Mandalorianknight

That cover is awesome, I like that Good Guy Lex is chilling with them. I bet he legally purchases cakes for his friends. (Also did Hawkgirl forget her costume? Unless this is her costume, which would go hard, more superheroes need overalls)

I think the confusion is stemming from that you started not saying that you didn't see why the subjective desirability shouldn't count, so people were explaining why they think it shouldn't. Nobody's saying that you can't or don't feel that it should be factored in, but they'll say their opinion on the situation. Yeah I mean I think I overpaid for Peridea at $55, but they could probably have gotten a lot of people for like $70 just off Thrawn being back going off the old one's BL price. (Hopefully not me. They basically did the same thing with the X-jet and I didn't fall for that, but at the same time I REALLY liked the ahsoka series...)

Ok, so 8 total, one of them leg print (which we've heard is more expensive) Looking at the apartment, we have Anti-venom, who won't have new prints, and Hobgoblin, who'll assumably use 2-3 new prints. Obviously there's no guarantee there's the same number of new prints, but it's been pointed out that it's around the same piece count (and the same fig count) as the ATSV set. The main rationales I saw for how overpriced that set were were that it had the ATSV license and the number of new prints. I think there's not a bad chance that this set uses some larger pieces and has new face and toro prints for MJ. (On the other hand, it's not impossible that it's just absurdly overpriced) I don't know, I feel like sets like the Iron Man Car, Venom Car, Morbmobile at least are at least not standard city vehicles. I think the overly vague stuff is a way to get views/clicks/whatever without actually saying anything that could be proven wrong. I'm not calling anyone specific out here, I could easily see Mr. Negative just being an attempt at a joke that didn't work. She really needs a new torso, ideally a new head, and her hair needs to be straight up red. Not dark orange, red. Yeah but I feel like they usually like to have SOMETHING in terms of play features or vehicles. I guess it's possible this could be a Gamer Thor Diorama situation, but while I'll love the set if it's just a well-made Peter's apartment, I'd be shocked if lego didn't have some play features or a vehicle larger than a glider in it.

I will not hear you out. (It is possible- I'm a bit surprised lego's releasing a residential apartment as a marvel set, there's got to be SOMETHING for the kids. Even the ATSV set was based on a scene from a movie and had a police car.) Yeah no the Hobgoblin was never even actually Ned. If I remember right it's due to the guy who created the hobgoblin leaving the book before his identity was revealed, another writer making him ned, and then the original guy coming back and going "no it's not ned it's Roderick Kingsley it was always Kingsley", and then it just got wrapped up in the goblin king/goblin wars stuff

my point is simply that as a more objective measure of the value of the item, rather than a subjective one, more massable characters aren't necessarily more expensive to produce (probably cheaper since they can re-use the prints across each fig). A set with 3 stormtroopers shouldn't cost more than one with 2 stormtroopers, an officer, and a crewman (and the same build), it should be less, right? Think about it this way- Characters like Malgus go for $150 or so secondhand, but you wouldn't want lego to sell a Malgus microfighter for $160 just because he's a desirable character.

Well, you know, that's 19 pieces of copium right there. I can pretend that that combined with the fact we haven't had any sort of car leak imply we're actually gonna get a sizable apartment. excellent work carrying on the hobgoblin confusion, I even got confused and had to google and make sure Kingsley was never a symbiote. This might be a hot take but I'm glad about this- I like Anti-Venom but didn't want to buy a spider man mech. I hadn't thought about it a ton because she's a civilian, but comic MJ might honestly be up there with comic Moon Knight and Luna Snow as my most wanted characters. (And I want to be clear, I want red-not dark orange- red hair and a spidey heart shirt torso, not a kitbash) I think it's actually possible this set could have it. Obviously there's no guarantee it'll be 1:1, but the spider verse set has 7 new prints (miles head/torso, miles's dad head/torso, spot head/torso/legs. Not sure if Gwen's are new or not). Anti-venom assumably will be the exact same, and I can't imagine Hobgoblin uses more than a head and torso. So unless this set has significantly fewer prints than the other one, we might be getting new prints for spidey and MJ.

Yeah, same here. If their outfits are the current ones from the trailer, and not the ones with all the weird lines from the initial art, I might actually pick it up. The only real complaint I'd have is that since Thing is wearing a shirt in this he still wouldn't be perfect (though I'd prefer a bigfig anyway). Mr. Fantastic is generally easy enough to mod, though I don't think we have brown hair with grey temples yet. Sue and Johnny should be spot-on. Very excited! I really hope they give MJ her due and she's not just re-used parts. At the very least, I want RED hair (not dark orange, RED) and the iconic spidey heart T-shirt. You'll take this MCU Spider-Man 4 preview set with MCU MJ and Ned Hobgoblin and you'll like it! And your buildable figure of Mr. Negative. (But yeah, it's excellent that Comic MJ is returning. It's CRIMINAL that we've only ever had one.) MJ might be my most hyped figure of the year. I will say. No Modular Oscorp is a huge misstep (Obligatory Kaine/Daredevil/Moon Knight/Luna Snow mention). But the apartment alone has three heavily desirable characters for me, so that helps offset the blow a bit. Here's hoping it's not as absurdly overpriced as the ITSV set it's rumored to connect to. If nothing else this'll keep me from buying the mech until we see the apartment set. Those little $15 sets are too easy to pick up while getting groceries... Actually, lego got a little confused as to who Hobgoblin was under the mask so his alt-head in this set IS Paul. He also comes with a 2x2 tile showing some divorce papers signed by Mephisto.

Congratulations to everyone! As others have said, the amount of great entries that have come out of this contest was staggering. I particularly liked the viking podracers and all the transformer alt builds!

Thank you! I agree, if they don't up the price for another few years I'm ok with the $20 point, especially since the figures are a good deal more detailed than they were at $15. Value wise I don't think the desirability of these figures should count though. A named character is worth as much as a generic stormie/rebel/p2cloneshiny/etc. Might make the set better or worst, but the actual cost to produce remains the same. I agree but am not completely without hope in that regard. Marvel had a few $10 sets, and those, in 2023/2024, were to my knowledge the cheapest non-gimmick sets ever availible for the theme. Thank you. I think I will start doing some research this week, we'll see what I can do. I don't know much about video production, but I also know that if I just posted a long article somewhere it wouldn't have anything near the level of reach a youtube video would. I wouldn't mind this when I have kids, I can still share the lego hobby with them without feeling bad about keeping my collection separate.

I went and did a very cursory search, and here's what I found in regards to cheap sets that weren't complete gimmicks like the planets/microfighters/etc: This is all US based and price changes in the US don't necessarily always correspond to those in other countries Battle Packs: Battle packs launched in 2007 for $10, about $15 today. Interestingly, they were very quickly upped to $12 in 2009, which does not at all account for inflation (only taking them to $10.4ish). A pattern of jumping the price about double what inflation was then appears, jumping to $13 in 2011 ($18 today, inflation off the previous would suggest a $12.6 price.), $15 in 2017 ($19.20 today, inflation off the previous would suggest a $14.2ish price), and $20 in 2022 ($21.5 today, inflation off the previous would suggest a $17.91 price). What comes from this is that lego's repeatedly upped the price of battle packs past inflation. Only rounding up by a dollar each time, but over time that adds up to the price having doubled in a time period where inflation only brings it up about 50%. Luckily, they don't seem to be upping it again yet, which implies that $20 price was set with the expectation of the pretty rough inflation of the past few years. TLDR: Battle Packs have routinely had a price jump ahead of inflation, but I'll be ok with the $20 price provided it sticks around for a few more years. Small "Normal" Sets: In the very early days, lego did $6 sets with 2 figs, that would be ~$11.5 nowadays. This was upped to $7 a few years in (about $12 today) and petered out a little before battle packs first hit the scene. I do legitimately believe that these should come back at $10-13, but it has been some time since they were a thing. The early days of the theme had many sets that launched for $10 ($16-19 today) and held fast at $10 until they petered out around the time battle packs showed up. Similarly, there were a few sets for $15 ($23-28 today), that left around the same time. After the advent of battle packs, non-gimmick sets for under $19.99 disappeared almost entirely, with some standouts including the battle pack adjacent Battle of Salucami in 2014 for $15 ($19.88 today) $20 sets were also a mainstay for most of the theme's life, petering out over time until their eventual death, with the final sets being duels ending in 2021's Mandalore Duel. The Modern Era of LSW killed that price point, as it did the $25 price point, and largely, the $30 price point, which aside from Obi-Wan's starfighter in 2022 and the life day diorama, has also died (with some battle packs now being moved to that $30 price point). The cheapest non-gimmick SW sets in the modern era are $35-40 now. TLDR: It's not unreasonable to assume that Battle Packs are responsible for killing the (in the modern day) $10-15 normal set price point and the start of the modern era of the theme (2020ish-present) killed the $20-30 normal set price point. Assumably battle packs killed the point due to being a similar price, and lego not wanting to have too many products at that point. Unfortunately, the modern era hasn't brought us any sets at that $20-30 price point, and they haven't given us any replacements either. (I assume the mechs are replacing microfighters given how few of those we now get) I'm not actually sure about this- the clone one obviously did, but that was one of the first clone BPs, so back when they'd sell out consistently and not the day 1 sellout and eventual shelfwarm. They had PILES of the hoth one at my local lego stores, and it ended up on sale on the website. I think in the end they just decided the format didn't do well enough to offset whatever distribution issues they were clearly having- we don't get them for the superheroes theme anymore anyway, come to think of it, those blister packs might be entirely dead? I don't think they did that poorly, either, it's odd. It speaks to the shift in lego's market philosophy in the modern era of the theme. I'm thinking of doing some more concrete research and making a sort of mini-documentary on lego's shifting market philosophy as it relates to the theme. More and more points seem to come back to that 2020ish shift around the time that lego realized they could sell to adults.

Yeah, I think it would fit a LOT of the issues people have with the theme, and it seems like an easy win. The cheaper sets thing brought up in the discussion thread reminded me of how much I want little $10 sets like Marvel got, so here's one for almost every onscreen project (Obviously not more than 1-2 would release per wave) The Phantom menace: Desert Duel ($9.99): Maul's Bloodfin and a moisture vaporator. Comes with Qui-Gon and Maul. There is a function to knock over the vaporator. Attack of the Clones: Geonosis Duel ($9.99): Dooku's speeder and a pillar with collapsing feature with Count Dooku and Yoda The Clone Wars: Duel on Mandalore ($9.99): Mandalore throne with Ahsoka Tano and Maul. Revenge of the Sith: Mustafar Duel ($9.99): The droid anakin's on top of and a small high ground build with Anakin and Obi-Wan. The Bad Batch: bounty hunter shootout ($9.99): Small landing platform build with Cad Bane, Hunter, and functions to knock them over. Jedi: Fallen Order: Zeffo Duel ($9.99): Small bit of temple with ray shield gate with Cal Kestis, Second Sister, and BD-1. Obi-Wan Kenobi: Final Fight ($9.99): rocky terrain with a function to launch rocks with Obi-Wan and Darth Vader (Damaged) Jedi: Survivor: Duel for Tanalorr ($9.99): Bacta tank and console with Cal Kestis and Dagen Gera. Solo: Final Shootout ($9.99): Beach with the big stone things, Han Solo, and Becket. A function in the floor knocks Beckett over. Andor: Rebel Meeting ($9.99): Catwalk and elevator with Lonni and Luthen Rael. Includes like 4 6x6 tiles with Luthen's speech (not really). Rebels: Reactor duel ($9.99): Reactor and catwalk with Kanan Jarrus and The Grand Inquisitor A New Hope: Death Star Duel ($9.99): Essentially a mini diorama of the death star corridor with Vader and Ben Kenobi. The Empire Strikes Back: Wampa Cave Attack ($12.99): Small wampa cave build and wampa with Luke Skywalker. Return of the Jedi: Endor Chase ($9.99): A speeder bike and small tree build with Luke Skywalker (Endor) and a scout trooper The Mandalorian: Darksaber Duel ($9.99): Imperial Cruiser corridor with The Mandalorian and Moff Gideon. The Book of Boba Fett: Mos Espa Shootout ($9.99): Boba Fett and Cad Bane with a mos espa facade. There's a feature to knock over Cad Bane. Ahsoka: Bandit Battle ($9.99): Howler and a rock with Sabine Wren (Hair) and a Bandit. Star Wars Resistance: Pilot Ready Room ($9.99): Small ready room/mechanic area build with Kazuda Xiono and Poe Dameron. The Force Awakens: Starkiller Base Duel ($9.99): small bit of snowy terrain with a function to split the build in half and a tree. Comes with Rey and Kylo Ren The Last Jedi: Ach-to Training ($9.99): Small bit of ach-to terrain with the boulder rey slices with Rey and Luke Skywalker. The Rise of Skywalker: Death Star Duel ($9.99): Small bit of death star terrain with a function to have a "wave" crash over a figure. Comes with Rey and Kylo Ren. Star Wars: Visions: The Ninth Jedi ($9.99): Kara's speeder and a hunter speeder with Kara and a Hunter. The set includes 9 lightsaber hilts and blades.

More $10-50 system sets would be extremely welcome. It feels like generally all we get for that slot are gimmicks (whether they be microfighters, battle packs, or mechs) and jedi starfighters. The duels making a comeback would be EXCELLENT. And here's the thing- I think they should actually come back SMALLER. Hear me out- Marvel's done a few little $10 sets with two figs. Both themes are owned by disney so I can't see them charging THAT much more of a licensing fee (And honestly I'd be fine with these being $13 instead of $10), and I think it would be a big hit. I won't do a full wishlist here as we have another thread for that, but consider: literally any scene where two characters fight.

I've always given Hal the benefit of the "it was a weird space and time situation" doubt, but yeah, what is Booster doing there? Is it just because he's a manchild and identifies with the characters? Astoundingly accurate- some specific ones I like: Superman is of course "I like all star wars", there's no other catagory he could be put in. Likewise, Bruce is an OT fan. Jay and Alan make total sense as OT fans, I bet they like the Mcquarrie art a lot. Red Hood 100% has a youtube channel about his views on the franchise Joker being a fan of specifically and only the acolyte especially works with Bruce as an OT fan Waylon is totally a "look man it's cool spaceships and lightsaber fights I don't really care which trilogy is which" type of guy. Cyborg loves Bad Batch specifically my only suggested changes- Jim seems like a no-nonsense "I liked the original three as a kid, George had no business going back and changing them, much less making the prequels" type of guy. I think Krane would appreciate that Clone wars has the spookiest star wars content in visual media. I think a small catagory for "sequel fan" with a few of the youngest wouldn't hurt and moving some "got into it from friends" and "all star wars is good" guys to a "casually watched mando and thought it was cool" catagory. If Thawne was a kennedy hater we wouldn't have kennedy in charge of SW. I feel like it's possible he got into it when he saw mando, found out Barry liked it, and then influenced mando S3 to mess with him. I feel like Shazam is a skeleton crew fan but not in a creepy way, but pretends he doesn't like it around the other leaguers. Booster's a fan of stuff like TMAG, Filoni's New Republic Movie, and the inevitable KOTOR trilogy. Also a new catagory for Rip MUST be created stating that he's a fan of stuff like Kenner's The Legend Continues storyline, Escape from Dagu, the Rey/Taiki/Kevin Feige/GoT guys movies, etc.

Not that it does anything besides take the situation from "disgusting and illegal why would the spider man writers do this" to just "disgusting why would the spider man writers do this", but weren't they all in college by that point? I still assume it'll be spider-gwen in the set. People are getting their hopes up for Mayday or Bigfig Venom but I'm pretty confident the leakers would have told us (and that lego thinks Kraven will be enough to get the fig collecters to buy the overpriced set anyway). I think it's pretty clear the lineup will be Spider-Man (re-use of current design), Spider-Gwen (re-use of comic design), Miles Morales (re-use of comic design with the hoodie), Spider-Girl (Julia from the Venom set reuse), Venom (re-use of current design), Norman (Kitbash, maybe an exclusive face with a goblin side if we're lucky), Green Goblin (ideally a new design but not-unlikely to be a re-use), Kraven (new torso and hopefully head, no leg printing) I'd guess 6 new prints in the set MAX: Goblin head/torso/legs, kraven head/torso, Norman head. (Which should have been spent on Luna head/torso, moon knight head/torso, kaine head/torso. I'm not letting this go. This set took modular oscorp from me so now I'm bringing these extremely unrealistic figure expectations into every comment about it)

Yeah we folded pretty fast over here (though I'm not sure it would have done much in terms of the doomscrolling, since they'd just go to instagram or youtube's versions.) It's a tricky situation (by the way, are "cadets" just schoolchildren, because that's such a cool name compared to what we have over here). I've worked in similar roles, and there are certainly kids who like lego- there were plenty of people who wanted me to bring my sets to class (though ironically that's also been true with middle-aged coworkers at jobs not involving kids), but I feel like the numbers are much lower than they used to be for little kids. I've got some family friends who just broke into middle school and apparently are like the only ones in the school still openly into lego. But then on the other end of it, half my college, men and women, are stalking the clearance shelves for lego and counting down to release dates. And not just for 18+ stuff, I know a girl who bought a ninjago set because she liked the show as a kid, or guys who think the venom car from marvel is the greatest set to grace store shelves in some time. I do think that the proportion of adults who buy lego for themselves HAS increased to a massive extent, and while not by the same amount, I think it has dropped for kids. I think lego is adjusting their product lines WAAAAAAAAY too drastically as a response though- they're essentially largely writing off kids as a part of the market for themes like star wars. Some of them could have been, sure, but it's like saying the UCS X-wing could have been a playset X-wing. It's not so much that they're overpriced (though some of them were) as that they're different things. I don't mind the 18+ sublines, especially the dioramas, so long as they don't replace so many system sets like they currently are. (Also, the Final Duel was the same price in system as it was in the diorama)

Could've fooled me into thinking this was an official set at first glance, very well done.

The first movie to make a Morbillion dollars at the box office, too. I dunno. I don't think we'd actually get him in anything unless he becomes more prominent, just because, like, why waste prints on him when we don't have Kaine, another Daredevil, Moon Knight, or Luna Snow (only partially joking, as he isn't really in any stuff kids are exposed to much these days), but lego's done figures like lil' devil before, so I think Mephisto would probably be allowed since he's technically not the devil in-universe and his design kind of just looks like a guy in a red suit and cape. Yeah it was pretty similar in the US too. I don't think that really has any bearing on anything, lego has no consistent lore here. We've had civilian gwen before, we get comic spider-gwen in comic sets, I don't think it means anything in relation to "establishing love interests". Yeah it's just a city set with marvel figs, like at least the constant morbmobiles and hero cars take the time to make futuristic or character-themed designs. This is a city monster truck with a couple Hulk stickers. (And at least Hulk should have been a bigfig)

My point is that this is a marvel set, and yet the only marvel related thing about it is the minifigures. It's just a monster truck. No play feature, not even stud shooters. It's a city set with the minifigures wearing hulk and thanos costumes. I think you're letting hope overshadow reality here. It's almost a habit at this point for lego to have a few sets a year that are just laughably overpriced compared to everything else, that's nothing new. The leviathan has about as many pieces as the X-jet, includes a big fig in addition to the same amount of normal minifigures, and is almost half the price.

Watch paul receive new face, torso, and leg prints. Not the monster truck in general, but that it's got a minifig hulk and from what I can tell, no play features. If the set came with a bigfig hulk that could rip this thing in half I'd actually think it's a pretty cool kids' toy, as-is it's a monster truck with hulk and thanos minifigs. It's good but it obviously doesn't beat the cultural juggernaut of cinema that is Micheal Morbius, and I think I might put Rhino's weird noise from kraven or just how many "I'm kraven a different movie" jokes you can make over that line. Unironically would be happy to get a comic MJ and Mephisto, even if it meant I'd also have to have an official Paul. This might actually be my biggest issue with the show from what I've seen- I personally don't like this suit at all (Nor have I liked most of the other "homemade suits" they've done post-homecoming), but my bigger issue is the lore thing that spider-man can't make a decent suit without a Tony or, god forbid, a Norman. (And- and I'm getting super off topic now and just venting about weird decisions from the show- why does he get the future foundation suit when not only is that a suit the FF make him, but Norman actually makes him a suit at one point in the comics they could have used!)

I also think it fits that Madam Web, which is the least memeable (and arguably therefore worst, even if Morbius is a special type of bad) film in the franchise, is the only one to not get the main character in a set. I think the dual molded legs and arm printing on spidey are guarantees for a set this big. This is an abysmal figure lineup, don't get me wrong, but spider-man will probably have dual molded legs.

It's actually Han Solo, the Immortal Iron Fist, and we can now recreate the iconic scene where Killian screams "Qi Guan Chang Hong!" or "Dragon Unleashed!" and inexplicably starts rapidly advancing through the sky towards a frantically flying-away Tony by kicking and punching the air. I'm pretty confident that it'll be a re-used suit with the Star Wars Finn hairpiece and a generic head. Lego accidentally making a set where you can recreate the worst spider man storyline by having civilian Gwen and Norman figs in Oscorp would be really funny. What's funny is a lot of people are doing to assume this is a "Gwen Dies" joke, when the reality is much more disturbing. I knew we were never going to get a fig list like Kaine, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Luna Snow, Bigfig Venom, Comic Lizard, Raimi Goblin, Doom, but c'mon, that fig lineup? For a set that's $130 with only 800ish pieces? My worst-case scenario guess was Norman (Re-used parts), Green Goblin, Venom, Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Miles, Iron Man or Black Panther from the car set. And the only things I got wrong were that the 4th hero re-use was spider-girl and that we actually did get a new Kraven over the Doc Ock. I think this is a bad set, it takes away the hope for an oscorp modular anytime soon, and I hope it retires soon so that a modular oscorp that can actually include a number of interesting characters can come sooner. Also the Hulk truck is one of the worst sets we've ever had in the theme, I know people like how goofy it is, but it has no redeeming qualities to me. It's very clearly meant for little kids, sure, but... I GURANTEE YOU little kids would prefer a bigfig hulk, or play features to smash apart the truck, or more than two characters in a $35 set. I'm confident this set is discount bin food. It, in my opinion, shows almost every issue with the theme. De-embiggening big characters, too few figs, the build is a vehicle the character doesn't need, etc. At least for $35 the price isn't that bad.

Unfortunately I don't have a ton of faith in that. A combination of the lego design team's.... interesting answers to questions alongside the fact that, while I like a number of the LAN guys, I do think there's an understandable hesitation to be too critical of the company supplying you with free sets to review. (And if that's the case I don't blame them- regardless of whether or not lego would actually pull a membership over it, I certainly wouldn't want to risk it). I think if it happened, the designers would give a nonsense response and the person who asked wouldn't want to push them on it. We gotta figure out a word for the regular sets. I've seen playset, which sort of works, but would count a lot of gimmicks- arguably the marvel buildable figures are playsets-, and system, which is the one I like to use, but technically all the 18+ sets are still system, so it's not necessarily accurate either.

Called it. That'd be a bridge too far even for this theme. It's brutal. 384 pieces for $55 isn't, like, a unique horror, but the price for volume of stuff? This is like a $15 mech, and then a $20 set with three figs. This is a $35 set.

Yeah, I would really enjoy that. I would like a UCS AT-ST too, but that diorama would be like a top 10 set. I don't really know how to word this in a way that makes sense, but a part of me is weirdly confident that lego would view the AT-ST, a bipedal vehicle, as a sort of buildable character, and therefore thinks it would do well at retailers. See, I think so too, and I think it implies lego has this weird view that adults are turned off by or view minifigures as childish, which I just don't think is the case. I think anyone who's buying legos wouldn't suddenly be against it if the sets have figures, and I KNOW plenty of people who don't currently buy these sets would if they did have figures.

Thank you! My idea was that instead of changing the subject of the set, I'd change what type of set it is. A kids' playset, and a lot more spaced out. (Which is actually a bit of an issue at the moment as I haven't had time to rebuild the original set, so the rest the figs and mocs on the shelf it's on are all cramped and stacked on top of eachother)