets/houses. I can´t really see them not doing the Simpsons´ home. The worst they could do to it is making it Heartlake High style. Selling 8X12 plates with room interior isn´t LEGOs style since 2005. I stopped watching around 2008 and only see new episodes occasionally but the ones that I saw seemed more like material I would expect from Family Guy with the sexlifes of many random characters taking center stage. But whatever, the show is still shown when in child-friendly times around 6pm at least in UK and Germany. The figs are probably the worst thing about it. The prints probably don´t fit in with the styles of other figs like The Clone Wars or part of the Avatar line. If they are even using regular heads. Toy Story like molds are a huge probability. That would limit second usage in other themes. I could see them doing a new torso mold for fat people. That would be useful on some figs and could be used on many characters. I would take eight!

Black Panther is a side character as far as I know and I have no idea who Moon Knight is. This comes from someone who is trying to get into the "mythology" of the comics. If I don´t know these characters, why would children want to have sets with them? Punisher and Daredevil? Daredevil isn´t really a character children know but he could work in conjunction with other heroes. But Punisher? He outright kills people. There is a difference between a villain killing everyone and a hero killing everyone. I doubt something like his appearance in 90s Spider-Man will be repeated anytime in the future. Also I feel like you ignored the point I was making about there being so little sets on the shelves with or without the comic continuity characters. Eight characters/teams for five or six sets? LEGO can´t just make every set a battlepack. Jokers design was used often in many different works. You could also say he draws from the DCAU shows which are acceptable. It´s like saying LEGOs Batman draws from "The Dark Knight returns" and demanding grey suit Joker. The suitcase is red and silver, I would think if the MK42 has a suitcase it would have at least a bit of gold sticking out. I saw it on a german shopping site and according to the Barcode/EAN number it is Malibu Mansion and has the same/fitting price (40€). I also ordered it just in case and will receive it on 2nd April. For point 2: If the missing Marvel set will be a S@H exclusive to match Arkham Asylums price point it could also be that we will get the S@H marvel set in 2014 and have a DC set less next year. For point 4: If it is a S@H exclusive (which is most likely looking at Arkham and its 150 price point) it could be released at any time without its release being out of the ordinary. Also the TDKR set would seem a little out of place as an "All-Stores set" being released outside of a wave of other sets and pulling the release of the January wave to last year would have given us a measly six to eight sets for the entire Superheroes 2013 line. For point 5: No idea what´s going on in the story that could be too dark for kids (Iron man having post traumatic stress disorder from "Avengers" sounds a little too much already) but an Arkham Asylum / Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix set at a 150 price-point that is higher than the entire Iron Man 3 line should be enough for at least all the important characters. If there is something missing it shouldn´t be impossible to backtrack in January/December with a follow up set like 2003 the AT-TE and Geonosian Starfighter of Star Wars epsiode 2. The Star Wars license specifically prohibits figure-only sets as they sold the figure license to Hasbro. Still there were four figure-only sets in 2001 and promo-figs are allowed. There is probably a similar issue with the superheroes. Still, nothing keeps them from doing only battlepacks with a useless pile of bricks and four characters. But I would guess they still have to get permissions for individual sets from the firms. Also you have to keep in mind that LEGO can´t put out an infinite number of new sets, they still need machines to produce the bricks. If they can only put out a total of twelve superheroes sets they prioritize the sets based on popular movies and shows over the general stuff of course.

That would be a perfect world without DCs suits trying to ruin everything good in the world. What is there other than the Avengers and Spider-Man that LEGO could use? X-Men and the Fantastic Four are really the only things that come to my mind. Everyone else isn´t kidfriendly or too unknown. And now look at what they have to work with. Last year they had six sets and this year there are five and maybe a S@H set that could also be pushed to next year. What are you expecting them to do? A set or two per character/team and that´s is all? That may sound pretty awesome but just look at Iron Man: There is already no Iron Patriot and the Ten Rings consist only of Mandarin, Killian and some shiny dude. How bad would it be if there were only two sets or even just one? In a stupid situation like this you have to choose the characters that print the most money. Comparing the situation with Batman is just silly. DC just has it so much worse. A simple line based on the old Justice League cartoon like how they based 2006 Batman on the 90s series would solve all the problems of the line being not diverse enough. Even if they only produce so much Batman because his villains are more popular they could just stuff them into the League sets. It´s not like they would make less sense than Luthor kidnapping Wonder Woman and Deadpool flying a chopper for Magneto.

The only good things of 7676 that the 2013 one doesn´t have are noseart and the fully sealable back. I can live without the noseart and I don´t like how the doors are going to both sides. I prefer the single door that they had in the "Clone Wars" microseries. 2013 just improves the design in small details. The cockpits are bubbles instead of whatever the JSF cockpit form is called. Bubble turrets for those that liked them. The ground in the back is even and completely with studs opposed to the weird smooth grid from all the other Laatys. The lasers in the front have extra pieces so that only the ball part is moving and not the hinge (this thing). They are only small details IMO but that combined with the bunch of new figures I sold my old Gunship with a few old Phase 2 clone tards on Ebay and got 126 bucks out of the deal. Enough to buy the new version.

It´s not a good one if they always use the same two Iron Man pics of the Avengers sets from last year. Protip for the next photoshoper: Try finally using another pic.

I bet on Beware the Batman sets if they still think we don´t have enough Batman already. Maybe even Teen Titans Go but I´m not a Teen Titans fan. Their best bet would be generic Justice League sets inspired by Justice League: Unlimited. It would bring a bit of variety into the sets and you could keep a few of the Batman villains. For Marvel I hope they put Spider-Man away and concentrate on the movies. It would be sad if Thor or Cap would have to get only one set like TDKR, TDK or Harry Potter 5, just because of the stupid equality contract with DC. Oh god. LEGO really has to drop Batman if they want to get anything done. Or at least up the count of new releases per year to a number greater than 10. Exclusives for the Star Wars line are already known by their names. By this point they should have given us names. A few polybags and exclusive figs, maybe a big S@H exclusive but that one could also come out in January 2014 if we are really unlucky. A bunch of german webshops list the January wave sets and "Marvel 4" (which going by the EAN number and price is Malibu Mansion) as April releases instead of May like announced in the catalogue. Seems like they want to speed up the release suddenly.

Uuuh... no, they didn´t. The hats and hairdos are all glued together, even though the hair molds are all recolored versions of existing molds.

I would advise you to bust a move. March is the US release date, european countries like Holland always take a randomly chosen amount of months longer for the Superhero sets to appear. The dutch site I frequent doesn´t even have them listed. I guess it´s a May release for Europe, at least for Germany it´s confirmed. No.

That didn´t help at all. I don´t think Ree Yees replaced C-3PO and it has more to do with LEGO somehow being to cheap to include the right amount of figs in a ≈100€/$ vehicle set since 2008. It´s like they make up the correct selection of 7 to 10 figs and then just take some away that 5 figs are left for the final set. I would like to have the newly redesigned 3PO but I don´t want the Droid Escape set, so a 3PO would be nice and he is central to the story anyway.

To be exact: We already have every conceivable version of Han that appeared in the movies. Really. We have multiple Hans in blue or brown pants, Han with his medal, in the blue Bespin jacket, in his cold weather gear, only in a shirt, only in a shirt with closed eyes, the carbonite block and many of them in several styles. The only version missing is Endor trenchcoat Han who only walked out of the stolen Lambda shuttle, tripped on a branch, had a fistfight with a Scout trooper and hid behind a few trees. It´s not really necessary and it could only look bad since LEGO can´t print the backs of legs. The only real update Han could use were a new hairpiece but looking at the track record of all the other promo-figs they have to use existing molds which means either the rumor is total bonkers or we get trenchcoat Han. I don´t expect anything useful. Probably something like the Shadow ARF. A soldier in a differently colored armor that never appeared in any show, movie or game. The best that could happen IMO is when they give out the shirtless Maul from last year. Ewok village should be the celebration party at the end of the movie, so no imperial things except for extra helmets as drums. As for the figures: the main heroes, Wedge, a Mon Cal other than Ackbar, force ghosts and a few Ewoks that we haven´t got already. Maybe even an Ewok baby in form of a printed microfigure. The set should really have a better design than the last playsets LEGO released. I want something along the lines of the Modular Houses or the medieval market, not the Hoth Echo bases, Rancor pit and all the superhero sets that aren´t helicopters. It looks bigger IMO. A few less parts on the legs but the cockpit and big gun on the top are bigger than last time.

That doesn´t explain anything. If LEGO sells their set for 140 and Amazon sells their set for 140, shouldn´t LEGO be making a greater profit by cutting out the middleman? They should technically be able to give the best prices, yet S@H is the most expensive LEGO retailer I know and rarely makes special offers or price reductions compared to the other retailers that charge 4 to 40 bucks less for every single set. Seriously, the only things I buy on S@H are their exclusives.

LEGO normally isn´t giving out polybags for retailers based on licensed themes. Just because they made a bag with an Iron Man that doesn´t mean anything. The bags for Hawkeye and Thor weren´t given away on S@H too.I am more afraid of them making a DC S@H fig this summer because seemingly they have to have equal amounts of DC and Marvel products available. 2012 they had a preorder Luthor and S@H Hulk. This year it could be that they have to have a Marvel preorder fig for the Marvel game and a DC S@H fig for the promotion.But then again, if the DC polybag is Jor-El from Man of Steel based on Russel Crowe I could live without the Patriot for a bit longer.

??? This thing is like the anthropomorphic personification of B-level ships and my problem with LEGO is that they shove this kind of vehicle in our faces way too often and frequently overlook set ideas that are much more popular, known even to people that have no idea about Star Wars and most of all obvious. Your statement is right on every level but LEGO ignores logic with the release of TIE Interceptor, Sandcrawler, Laat/c & AT-OT and the B-Wing. My god, they even considered releasing the Vulture Droid and the Medical droid in that one survey where the motorized AT-AT won and R2-D2 was also on. Let that one sink in for a minute. They seriously considered the Medical Droid for a release. Not the one who looks like it has a gasmask on, it´s the one that was basically a column with tiny arms. This Medical Droid. THE Medical Droid. MORE IMPORTANT THAN UCS TIE FIGHTER. MORE IMPORTANT THAN UCS AT-AT. MORE IMPORTANT THAN UCS JEDI STARFIGHTERS. MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE FROM THE PREQUELS. It was a pretty stupid idea, that´s what I´m saying. If the Medical Droid and B-Wing aren´t making this clear: LEGO makes really stupid choices and we don´t have to follow their steps like . AFOLs always see themselves as a side-group that LEGO could entirely ignore and we are decisively not one when LEGO gives us several UCS sets every year. When they do it, they can do it right and right means giving their best.I don´t say they should cater to our tastes exclusively, but they should start to cut out those weird slip-ups and act like the responsible company like MadMan and Zzz says they are. So you all know what this means. UCS AT-AT for 2014! DO IT ALREADY!

I don´t know exactly which set but Marvel 4 was a stand-in name for one of the Iron Man sets. On all the lists where there was the Marvel 4 name one of the Iron Man sets was missing. I still expect a fourth Marvel set because LEGO seems to have to make sets of (roughly) the same price categories for both Marvel and DC and DC is currently a set further because of Arkham Breakout. Like I said pages ago and someone else a few posts ago: Probably something to cash-in on films or shows or the set is being postponed until 2014. Weeeellll. I am sad that the Smallville spaceship is so far up. This way it looks like the Quinjet with bubbles. Maybe it´s something worth the price. For a first look it certainly looks like it´s worth more than the Bat/Tumbler set. The escape looks rather bland and is certainly not a good idea. Lois is the only fig that´s not in any other set and she looks very bland. I wouldn´t be surprised if Pepper and Lois have the same head. So the only bits that are rescuing it from total ignorance are possible alternate heads for Superman and Zod and the children that want to have Zod and Supes but don´t have enough money or don´t care for whatever is in Smallville battle. The armor pieces are still excellent. Maybe I am getting the Escape if there are alternate heads, Lois is less bland and the armor can be used to customize a Bane mask out of. By the looks of it Metropolis showdown is more expendable a set. Only a yellow car that looks rather weird with its yellow/black dotted paintjob, a very easy to make yourself radiotower and Supes and Zod figs that maybe are only different to their other set counterparts because of their red heat-ray heads. Marvel seems to win. The builds are in both movies lines sloppy but Iron Man has at least variety in his figs (the only figure completely repeated is Mark 42) while Man of Steel has his whole fig lineup in the biggest set except for Lois and maybe the different heads for Zod and Supes.

Well, at least it is fast paced, you can´t say that for most of the current films or television. If it stays with this pace I would really like to see CN editing all the episodes together as a half-hour special like Padawan Menace and Empire strikes out. Iconic models in the UCS line are those that sound necessary in theory but are dull in practice. As someone had said before: The UCS line shouldn´t have its sets re-released. There are too many models that can still be made. Re-Releases of UCS sets should begin if they are really out of all good and necessary ideas or if the design can be changed greatly. The UCS X-Wings aren´t as bad as the differences between the Slave Ones but they are identical in enough places for me (and everyone who posted before me) to be annoyed by it. Those figs certainly aren´t for children when they are background characters like TC-14 and early concept art figs of Boba Fett in completely white armour and with his old, fixed helmet while there is the film version with better articulation available. Children don´t know what to do with it and end up like this poor soul. If LEGO wants to cater to collectors they should do it right and not throw stuff that only collectors appreciate into the opposite direction. And no, I wouldn´t. I already have one and if it is the UCS version the child earned it already by attempting to carry that thing.

Oh wow another X-Wing. Didn´t expect that. Why do they have to release the boring, "iconic" sets always during the May 4th promotion and keep the good one for fall? Just so the stupid kids can get their hand on the exclusive metallic blue chrome Jango or whatever they are giving out and stick it up their noses. It´s just so plain and same to the earlier version. YES there are some changes but that is like comparing 2004 Dagobah X-Wing and 2006 Hoth X-Wing. You can take your telephone and order stuff by talking to someone from S@H. I can´t believe how LEGO tries to push this outdated method in times of the internet.

I really don´t like most of the builds because nearly everything feels so watered down. They only used parts for what was necessary, not a brick more. The Batmobile is probably the best example: 2006 was long and sleek, 2012 was short and blocky. This strategy was a good idea IMO with things like the Batwing which just seemed ludicrously huge and has the same play value in both sizes, or the Catcycle Chase, where Batman really doesn´t need whatever he had for a vehicle because it was basically a stupider looking bike so a jetpack makes it a bit more original and different from other Batman sets. But on the other side it ruins thing like the Batmobile, Tumbler and THE Bat, that have to have a certain size and turned out much uglier and bare bones. As if a kid made them himself. That they are trying to make the figures different is a good idea in theory but in execution just causes Epic Fails in cases like Mr.Freeze who is based on the movie Batman & Robin (BAT CREDIT CARD) and Riddlers only change being the question mark melon in grey when the green suit and green melon THAT HE ACTUALLY WORE SOMETIMES are a much more obvious choice. Those mistakes seem petty but when you think about it: Catwoman, Harley, Bane, Penguin are nearly identical to their old figs which only leaves Ivy who got a good alternative, Scarecrow who really needed to be less cartoony looking and Two-Face whose other colorscheme isn´t as popular. I leave out Joker because I don´t like his fig but I have no idea why. Something about his weird expressions or the vest. It ends up as a mediocre line when it could be much more. If the first Batman failed because of his darker tone and LEGO wants it to be lighter then why not just take a hero other than Batman? The Justice League would be perfect with its many classic and iconic heroes and villains. It seems stupid to concentrate nearly exclusively on the darkest hero of the bunch. Also LEGO should learn that vehicles are really the wrong thing to make the majority content in a Superhero line. Many characters don´t need vehicles so they should concentrate mainly on scenery. Bank and museum robberies, secret labs, the hideouts of heroes and villains. We don´t need every kind of transportation in black yellow with a Bat-surname. Also a good idea would be the superpowers. Mr. Freeze comes only with an ice cage for one fig and a lightsaber blade as ray. Why not more ice bricks to coat (part) of a vehicle included. Some things that are coated with snow (white hydrants and streetlights) or if you are not Mr. Freeze something that was destroyed because of acid, lasers, superstrength or plants?

LEGO can´t just ignore the Iron Patriot, he is the logo on all the Hasbro toys for the movie for crying out loud! It has to either be a promotional item this year (S@H summer / game preorder) or in a set for the next wave. Don´t you dare canceling him or holding him off until the next movie he is in (if the armor gets used a second time anyway).

I really love how so many outlets went to the Toy Fair. Everyone posts thousands and thousands of photos. Waste an entire day to weekend and go there by plane or train. And no one gives a shit about Man of Steel. Well, except the generously detailed description of Cooltoynews, which I am going to repeat in abridged form to make the description of the models that we haven´t seen already: One would think there could be a better description. I mean, what does "vehicle and ship" even mean. Is the vehicle a car, a tank or something related to the ship? If it is a car, why couldn´t they even think of a word that better describes the car like jeep or cabrio? If it is a tank, why is it so hard to just say tank? If it is still a spaceship, why would they say vehicle instead of something like "smaller spacecraft"? That would be very easy to differentiate. It sound more like the kind of description LEGO or a newspaper would give. The most generic words you can think of. It´s not the description of the people that give the situation the proper seriousness it deserves and go out of their way to get to a show about toys.

I hope the blue officer is coming in a cheaper 2014 set. He would be great for an ARC trooper kitbash based on the original clone who was so awesome that he started the name-giving: Alpha. Well, Boba is the clone of Jango. I have a bigger problem how the new clone head has nothing in common with the Jango/Boba one. Summer exclusives are normally appearing sometime in the summer. Info is rather scarce and normally not far away from the release date and sometimes we only know about the set when it is already on the shelf, like Palpatines arrest last year. The door problem was always there because the mechanism LEGO uses for the doors would leave not enough place in the middle. TCW made away with it by making a part of the door open to the other side but apart from the first few seasons of TCW this kind of LAAT/I is used nowhere else. The arc was never closed in the original ship from AOTC either.

From my observation it looks like: 1,5 years for regular sets (which would include everything of LOTR that´s out right now) 3 years for S@H exclusives (everything with numbers like 10225 / 1XXXX) There are several exceptions to this rule. Some retailer exclusive sets like Cad Banes speeder can last only one year and generally sets released in summer can sell out after only one year. There are some S@H exclusives that last longer than their 3 years because of popular demand (playset Death Star was released in 2008 and still available, Star destroyer lasted 6 or 7 years). So with the LOTR line you should get the first wave for christmas.