Faefrost

Has Robin been a member of ANY incarnation of the Justice League? Traditionally Green Arrow was the first new member added to the League after it's founding. (Followed by Atom then Hawkman). He's also one of the easiest Minifigs for Lego to do, given that they already have the parts for pretty much any version of him. And weirdly he is one of DC's more recognizable characters. He is like Marvels Ghost Rider or Doctor Strange. Most non comic fans know nothing of his story or adventures. But they do recognize the character and know his name. Which, combined with his now fairly steady presense on TV should increase the chances that we might see him in a set. Besides he is a hero that uses accessories. A bow, hood or hat and quiver. Which make for a more interesting fig with better play value. I mean we got Aquaman...

It might be an early very slight short shot? Or a test shot that got out of the factory as a factory second. Red is the color they commonly use for things like mold testing. So it might be Lego.

I would be happy with just a nice CS tribute set. Something like the new City Arctic Base. Just in classic space colors. Give it a little rover instead of a snowmobile, a small ship like Benny's from the poster, 5 classically colored astronauts and a robot. $89 price point and done.

The sad thing is the Lego physical designs for the new turtles are incredible. The level of detail and printing on the shells. The stud to allow for stuff on the back like sheathed weapons. All great. Even the head mold is decent. It is the actual movie character designs that Lego is copying that make them horrid. Which is a shame. Lego has been doing so much better with licensed (and unlicensed) figures recently. There has been so much good.

Superheroes has sold extremely well and has officially been designated one of lego's Evergreen themes. (Basically this means it's not going away) It will not surpass SW any time soon, but it is on the same playing field these days. The Theme is slowly and steadily growing. Right now it's biggest drawback is that it involves multiple licenses under a common theme.

The regular Skeleton head is correct. (There are a few subtle variations on some prints of those, that Lego does not really discriminate between in stock. The newer ones are slightly creepier. I don't know if any variants of those have appeared in this set.) But I have never seen that Fantasy Era head mentioned in this set. Maybe it is an early prototype photo? Or someone swapped it out and posted a pic on the Internet for looks? If you prefer that look the Fantasy Skelly heads are pretty easy to come by.

This is one of the issues with buying bulk Lego on E-Bay. The seller often does not know what they have, and you get a ton of garbage clone bricks.

That is a Fantasy Era Skeleton Head. One of the bad guys from the Castle Fantasy Era line from a few years ago. I've never seen one in this set, but it would not surprise me if a few got mixed in with the regular skeletons somewhere along the line.

Ooo! One thing of interest, since we are talking about Heroes with recognizable Swooshable vehicles. It is pretty much all but confirmed that Blue Beetle will be a recurring character in the third season of Arrow. Given all of the wonderful parts from Galaxy Squad, and the fact that Between Arrow and Flash we are seeing a steadily increasing amount of real costumed heroes on the small screen, might we be seeing a set or two surrounding some of those characters? Even if not there TV versions. A classic Blue Beetle Bug would be a no brainer in Lego these days.

Batman is one of the few heroes that has a deep recognizable varied pool of things like vehicles. Swooshable stuff. That is a prime driver of toys, especially Lego sets. "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

We have seen CMF torsos and recolors used in other sets? And the Librarian torso would have been perfect. Or the female torso from Pharaohs Quest.

Keep in mind that those new wheels were I believe the first and only time Lego made new tooling specifically for a limited release D2C set. It was a huge financial risk, as they could not immediately spread the costs out over several expected retail production sets to support the financing. The designers had to beg plead and pledge their firstborn children to get those wheels made. Something that is not likely to be repeated any time soon. TLG really only did it because of the longevity and steady sales of trains, that made them a little bit of a better risk than most other D2C's.

Brown? Big? Big honking wheels? Hmmm? A PRR GG1 would be a treat.

My only complaint is with the minifigs. are they so grossly overstocked on those grey coated flight attendant torso's and the blue sweat jacket with necklace that we have to see them in virtually every single set? They have some other fantastic female torso's out there. So why these same 2 over and over?

If they follow the last Agents line a second wave would probably have a large villain base and A good sized Agents air or water vehicle.

Not to burst your bubble, but you are making the common fallacy of mixing cultural references without acknowledging it. You talk about iconagraphy in Europe and North America, and then pull out a specifically Japanese reference to prove it. (Yeah, PAC Man is not Western). Anita Sarkeesian is particularly good at this trick to. She routinely pulls out Japanese games from the 80's to prove modern issues of North American sexism. as far as Lego. People are failing to appreciate oneof the most basic elements of the whole equation. Lego most certainly did not seek to promote boys over girls. But they are a corporation and a merchant. They go where the customers are. We talk about it as if all things are in fact equal. But remember, Lego originally was very very gender neutral. If anything many early sets may have even been slightly more weighted towards girls. But it was market forces that moved them more and more towards boys. Boys tended to be more interested in their product. by an order of magnitude. So as time went on that is where their focus drifted. And I hate to break it to you, but yeah young boys do self segregate by sex and go through a "girls are icky" phase. And generally it corresponds with the primary ages where they seek out Lego. as a counterpoint, does the other largest toy line on toy shelves get castigated for its lack of equal gender representation? Does Mattel get crusades for not including enough male representation in their Barbie lines? People talk of default assumptions, but I tend to suspect that that is more myth than reality. Take a closer look at the aisles in Target or Walmart the next time you go through them. I just looked at my Target. 3 aisles that I would consider "boy" focused toys. Action Figures, Cars, and Lego. 3 aisles of stuff that, no, is not in fact boy focused but rather is non gender specific. Board Games, Loud electronic toys to annoy parents, Puzzles, general activities, Water toys etc. 5 aisles of girl focused toys, and 2 aimed at infants. Did you note the Five aisles? This in spite of the fact that girls tend to graduate from "toy based play" to less age specific general merchandise such as clothes music etc, at a younger age than boys. I still question many of the assumptions that girls and boys are "equal". Girls and boys are more than a bit different. Not simply because of society, but because of biology. Testosterone has a somewhat different impact on a human than Estrogen. Just ask any 2nd Grade teacher what it is like riding heard on the girls vs the boys. This is not purely cultural or upbringing. Now the trick is we do not want to pigeon hole kids, or treat one group as lesser than the other. And we certainly should encourage things like girls taking an interest in building toys and math. But just assuming they are the same. I think somebody failed to read the correct instruction manual on becoming a parent.

Under the heading of life imitating art. George Lucas announced this morning that Chicago will get the real world Star Wars museum. It's comming in 2018.

The only places that could order any part in any color are the Lego Model Shops and the Legoland Parks Model shops. These are the in house outfits that make and maintain all of the statuary and display pieces. Sometimes one of these shops will clear out some warehoused stock of unique stuff and it will show up on Bricklink as a result. Also Lego long had a policy of selling off factory seconds locally around their main factories. So around Billund there exist lots of unusual part and color combinations. Mostly from things like mold test shots. All of this stuff is extremely rare quite expensive, and has its own thriving collectors market. See some of LegoHistorians posts for a glimpse at it all.

The BURPS in general are a low cost low weight solution for adding height and vertical differentiation to a build. They are wonderful for that. They offer strong support to put something on top of, without busting the budget. Yeah you can do a straight brick build. But you face rapidly escalating costs and it can quickly make the weight of your project unwieldy. BURPS have a function and a place in the scheme of things.

Yep. It's real clear in the flashback scenes. Of course there is a difference between preliminary character art. Which changes and evolves as they fill the roles and they see what works best on the actor, and concept art for what are ultimately FX. I am sure whether or not we see War Pigs depends heavily on effects, budgets, and ultimately whether or not it just looks silly. While I am normally a pessimist, if the pigs make the movie, I would not be surprised to see one or more in the sets. It's the sort of thing we fans will buy a set just to get.

The look of the ship grows on you. Especially once you see it in motion from the movie trailers.

I think the Creator line sells quite well in the US? I think where it loses a little bit with the American audience is less a desire for predesigned sets with no imagination and more the child's ability to do the complex math of minifigures. The Creator sets while allowing for a great deal of creative expression, often seem to lack some of the more character driven imaginative play that has been such a driving force behind Lego since the invention of the minifig.

The PR is a denser build than some of the others. Most of it's loss in pure size of the outer shell of the building comes from giving us a different or less typical profile to the building. Yes some of the other buildings seem larger on a shelf. But GE and TH are mostly open air inside. Balconies surrounding an inner atrium. The FB is 2 floors in the space of 3. The same with PC. Do you want a deep intricate build with lots of fascinating little details? Or do you want a big box of air? Because being a box of air tends to be the biggest complaint with the TH. We here in the AFOL community tend to obsess over piece count. When a better measure is weight. The PR weighs pretty close to the PS when all is said and done.

I attribute it to Rob Liebfelts long standing deal with the Devil. How else do you explain any of it? Cable? Deadpool? 24 pack ABS. Pouches in places pouches really don't belong. Boobs in places boobs really don't belong. Etc. the only logical conclusion is unholy demonic influence. Heck it seemed to work for Todd McFarlane.

Word is they can't do that anymore. Nor can they sell whole boxes. Distribution is much more tightly controlled these days. The stores get precisely what they need for the PAB walls and not much more. Sometimes an employee may be able to check for something specific or interesting on the back. But I would not count on it. Generally if they have something of interest in the store, it is out in the bins.