brickbride

I'd say that calling it "Luna Lovegood's House" without including Luna makes even less sense. But then again over at DC we've just had a "Batman vs. Superman Batmobile" without Superman and a "Batman and Robin Batmobile" without Robin revealed, so who knows. 1) I didn't say that girls would only like sets where girls are included. But I know a lot of girls who like HP, and none of them like cars, or motorbikes, or spiders. All of them like unicorns. I'm not saying that no girl ever would buy one of the current sets (in fact many would buy them because, you know, they like HP and there's nothing else), but that's the problem. Girls deserve representation, too, and right now they aren't getting it. The cheapest available HP set with even one female character is EUR 20, and that's Hermione in the Charms Class with two male characters to accompany her. The cheapest available HP set with two female characters is the boathouse at EUR 38 (again, two female and three male characters). (For comparison: One male character is currently EUR 4, two are EUR 15.) I'm not even sure there are ANY current HP sets with an equal number of male and female characters, or with more females than males. Boy-centric really is the norm here. The last gender-balanced HP set I can recall was the Thestral Carriage you mention, and that's from a few years ago. 2) As for Friends, again, the old theme did have boys, so your argument doesn't track. However, the boys weren't the main characters. Girls are pretty much never the main characters in any LEGO theme (the last gender-balanced one was Hidden Side, otherwise it's mostly a token girl or two in a group of boys) but again, that's the norm and we're supposed to accept it without question. Whereas boys not being the main characters is presented as a huge unfairness that needs to be rectified. The new Friends theme has eight main characters, three of which are boys, which is actually fairly close to a 50:50 ratio. (And again that used to be the ONLY girl-centric theme. It's not longer even close to that!) Moreover the nice thing about the old Friends was that, due to having an all-girls main cast, it wasn't given to stereotyping. For example, Stephanie was the group's baker and gymnast but also played soccer. Emma was the artsy girl who did karate and ran a tuning shop. It really did tell girls that they could be and do everything they wanted. Now we have the martial arts and soccer and general daredevilry all assigned to male characters Zac and (in the case of soccer) Leo, reinforcing once again that those are "boy" pursuits. Whereas girls now get to identify with the shy, insecure singer (Paisley) or the good, helpful student (Aaliya), which IMO is a huge step backwards in terms of avoiding stereotypes.

This year had four sets plus the D2C, and that was with the Superman movie! I wouldn't expect double that for 2026. Unless the remaining sets are more movie tie-in Batmobiles.

@Virginia_BricksThank you! I'm so sick of hearing "Girls should just like everything that's tailored to boys, and if you don't think so you are sexist". There's a reason Hermione is more popular with girls than Harry or Ron! And it's especially hypocritical to bring that argument in the context of LEGO, given that LEGO even rebooted the Friends theme - their SOLE in-house theme where girls weren't marginalized - in order to include more boys. Because there were boys in the old Friends theme but they for once weren't the main characters so that needed to ve changed in the name of "fairness". Every other in-house theme gets aa token female character or two and that's it. Catering to boys is LEGO's default even though girls should make up 50 percent of its target group.

I've been advocating for an allowance-friendly unicorn set for ages, but LEGO refuse to make small sets girls would like. It's all Harry, Ron, Harry, Ron, Hagrid, Harry, spider-car-bike.

Over at LEGO HP, Diagon Alley came out in 2020 and Gringotts came out in 2023. Those sets are actually meant to connect, but they clearly waited with giving us Gringotts until they were satisfied that Diagon Alley was doing well. So about three years seems realistic to me. Meaning we could see an Arkham successor in 2028. Of course Gringotts had never before been done in that format (and neither has the Daily Planet). LEGO probably have a couple of things for each theme which they consider lower-risk due to popular demand being there, such as Arkham and the Batcave for DC. Meaning another D2C Batcave might be in the cards earlier, like 2027 or even 2026 (in addition to a Marvel D2C).

Oscorp. Given the state of DC and LEGO's lack of faith in anything that's not a Batmobile, I wouldn't expect another DC modular unless they have reliable sales data for Arkham. Next year is probably too soon.

No rumours but many people suspect Oscorp: had a recent playset, a bunch of ready minifigs currently in production, replacing the Bugle with another Spidey modular since he's easily the SH theme's most popular character...

I think the logo looks better than the Marvel one. You decide whether I think it's that great or the Marvel one was just worse. Otherwise this wave looks depressing as hell, it makes even Star Wars look colourful! To think LEGO Marvel skipped the Thunderbolts movie entirely, probably at least in part because of the drab colour scheme, and then LEGO DC gives us an entire wave of nothing but this. Even a single other minifig per set such as, say, SUPERMAN or ROBIN, would have made a huge difference. Batman is still huge with kids but between a logo and three different cars from non-kid-friendly older movies I don't see anything here for kids. EDIT: LEGO have always fostered a certain "Collect 'em all" mentality (i.e. modular Hogwarts Castle going back as far as 2001, collectible tiles in different sets of the same wave, CMF series...) but lately the things we're supposed to collect are all basically the same thing: an entire wave of F1 Speed Champions, an entire CMF series of barely distinguishable F1 cars, and now three Batmobiles in a single wave. Is that going to be a continuing trend? What do you think?

Yeah, I don't think Agatha's going to be the MCU's next leading lady. For one thing there's what happens to her at the end of her show (I won't spoiler it). For another she doesn't fit the template - one thing I really liked about her show was that it wasn't about hot young assassin babes but about older, less attractive, down-on-their-luck women. I was more using her as an example in that Marvel for once did things right the way the introduced her. They got a great actress (I don't find Shang-Chi's actor unattractive but I do think he was probably cast more for his excellent martial arts skills than for his emoting), they gave her a plot that was personal, fun and quirky, yet also had serious stakes ("Agatha All Along" might even be the MCU's most violent show if you put the number of character deaths in relation to how few characters there are in it in the first place). Shang-Chi's movie ticked many of the same boxes. And so did the Thunderbolts'. I think the latter just came too late. Bucky's audience goodwill had mostly evaporated after TFATWS and his short appearance in BNW, Yelena wasn't exactly a household name either, and after a slew of not-great MCU movies culminating in BNW people just weren't going to bother with one whose cast consisted of has-beens and unknowns. But again it had some good acting, it was fun and quirky yet serious at the same time, and it was personal. A message like "Protect the innocent" or "Be there for your friends" is something not many audience members are going to disagree with. The problem is that with their designated new leading man, Falconcap, Marvel keep ignoring all of these points. I don't think Anthony Mackie is all that great an actor, much like Shang-Chi's actor - except Shang-Chi at least had great martial arts skills (the bus fight stands out) while Falconcap's fighting scenes are awful, fake-looking CGI-fests. His material isn't personal either; all we ever get with him is politics, a divisive topic which makes it very easy to disagree with his stances and opinions. If, like you say, both Agatha and the Thunderbolts are done due to a lack of viewership then the same should hold true for him after BNW tanked at the box office. But presumably they're going to stick with him regardless, which sucks.

The 2023 ones were bad but didn't they have to scramble because of Ezra, since one of them would have had The Flash? Are those movie titles going to be part of the set name? As a casual customer, if I buy a "Batman vs. Superman Batmobile" I'd at least expect it to come with Supetman. The same for "Batman and Robin". It's Batman. Brooding alone in his cave is what he does. The fact that LEGO has him celebrate his birthday year with a gold statue of himself but no guests seems unintentionally hilarious to me. Much like Red Guardian telling the Thunderbolts that they can be the next team with the little kiddie toys, and LEGO not giving their movie even one set.

I think Venom, Carnage, or Star-Lord might be the most likely since all of them have got helmet sets already. The Venom and Carnage ones are a couple of years old and LEGO loves Venom, so I'd expect him at the very least. Other than that, Captain America (Steve, that is)? Yes he's not fully masked but I think hair is the real challenge to build with LEGO bricks (Thor is probably out of the question solely because of that), so displaying him with the helmet and the lower half of his face might work. Falconcap might be doable too since he has very short hair, but he's not popular enough, I think they'd want to stick to the classics. Black Panther would be another option since the same bust could represent either T'Calla or Shuri, so between the two of them the character might have enough of an audience to count, and they already did a Black Panther bust so clearly they think it's doable and will look good. On the other hand the previous set failed so I don't know. Hulk might be yet another option as he's very recognisable (for the colour if nothing else) and has short enough hair for it to work. But then we'd run into a scaling problem since a Hulk bust really should not be the size of the other busts. Of course that hasn't stopped LEGO from giving us Hulk minifigs all the time. I can't think of any option that would rival the popularity of the Spidey/Iron-Man combo, though.

I can't see Disney going for that. Those "Phase 4 rejects" between themselves have a bunch of movies and series about them all available for streaming on Disney+. Featuring the characters in Doomsday (even in a small role as long as they get a few good lines or a noteworthy feat) might generate interest in them and lead to more streaming revenue; killing them all off would kill off any interest in them and thus reduce revenue. It's probably as simple as that.

Agatha carried her own show the way Loki carried his. Sure her show was kind of niche but she's an engaging character, that's what I meant. Similarly, the Thunderbolts (John especially) are engaging enough that people want to see more of them. Bucky is more well-known and has been around for longer but like you've said, he's basically a sidekick - the same as Sam. I disagree about Shang-Chi as well, I think the character was actually the weak point of his own movie. His father, mother, sister, aunt, and best friend were all more engaging than Shang-Chi himself. Though to be fair he was more engaging than Falconcap in BNW but then again pretty much everyone would be. Those two teaming up would not work well. Especially if they then got together with, say War Machine (by the way was that the real Rhodey in episode 1 of TFATWS or the Skrull imposter? I'm kind of losing track of that particular plot point). The writers need to give us more truly conflicted characters. Not just "This person is the hero and therefore always right"(aka Sam aka Steve) and "This person has done bad things but it totally wasn't their fault" (aka Bucky aka Yelena).

Yeah, I think it's just a difference of perspective. I don't care about Comics Hawkeye and like Clint in the MCU for who he is. (Frankly the person you describe sounds like the last thing we need in a universe that already contains RDJ's Tony and Benedict Cumberbatch's Strange). You don't like MCU Clint because he's not Comic Clint. Both are valid.

double post please ignore

To be fair that's a general problem within the MCU - characters' powers varying based on whatever the plot demands. Loki's a powerful thousand-year-old sorcerer but somehow didn't even use magic when confronting Thanos, and before that was defeated by Strange - a relative novice in comparison - without Strange breaking a sweat. Carol can zap across the galaxy in a heartbeat except for when Monica needs to sacrifice herself inside a fast-closing portal. John Walker fought the Sam/Bucky combo to a draw single-handedly in TFATWS, but somehow couldn't defeat Yelena (who is not enhanced AND is a tiny woman) inthe vault scene of Thunderbolts because with Yelena dead immediately we wouldn't have had a movie. And so on and so on. Chris Evans' character is supposed to be the real Steve Rogers? Ugh that's so much worse than casting RDJ as Doom even. As for the X-Men recasting, I love Michael Fassbender's take on Magneto. I can take or leave the rest, however.

I actually love MCU Hawkeye! He was always my second favourite of the original Avengers after Tony, and I think Jeremy Renner did an excellent job bringing him to life. The thing about Clint, though, is that a) he's very very stoic and b) he has very little ego. It's what makes him interesting to me especially compared to people like Tony and Steven Strange. I can appreciate someone who just wants to get the job done, doesn't even necessarily want recognition for it, has a sense of humour about himself, and won't whine incessantly about how bad he has it (yes I'm looking at you, Yelena). But I feel like the writers don't think that's engaging enough, which is why even Hawkeye's solo show was mostly about people other than Hawkeye (though the parts with Clint in them were excellent). I give Kate a pass because she's at leat A Hawkeye if not THE Hawkeye, but all the shilling of Yelena and Echo was annoying. And it seems to have done little good given that no-one went on to watch Echo's show, and that most of the Thunderbolts audience probably wasn't there for Yelena either. I think both Loki and GotG 3 handled this as well as they could with Loki and Gamora. Loki especially is the reason why I'm not totally against it. But yeah, I wouldn't want it to become a regular thing. And in Loki's case it was definitely helped by several facts: - Loki's story was nowhere near finished at the time of his death. Which would not be the case with either Steve or Natasha. They both got their send-off and their closure. - We then got ample time to really get to know this new Loki better than we'd ever known the old one. He'd only been a supporting character up to that point. - The other characters on Loki's show hadn't known Loki previously. I think dumping a variant of Steve or Nat onto the remaining Avengers and having them treat him/her like their old friend would be extremely weird. And if they have to learn that the new variant is not in fact their old friend, well we've already been over this very issue with Gamora and don't need to rehash it, plus there likely wouldn't be time in an Avengers movie to do such a plot point justice. Other than that: Like I've said before I would include Star-Lord (all of the Guardians really) and Loki in the list of characters who retain audience goodwill. GotG 3 and Loki's show were well-received. But apart from them, yeah, there's not much. The only characters introduced post-Endgame that I personally liked AND that I feel could carry a story were Agatha Harkness and John Walker/the Thunderbolts (but with WAY less focus on Yelena, please). I also wouldn't mind seeing Billy, Kamala, and possibly Kate again as well but I'm nowhere near as invested in them, and I can't imagine anything good coming out of seeing all three of them (plus Cassie and whoever else Feige digs up) together. The Young Avengers, I feel, work best in small doses. Finally we were just discussing this at home the other day: What are the odds that the entire "casting RDJ as Doom" thing is a gigantic marketing ploy and he's actually playing an Iron Man variant (unrelated to Doom) with Doom being played by someone else (similar to the asteriks after Thunderbolts standing for The New Avengers)? Though truth be told I'm not even sure that would be much better (regarding the whole "dead characters coming back" issue).

Do you mean me? I don't like Falconcap any more than I like Steve, and have said so at length. I do like Walker but not because I think he'd be a better Captain America or something. He's just more interesting and conflicted as a person. I'm not into legacy characters to begin with, I know that's a comic thing but I find it unrealistic and annoying in the context of the MCU, especially when they're not operating remotely within the same parameters. ("Here's your new Captain America! Sure he has just the strength of a regular guy, but on the other hand he can fly! It's still the same thing!") I'd rather choose who I like based on the person, not the title.

@Mandalorianknight I've actually gone and watched TFATWS now. I don't even know what's the worst part about it. One of my complaints about Falconcap in BNW was that we learned nothing whatoever about him as a person, but here we do and it all makes him look pretty unlikeable, so I don't know. (Why didn't he call, say, Pepper Potts about a loan? Amongst other things. Was the crack about Bucky's "overextended life" really necessary given the circumstances? Why didn't he speak up in Walker's favour if he's otherwise happy throwing his influence around?) As for the shield, I grew tired very quickly of hearing what Steve would have wanted. I don't much like Steve Rogers to begin with, plus I feel he forfeited all rights to make that particular decision when he decided to hare off to the past, plus I think the shield's actually at least as much Howard Stark's legacy as it is Steve's and Howard would certainly want it to be used. I really loved John Walker in this, he's a far more interesting and conflicted character than Falconcap. Yeah, Sam and Bucky's needless antagonism towards him was extremely off-putting, especially since Walker clearly hadn't even volunteered for the position. What made it worse for me was contrasting it with Falcon's constant apologies over Karli - no matter what crimes she committed he kept telling everyone that she was just a misunderstood little girl, kept begging her to let him help her, even carried her bridal-style after Sharon Carter had shot her (while, apparently, leaving the badly injured Sharon there to fend for herself), and told everyone not to call her a terrorist. It's yet another example of the MCU's weird double standard for women - Karli lets herself be ruled by her emotions so we're to emphasize with her, while Sharon's a stoic, getting-things-done kind of female and thus apparently not worthy of viewer sympathy. Also am I the only person who got flashbacks to Siberia when Bucky once again teamed up with his buddy in order to beat a supposed teammate half to death and leave him lying there? At least Walker had superstrength and they didn't actually leave him to die in his broken armour, but still. Finally, I’m glad they toned down Val for „Thunderbolts“. This version acts exactly like Yelena and even though she's only in like two scenes she's exhausting. I much prefer the more polished Val from the movie.

Oscorp is much more likely than the Baxter Building IMO. I do think we might see an AC. Disney got one this year even though the last one (like the Marvel Spidey one) did poorly so I suspect the gap in 2025 had more to do with the Spidey CMF series than with last year"s sales.

She still fits the mould of being a younger copycat version of an Avenger. I'm not saying they'll go there now given that both "Thor 4" and the entire Young Avengers idea mostly weren't well-received, but I do think that was the intention - hence the bit at the end of "Thor 4" where she and Thor fight side by side. The Young Avengers will need at least one person with brute strength, but superstrength is hard to do with teenagers in an attractive way. I don't think a teenaged Hulk or supersoldier would be all that well-received, so a tiny girl wielding Mjolnir is about the best they could hope for. She could just be a cute kid sidekick to the other, more developed characters.

@BrickBob Studpants Your pic made me laugh, but that thing's about as useful (in terms of play value) as the UCS Hogwarts Express. By which I mean not at all. I can't imagine that many kids who want a LEGO HP train will be happy with a book nook so I fully expect a playset Hogwarts Express to hit the shelves in 2026. If they go PS/SS they could reuse the Harry and Ron figs from the book nook, though.

Hogwarts Express: I can't believe there won't be one on the shelves in 2026. LEGO love their vehicles, and this theme has very few of them as it is. Aragog: The scene has been done four times so far (counting 4738 Hagrid's Hut), so I except they'll definitely want to revisit it. Probably not for a couple of waves though. Potions: Yes, by replacement I meant another module of the same size (since the Charms Class is only half the size). Diagon Alley: I really doubt they'll start afresh. The first one which went EOL is WWW which is pretty limited in terms of how many scenes or books you can revisit with it. The next is Ollivanders and that's really only relevant for PS/SS. So there's little room for differentiation there. Durmstrang Ship: Yes I know the UCS Hogwarts Express is not a direct comparision. I just meant that the HE was poorly received and still lasted longer. Grimmauld Place did have the same running time, I give you that. Hogwarts Icons: I actually expect the leaked PS/SS 18+ set to be something like that, a couple stacked items (possibly based on the challenges, i.e. Stone, Devil's Snare, chess piece, etc.). I doubt it would include Fawkes, though, since he'd fit better with CoS than PS/SS.

*cough* Daenarys Targaryen *cough* There's a reason the books were written by a huge Marvel fan. That said, MoM grossed nearly a billion dollars despite its horror movie aesthetics and director, I would hardly call it unpopular. I also don't like Wanda and like I've said think she was pretty evil from the start. But I'll gladly agree with you that the MCU's idea of female empowerment leaves much to be desired.

LEGO has marked a bunch of sets for EOL (retiring at the end of 2025). For HP that's - Diagon Alley (which had a very good run, it came out in 2020!) and a bunch of others: - Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station (meaning we're probably due a new Hogwarts Express in 2026) - Aragog in the Forbidden Forest (again that's a staple of LEGO HP, so maybe another one in 2026?) - Boathouse, Owlery, Potions Class, and Duelling Club all from the new modular system (the latter only came out this year but will presumably replaced by the Sorting Hat in the January 2026 wave, and I'm expecting a replacement for the Potions Class as well) - Ollivanders and Madam Malkins (continuing with the IMO nonsensical trend for the playset Diagon Alley - anyone trying to start a collection after this year is already missing both WWW and Ollivanders, two of the most iconic shops) - buildable Dobby, Buckbeak, and Mandrake (the latter two only from 2024 - I'm expecting new buildable creatures to replace them) - Most surprising to me is the Durmstrang Ship, an exclusive and generally well-received set from mid-2024. We've certainly had exclusives last longer than that, even unpopular ones - the UCS Hogwarts Express lasted almost a whole year longer! For 2026, this cements my assumption that we'll at least get - playset Hogwarts Express (probably in the second wave of the year) - Aragog (maybe) - a replacement for the Potions Class in the modular system - another Diagon Alley entry (probably Flourish & Blotts) - buildable stuff galore (even though most of it looks bad, you'd think minifigs in licenced themes would be LEGO's main draw, and I can't think of any sets that have been really well-received lately). - Also at least one large and one mid-size (the latter has been confirmed as the Hospital Wing) addition to the modular Hogwarts.