Faefrost

I thought Harley was actually a B@tSh@t crazy Psychiatrist? Sort of the DCU's equivalent to Moonstone? (PS Hey Lego peeps! THUNDERBOLTS = WANT!!!!!)

I think we AFOL's represent 10% of the overall Lego sales. That includes things like Friends, City, Ninjago and Bionacle/Hero Factory. AFOL's are a much stronger group in the sub categories such as Star Wars, LotR's, Harry Potter and now particularly Super Hero's. Star Wars they have long admitted is heavily AFOL driven. It is pretty much the gateway drug to AFOL'dom. So it's not surprising that they target a lot of those sets at us. Looking at the selection of new Super Hero minifigs it's also pretty apparent that they know what they are dealing with as well. (Note the recently posted official survey fo AFOL's by lego. Note the heavy concentration of 30-40 something male computer and technology workers that they found with the survey. Yeah! Star Wars and Comic Books tend to track very well in line with that particular demographic.)

I don't know if it has been said, but a Grand Admiral Thrawn minifig would look positively striking. And I'll probably get shot for saying this, but a fig of the slightly older Asohka from CW season 3+ where she dual wields the full Lightsaber plus a slightly different colored Shoto (short sword type Lightsaber) would probably look really good. Certainly better than the standard Asohka fig we have had for years. Beyond that, more of the murkier grey characters. The rogues, the bounty hunters. The people that fit in between the shiny armored imperials or clones, and the Jedi.

Honestly, unless you find the magnet sets in the clearence bin, it's often not really worth it. More often then not you can find the figure you want cheaper and for less hassle on Bricklink. For the most part we are not talking the sought after collectables versions of figs being used for these sets. Oh and one important point. If you do want to try the hot water trick, make sure you have removed any of those softer rubbery custom parts, such as Kit Fisto's head first. Some of them use a lower temperature plastic that will soften or deform before the abs used in the minifigs body.

Is anyone else getting the feeling that they are holding back a ton of Marvel figs? The DC figs make sense. You can see how they lay out into a group of sets. Arkham Asylum, a Mr. Freeze based set, etc. The Marvel figures seem like they are missing pieces. I mean do you really think they would put a Dr.Doom fig in without one or two FF members? And nothing shown so far really seems to go along with Nova? (does he show up in that Ultimate Spiderman cartoon?) the figs shown seem to be lacking a certain equivalency or balance. So hopefully there is more coming.

My favorite has to be the civilianized Harley Quinn. Just the little touches of her "uniform" beneath her medical coat complete the fig just perfectly. A near runner up is Nova. A figure I never would have expected to see in a production set, really well done. It they had given him a spiky shoulder piece for his "Nova Prime" version he would have won. Number three would be Red Robin. Just for the "damn I never expected that fig" factor. With Venom and Dr. doom rounding out my list of favorites. As nicely done as the Bane figure seems to be. I just can't bring myself to care. The character his been jump the shark awful both in his initial comic appearance (Nightfall) and in his previous movie appearance. I don't care how good the Dark Knight rises is. It probably will not be enough to redeem that character for me.

The hooded Robin is "Red Robin". He is the more grown up evolution of the popular Tim Drake Robin, just like Nightwing is Dick Grayson. They are rather steadily rounding out the Bat cast. Now all they need is a minifig wheelchair so they can do a Professor X and an Oracle.

Dr Doom! And Nova!!!!! :cry_happy: And I must be missing something, but who is the red dude with the wings? Is that the Ultimate version of the Beetle? (if so really would have preferred classic green and purple) Over on the DC side, it looks like the guesses were correct and we are getting a new Arkham Asylum, complete with "civilianized" Dr Hailey Quinn. And OMG! An actual "Red Robin" fig. I never would have imagined that! I like the use of the Atlantis helmet piece for Mr. Freeze. A little disapointed that there's no classic look Batgirl.

So will we be seeing anything else today? Or is the Rancor pit the only SW news for the show? I was kinda hoping they would show off a few more new minifigs? (although seeing the new CMF series 8 has buffered that a bit )

The "heat in water for 5 minutes at precisely 160 degrees" method works well. They just sort of "bink" off. It's really only useful if you are looking to fill out a scene or looking for a character for playing with. It is still detectable that the fig was from the magnet so you could never really sell the figs.

Ugh! I just found out why neither Lego.com nor any retail stores have these sets out or available in the US yet. According to my local Lego store manager they have a hard street date by contract with Lucas. (I suspect it is 7/23). Walmart and TRU online stores broke the street date when they received their shipments. Lego since they have the direct contract with Lucas can't and won't. And yeah my local manager was pissed about it. They've been losing too many sales from it.

It's a tax accountingthing. Due to his gross size he gets recorded as a capital expense instead of an employee of the Hutts. As a result the set lists him as a "vehicle" instead of a minifig.

Wow! a few really nice ones that I really want. My favorite is the female AC alien. It is so nice to see at least one last Alien Conquest fig. And such a cool one. Also loving the Robot, the Conquistador, the Man Bat, Santa and especially the Diver . It looks like the businessman and the skier will be the useless ones of the series this time.

They might have been better off just going with the spider symbol and skipping the printed on abs.

Awwww! But come on! It would be guaranteed to come with an ugly CW Padme minifig AND a JarJar, plus a bunch of battle droids. What more could you want? (better yet , probably the ugly CW Padme head on/in a CMF Hazmat guy suit. Which seems oddly appropriate now that I come to think on it.)

Sadly I think the actual sales of the two SWTOR ships will be almost moot to the decision as to whether to make more. The source material, the actual game, is doing extremely badly at the moment and is bleeding subscribers. I can't see any marketing or development team risking resources on subjects from it now. Maybe if there is already another ship in the pipe with the early 2013 sets. But that's probably going to be it, sadly. I really would love to have a D5 Mantis :(

Looking at that pic a little deeper, there is some interesting stuff there. That large brown thing in he upper right shelf. I know some have said that would be. UCS droid fighter, but I don't think so. Too boxy. That might actually be the TCW slaver ship. A few sets below it is what looks like one of those squid subs and the little sub Obi Wan uses during the TCW Kamino episodes? And finally hat Slave 1 near the middle, does that look more like the young Boba Fett TCW colors of the ship, rather than the OT or PT versions?

Looking at that pic a little deeper, there is some interesting stuff there. That large brown thing in he upper right shelf. I know some have said that would be. UCS droid fighter, but I don't think so. Too boxy. That might actually be the TCW slaver ship. A few sets below it is what looks like one of those squid subs and the little sub Obi Wan uses during the TCW Kamino episodes? And finally hat Slave 1 near the middle, does that look more like the young Boba Fett TCW colors of the ship, rather than the OT or PT versions?

I forget where I read this, but that room pictured is where Lego stores their model prototypes. They keep everything they develop, regardless as to whether or not they produce it as a set. So there is no way to tell if those are simply experimental projects, or something destined for production. Only time will tell. They mat also be alternate or earlier or even more elaborate designs for sets that they ended up making in another way.

It sounded like they got cancelled very late in the development process. They obviously had packaging and prototypes. If I am seeing the ADF one right it looks kind of like a larger version of the little VTOL from the Agents Robo Attack set. Forward swept wings and pivoting lift fans in the rear. The Alien set looks confusing.

No, the actual name of the first chapter from the book "The "Hobbit" is "An Unexpected Party". That is the scene that this set is portraying. And the first Chapter was widely republished as a stand alone short story under that name.

The yellow ship on the right is some sort of Naboo Science hover craft, featured in a truly hideous Padme/JarJar episode of TCW. I'm not sure on the other ship? It looks familiar but I can't quite place it?

Bag end is definitely the winner of the two. Just spectacular. As far as the Rancor set. It's decent. The Rancor is about the best we could have hoped for outside of a brick built Bionacle type thingy. The building itself? I'm not sure. As a stand alone it's a bit plain. But it looks like a small footprint for under Jabba's Palace. Is there any chance we may see a Droid Dungeon to go next to it and sit under the other palace tower?

It's a zoomed in pic of that big Lego prototype room. All of the AC sets are on a counter in the middle left. Am I right in thinking those two unknown boxes look like an ADF fighter, and maybe some sort of an Alien Robot?

Like I said in the Embassy head. Thre is a subtle but important difference between "exclusive figures" and "exclusive characters". This is where Lego messed up with this year. Comics and superhero fans love rare variants. They love and understand special costumes, recolors, etc. they go for that. But unlike every other Lego licensed line, in Superhero's the characters are the primary product, not the vehicle or the scene or play set. We buy the sets because of the characters (batman somewhat being the exception). So when they cut us off from any reasonable chance of getting any version of our beloved characters, in favor of what feels like a very small number of exclusive elites, then yeah the paying customer fan base is going to feel a bit put out. The key is some version of the character must be available to the general public, or there must be a reasonableexpectation that there will be. They can live with an exclusive movie WW2 version of Captain America, so long as they can have a version of Cap on their shelf. They will tolerate a movie based Green Lantern exclusive, mainly on the hope that much like in the game, we will be seeing a classic silver age costume one in a set sometime soon. But tell them, "sorry you missed the only chance at Venom, we gave them all out one day only at a San Diego nerd convention" ummm hulk smash?