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Both look pretty good - might be tempted to get Cheetah just for the money bag!

Not my favorite variant of Wonder Woman, but I have a complete collection of every LEGO Wonder Woman released to date so why stop now? ?What we've seen so far doesn't go quite as deep into the deep cuts as I might have hoped, but then again I had been hoping for stuff that probably never stood a chance. Like Red Tornado. The Ma Hunkel version.

Just because a handful of AFOLs have this obsessive fixation on leg printing doesn't mean its inclusion would justify the creation of a whole new theme. I'd much rather see something that offers an innovative building experience and pushes the boundaries of what an official LEGO set can be than just "same stuff, but now a few more pieces of plastic have ink on them." Just imagine the ad campaign for that launch: "We've produced over 100 Marvel minifigures with dual-molded or printed legs already, but get ready for a bold new direction! Coming in 2020... some more of that! But branded differently!"

I wouldn't worry about it. Star Wars is pretty much the only license that gets "expert" sets every single year, and Harry Potter is a comparatively pretty small theme. I wouldn't expect them any more frequently than two or three years apart.

That very same solution (unprinted) is on the trolley in the Hogwarts Express set for the Bertie Bott's beans, and since the chocolate frog itself is, in my opinion, more interesting and iconic than the box, I also doubt they'd bother with a whole new piece. That said, a printed Bertie Bott's box does seem like the sort of thing that might reasonably turn up as an accessory to a CMF.

I told myself I was done for the year. I should have known better. This thing is gorgeous!

Who says they're not making more?

The low quantities in stores weren't just due to the risk, but also the massive logistical hassle of shipping and storing a box that big. There's only so much you can do to mitigate that, especially as stores are ramping up for a holiday season and trying to meet demand for dozens of other sets that are jockeying for a share of the finite space in a cargo truck or storage room. So I wouldn't be terribly surprised if stock levels aren't much higher this time around; I think the best you might hope for is a wait list being implemented right away rather than as a last-minute scramble like it was two years ago.

Library remains my personal top pick, but I must say designers are missing out on some prime pun potential if the 2020 modular does not feature an optician.

Most likely two.

Dubai, Barcelona, Hong Kong, and I could see Tokyo happening next year to coincide with the Olympics, though it might be a bit awkward for it to share shelf space with Paris. So far there's been an American city every year, but there's no obvious contender now that the three most iconic skylines in the country, and also Las Vegas, have all been done.

Maybe I'm hanging around the wrong forums then. Seems like every time LEGO brings out a new brick-built animal there are a dozen commenters calling the designers "lazy" for not just making a new single-purpose mold. Oof, good one. If I had a nickel for every AFOL who was convinced their buying power could make or break the company, I'd be eatin' nickel soup.

1. Themes and sets I don't care for have just as much a right to exist as things I like, because LEGO does not exist for the sole purpose of catering to my specific interests. 2. "AFOL" is a misnomer except under the loosest possible definitions of both "adult" and "fan." 3. Printed parts (especially legs and arms) are vastly overrated. 4. Innovative uses of existing parts are more interesting than just making new molds.

I'd say that much is guaranteed - every Winter Village set has had some sort of secondary/side build, because the idea is to build them with family, so two or more different parts can be done simultaneously.

The official reveal most likely is today, just later today. It's not like people coordinate schedules for a leak; any date known ahead of time would be for an official embargo lift.

I was actually referring to the fan poll that ultimately resulted in 2008's 10187 Volkswagen Beetle, so earlier than that: Interesting that the others have all been made now...

I hate Hush so much that I desperately want him to be made in minifig form just so the "we need a Hush minifig" comments that keep cropping up will finally stop.

With you there. He probably has a 45-minute-long video on his YouTube channel about how Space Game is "forcing an agenda down our throats" because it has a female protagonist, and if someone asks what the logos on his shirt mean he responds with "If you were a REAL FAN you would already know."

Apologies for misquoting you; I thought you had said "purely" but then looked back at your post and saw the phrase was "strictly economic," which does have a bit different connotation. It really is! I love those moments in statistical analysis where you start off with scattered data points and just by controlling for a certain factor suddenly come up with a nice clean line. It really speaks to what an efficient production process LEGO must have if all those other factors like unique molds, recolors, deco, etc. ultimately amount to such a tiny variation in pricing.

Detail I noticed that is probably of interest to no one but me: this set appears to include every currently-in-production color of the coffee mug piece, which just has me greedily wishing they had gone a step even further and introduced a new color (or brought back the blue one that hasn't been seen in 15 years).

Right there with you on the DeLorean; it's at the top of my wishlist for Creator Expert cars. I know it was in consideration at one point, and maybe it can finally come to fruition someday.

I'm not sure you can ever view this from a "purely economic" angle, because exactly what it is you're buying may not be as clear-cut as it seems. (And economics is a much softer science than most are willing to admit anyway.) What I'm getting at is: a LEGO set isn't just A Thing, it is A Thing That You Build, which means that the building process is an inextricable component of the product. And with that taken into account, I'd say PPP is still a valid metric, because piece count is pretty well correlated with how long a set will take to build. All else being equal, a 3,000-piece set is still a better value than a 2,000-piece set of the same weight and price simply because it will take roughly 50% longer to build, and that building experience is part of what you're buying. Now, that may be veering into more subjective territory than you're looking for here since it will vary depending on the speed/skill of the builder and thus can't be definitively quantified, but the build time deserves to be considered alongside the build size. And since piece count is likely the best at-a-glance indicator of build time, it can't be completely discounted. To put it another way, the comment that "it is all LEGO," even the manual and packaging, can be more holistically expanded to encompass the manual, the packaging, and the time spent putting it together. I don't know about everyone else, but that's what I'm paying for.

I generally prefer movie figures, at least for the Marvel half of my superhero collection, but I will be all over a comic Hawkeye if it really is heavily Fraction-inspired.

I can't help but think about this in terms of comics, where the term "Golden Age" has been settled pretty definitively for decades now - it was the first era, not necessarily the best era of the medium. I feel the obvious parallel with LEGO would be to define the Golden Age as spanning from the launch of the System in Play in 1955 to the advent of the minifigure in 1978. Beyond that, trying to determine a Golden Age in terms of quality or innovation is, I think, inherently impossible. Different people value different things, and that will color their perceptions of what even constitutes quality and innovation.

I'm guessing Snowflake is the next generation of Mindstorms.