Renny The Spaceman

Could well be, or maybe LEGO wants us to take the Robin figure from 2020 and have him do double duty as GL too because of the mask. On that subject given that the Green Lantern movie got a comic con promo back in the day and of course Man of Steel got a wave it means that the Gunn movie is the only planned start of a DC movie universe that'll never get anything based off it

I do wonder if at this point it makes more sense to go City Space, Futuron, Classic space when trying to timeline them, it goes against the gut instinct to make CS the first proper Sci-Fi them but in terms of evolution it makes more sense that the look gets gradually sleeker and more streamlined with time and as the logo gets bigger

Yeah, I don't know if this'll do well, honestly I don't know why I keep replying to discussions about this I have no strong options about it at all, IDK the Aslume lately has kinda felt like the LEGO Star Wars overspill as of late. Not really surprising given the state of DC is boarding on too embarrassing to even be funny. I'm the same with that wave too, the way that the Advent Calendar that year had a police station buildable from multiple days? That was the real shit back then. This, the true narrative of the Aslume is the gradual realisation that Non-Licenced sets will be our only chance at salvation. The Space subtheme was so cool, the Donut truck is perfect and reminds me a lot of the one from the LEGO City 3DS game, there's the LEGO Truck remake the new camper van, Luigi and so much more. The fact we got Johnny Thunder and an Exo-force remake last year is icing on the cake.

Well, I think the working theory is as LEGO transitioned the superheroes line around that time to be, outside of Spider-man and to a lesser extent Batman, mainly movie based sets and DCEU sets tanked so they decided nostalgic films would be better to base sets on. The inexplicable part is how they gradually became more and more adverse to even basic Batman elements being made, like they refuse to do Robin or almost any villain other than Joker.

Exactly my point, Clones weren't high on that list until this online echo chamber formed. I don't think LEGO would pivot unless they've sold well enough so far. Maybe this is the tipping point but I don't know if kids care about an era being over represented

I mean, yeah it's not.gonna be sustainable forever but Clone Bros make hundreds of more Clone Bros and even the casualist of Clone Bros probably buy multiples of at least the battle packs now. Like agree these are people with more money than sense but with all their fans they're absolutely statistically relevant or I doubt we'd get as many as we do. LEGO was more than happy to barely touch clones in the latter half of the 2010s so I imagine if it wasn't making money and creating probably the most active community around a LEGO line in years they'd have stuck to the occasional set for them. I completely agree there, but I just don't know what their next step could be, I doubt they'll make an entire new building system like constraction any time soon so I think it might be between either them trying brick build again with more specialty molds at a smaller scale (which, of course, buy the time it happens will be the same retail price as the current ones are) or them going fully stupid and doing a series of buildable action figures based around some electronic or app based gimmick like a combination of what the most recent ones were and LEGO Mario. 1) Slipknot 2) Jarred Leto Joker 3) El Diablo 4) Enchantress 5) The generic military guy played by David Harbour

Because Clone Bros still buy 20 copies of everything they cry about, those channels are massive too by LEGO standards. They rile up their fanbase of 12 year olds sure, but them and their fans still buy all the shit. The big negative side effect is the community is overrun with annoying people and that's our problem not LEGO's

I mean they did it in the comics once and a crappy animated movie. We've spent a while with all of Geoff John's old favourites being the main versions of these characters, screwing over most of the legacy characters. Like Kyle is probably never gonna be adapted again and Wally would have the same fate if Barry wasn't tied to so many flops. I'm fine with them being rested for awhile. They're just gonna be recentered later anyways, Hal was the main Green Lantern for pretty much most of the character's history, law of averages whoever's in charge of the next time the series is adapted will be nostalgic for him and that's always what makes most decisions like this. Anyways DC isn't Marvel so the brand synergy isn't gonna get to him in the same way it would over there

IDK, I feel buildable figures for licences is gonna be tried again in time, they've been trying to make them happen pretty consistently since 2012 with only a four year gap between the death of Constraction and trying again. I think it's one of those types of sets LEGO really wants to catch on. And yeah, mechs are dependent on DC's Future success, tbf we've gotten one a year so far, twice isn't enough to call it a pattern but I wouldn't be surprised if someone got one next year. Also the Jonkler hasn't had any builds to himself since 2020 outside 4+ because until this year's mechs 4+ was the only place for something outside movie Batvehicles and large gimmick sets

It's not an actual issue but it's funny because it does take literally no extra effort and they still don't do it.

Listen, I get this is a small thing in the grand scheme of LEGO DC megabluck ups but it annoys me. The old Batman cowls pretty much always looked better than the dual moulded ones with the obvious exception of the shirt eared cowl due to the never accurate skin tones BUT the one undisputed benefit of the switch over should have been we were no longer stuck with the same head being used for every single version of Batman. However in our third year of it The exact same Star Wars Resistance head has been used for Keaton and Bale when it looks like neither. Like even without using new prints there are better generic ones for them.

TBF one of the longest running modular series is the Ninjago ones and that started as a tie in to the LEGO Ninjago movie and is designed to connect with ones based on the show. Probably a way more stark case of that as the sets based on the LEGO movies are functionally licensed whilst the rest of Ninjago is completely in-house

And the mechs + buildable figures TBF, no matter how much they shelfwarm LEGO keeps trying doing buildable figures to try chase the high of Bionicle over 20 years ago. It Genuinely think Commando took a break because of the Turtle joke, he's nothing if not committed to the bit

Well that's already not going to happen because there's not even gonna be a Robin. Any hope of a complete Schumacher character lineup went out the window with the Batmobile line up. We'll definitely get Batman and Riddler, probably Two Face. There's a non-zero chance that it'll be only those three, a kitbashed Chase Meridian and generic guards and inmates. If we're lucky enough to get Batman and Robin characters included, which I doubt given how they limited the Shadow box to only the first film + literally everything in the modern era of Batman UCS sets is solely based on one thing, we're getting no-one outside of Freeze, Poison Ivy and Batgirl. Besides, by keeping Batman and Robin figures out of this year's sets that means next year's exciting DC sets can be based around that film, ofc with no Robin in sight

No there's only gonna be one, and don't call me surly

I think we'll sooner get DCU sets than Robin Those would all require new prints though, not out of the question for Lego but that'd be such a stupid waste of the print budget. No, I don't think so, remember the bright kryptonite story? I think he genuinely saw Superman as the best hope for better Batman sets in future

Entirely plausible even though I'm pressure they never wear them in those movies

Here comes Turtle the man who can't post anything, wonderful

No theme in LEGO history has ever been more dead than DC is right now, including stuff like Seatron. Like remember in the mid 2010s when Batman was practically a LEGO mascot? How did we get here

Yeah, exactly that. Honestly that's a positive for me because it means we're not just stuck with the 2016 movie's roster now in everything like we were for a while there, Deadshot is forever doomed to have his only personality trait being "having a daughter" in adaptations though so I guess that movie won the war. I don't think that's how it works, WB wouldn't tell potential merchandising partners ahead of time that their big blockbuster they need to make money is a stinker years in advance. Given how far ahead sets need to be made the movie likely wouldn't have been filmed when LEGO needed to decide if they were doing sets or not, if WB was so unconfident in the film that early that they'd be willing to risk their relationship the biggest toy company in the world they'd have fired Gunn or at least gotten him to do a head to toe rewrite

Yeah, it's insane. I wonder if the complete avoidance of Robin comes down to the idea that he's just lame and makes Batman less cool. That seems like an opinion most people just casually into Batman have. Seems like anyone in the know would object to this as kids love Robin, he headlines one of the most popular kids shows and is their obvious insert into the world. Like it's embarrassing that we can't even have a juniors set with Damien in it, especially as we now have skin tones that'd work perfectly for him

No I fully agree Superman is way more popular, it's night and day but that's not really relevant. Superman has also mainly been stuck with bad (at least to the general audience, calm down, I know plenty of people like Snyder and probably 2 like Returns) movies. Like let's not forget a main sticking point around all superhero discussions at the genres peak around the 2010s was how Superman is the most boring and lame superhero until recently that was the consensus, so much so that DC was genuinely planning to make Clark permanently evil in the comics and replace him with his son during the whole 5G debacle. The Fantastic Four's films aren't held in high regard, but the toys for the ones that had them seemed to sell decently well, yes a big part of why we got a small handful of X-Men sets and no Fantastic Four ones was they were irrelevant but that's making my point for me here, they're very relevant now, the biggest media company on earth is pushing them hard and there's no recent precedent for the team getting that, so there's no actual bad experience to turn LEGO away from it. The DCEU was pushed just as hard when LEGO was making sets for it, and they all flopped horribly, I'd rather have Superman sets but you have to understand that just because everyone knows Superman doesn't mean it translates into people wanting toys of him. I think it's almost certain a Superman movie set would do better than a 100 quid Schumacher Batmobile but that's not what's in question here. DC needs to prove the brand is still viable for a corporation to try cash in on it. Even with Marvel's flops by putting the fantastic four and all their other characters in Fortnite and Marvel Rivals and by them managing to get at least one film to be a big success every year there's simply more trust there. Even the good, non-R rated DC projects like The Batman just aren't very toyetic, it makes perfect sense for them to choose fantastic four over Superman. But, that's not really the decision they made, is it? Once again, I think the issue is that they keep betting on the stupidest megablocking sets for DC, they sell poorly then they think it's DC's fault and make less. Like the fact they haven't even tried like 4+ Teen Titans Go sets is insane Yeah, I think it's kinda a childish way to think generally but this year is really making me consider it. Like it's obviously not intentional sabotage but I think it could be that these sets are an afterthought by people who don't care for the licence so they're just going down the list of nostalgic adaptations and repeating the same formulas to no avail. Because honestly the only reason I could see someone winding up with this year's line up is that

But enough to sell a 400 quid set? I don't think this was a smart decision Yeah, nothing anyone's said here has been more than anecdotal, none of us have the tools to actually do a study on this, but yeah I'm very confused by the Eternals being mentioned here. It's not even like a Morbius level bomb where normal people joke about how bad it apparently is. They did it with the Adam West Batmobile, it's clear LEGO is trying to shift to just Batman in the Batmobiles. Anything to avoid making Robin Yeah, exactly my worry, like with the Wonder Woman set's box, like with them not bothering to really cash in on Aquaman, it seems like LEGO's making stupid decisions then blaming DC when the theme doesn't do well

As someone in the UK, no the Eternals are not known generally better here, like at all. Of course with any conversation like this a key factor is there's two types of non-comic fan. The sort of person who casually keeps up with some form of adaptation or discussion of one, and the sorta person who asks if Batman is on the avengers. Of course there are differences depending on the age group, from personal experience though that while the current push has definitely made them more well known to the public like five years ago I had coworkers telling me the fun fact that Chris Evans played fireboy from DC before he was Captain America. I think the name is well known and the visual of all them (like everyone knows they've got a stretchy guy, a rock guy, a fire guy and an invisible gal and how they look broadly) is something that's endured it's a coin flip if someone who's not of the age to have grown up with the 2000s films will know their names. I don't think the average person, like the kind that can doesn't know Marvel from DC, knows anything besides that. Maybe they know they fight Doctor Doom but nothing else. As said by other members I think it's generally the the Guardians of the Galaxy, Justice League, Teen Titans, Suicide Squad, Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four normal people know to varying degrees. Will firmly disagree with people not knowing the Suicide Squad as a group though, that's one that's crossed into public consciousness with the base concept of "bad guys forced to do good to get out of jail" and as "Group of characters that almost all die" being applied to the name. That's something non-capeshit people drop in conversation or make jokes about. The average person probably doesn't know individual members outside of Harley Quinn but I think that's natural with a group that should be defined by a rotating roster

Well no, that's not the reason at all, it's well known that Disney heavily limited any merch for the Fox owned franchises, until now there was never a time LEGO had the Marvel licence where they had any cultural relevance. Since Disney has bought FF they've never had a reason too, now they're getting a bog push so this makes sense to trial out a team LEGO and most toy companies haven't done anything significant with. Box office of the past films doesn't really matter here, the question is more how have previous MCU sets sold, LEGO has decided there's enough of a push for this film for it to be worth making. Keep in mind I say this all as someone who doesn't care for the Fantastic Four or the MCU and do care for DC. There's been no significant merch push for the Fantastic Four since the 2000s, to my knowledge while the second film underperformed there was no massive loss nor were there any infamously unsellable toy lines. For almost a decade straight the DCEU has underperformed specifically with Superman, toy companies bet big on BVS and Justice League and lost out hard there, not only is that data more recent, not only did that film series do a lot worse but very importantly LEGO had skin in that game, they tried for 5 years to do tie in sets for those films and lost hard. Meanwhile the Fantastic Four haven't been tested at all as is attached to a franchise that makes them a lot of money and even then it's getting 1 set, I think is new MCU films' sets didn't flop as hard as they do when Spider-Man not involved it'd at least get a couple other sets to make a small wave but even still this film is the kid friendly MCU film to be pushed the hardest in a while, that makes sense to try. I'd rather Superman have gotten that set, it'll probably be the better movie but I get why executives didn't, it's kinda obvious how different the situation is.