Clone OPatra

Here is my routine for building a new LEGO set, provided it is one with tape seals and not punch tabs: Cut open tabs. Pour out contents. If there are numbered bags, I start with Bag 1, tearing open the bag (and any bags it contains) and spilling out the contents. If there aren't numbered bags, I open all the bags and spill out all the contents. Open the instruction manual. Follow the instruction manual, being careful to never look at piece callouts because I didn't need my hand held when I was a kid and I don't need my hand held now goddam it. Repeat previous step until the set is finished. Then I leave the set sitting out for years so that it accrues a healthy coat of dust. I keep my face stoic but my heart cries enough metaphorical tears to fill all the oceans of the world thrice over.

He comes in 70008 Gorzan's Gorilla Striker along with the rest of the Gorillas (besides Grizzam, who comes in Worriz' Combat Lair).

It's not gone. Here it is. I'm just not sure how to find it on Cuusoo itself; I used a link from Brickset.

Thanks for the Black Zero pics at last! It looks pretty crummy, but that's in part due to me having no idea what it's supposed to represent! Are the station bits part of a larger ship? What's the pod for? Is Lois stealing it or what? I do kind of like the pod design, even if it's strange. And this set is much more enticing to me than the other two. I can stomach paying 20 for a set that's really just for the figures, and this one has a great selection: Amy Adams, Supes, and Zod in armor with special mould gun. I'll certainly be picking this one up despite the set itself being grey, ugly, and mysterious.

That's not a great comparison, though, because we never did see a Fury figure in the outfit shown on that poster. Still, I don't count an Iron Patriot fig as unlikely.

I have the calendar. It says very clearly 'May 4-5 Only.' So yes, this is the May 4th promo fig.

Looks like it's supposed to more be a way to launch Saruman at Gandalf for an attack. This type of thing often is a better conceptually than it is in actuality, but I guess they had to do something. The 'spinning Palantir' function (which is I think what that knob does) is even more useless IMO.

Be creative and imaginative. In real life, there is no such distinction of looking good or evil. In films, people with scars tend to be the bad, immoral characters; is it so in real life? Use minifigures however you wish to. Good guys don't have to be stereotypically smiling and friendly. It appears that it is in fact you who are slave to the orchid of stereotypes…

Good Cragger Fan, I should point out to you that the sets, in their artwork and the descriptions, do not point towards any tribes being 'better' than any others. Yes, certain tribes have looks about them can generally be construed as more menacing and a typical depiction of 'evil,' and some tribes are put with red while others with blue, but look just a little bit beyond that. In the Command Ship, the artwork and description say that the Lions are stealing the Crocs' Chi. In the Pack Tracker, the wolves are being attacked. The sets just give us a place with many tribes at war, that's it. It's LEGO, so make up your own story if you don't like the one in the show. You can legitimately claim to not like the show's story, and it's strange that the story presented in the product line and the story in the show don't match up, but honestly, stop getting so hung up on it. In my mind, the show's story is rather thin and the characters weak, whereas 'animal tribes at war' seems like a cool concept and very open to a child's imagination. The beauty of LEGO's original property themes is that they aren't supposed to be about playing out X scenario from X external IP. Instead, they provide creative new sets and settings for kids to play around in. I've never found theme stories to particularly be LEGO's strong suit (the Ninja theme's story barely made sense once new factions were added), but themes stand on their own by the merit of their sets and overall look. Now I'll just add my two cents about Chima in general. I really like the idea behind this theme; a land of animal tribes at war. The idea that each tribe has vehicles and architecture that reflect its animal is also super-cool and a new thing for LEGO to do (though they started in Ninjago with skull and snake vehicles). However, in execution I can't say I've been wowed with the sets so far, and I especially haven't been wowed by the minifigures. Besides for a few exceptions, the animals all look pretty ugly to me, and generally I don't like ugly figs. The head sculpts are a bit too exaggerated to my taste. I didn't like Ninjago's stuff much either until the latest wave, so I expect that as Chima continues there will be some must-have sets for me.

The Corsair ship looks pretty cool and worth some money, but the Black Gate is terrible. It's just a crummy thin gate, and since it has such a 'high level of detail,' it has a ton of parts and a high price tag. Three out of five minifigures are new and nice, as is the Eagle, but honestly there are so many better sets for the same amount of money or less. I'd really like to see more LotR sets that have some substance.

What? There is a wolf tribe polybag already.

That wouldn't be a spoiler, as the Patriot suit has already been in advertising. The sets already have bigger spoilers than that, like Killian becoming Extremis-infused (although that's no surprise) or Pepper going into the armor (which was then shown in an ad). I think it's more likely that they went with War Machine because that armor is more universal, already appearing in IM2. Or, perhaps by that point in the film he's back in War Machine armor.

Yes yes, I know that that's what she's supposed to be doing, but it's a 'cannot unsee' situation for me since her getting sloshed was what hit me the first time I saw the box pic.

Thanks for the stunning review! I won't be picking this set up because I just don't care enough about trains, but from an objective standpoint this sure is a beautiful, excellent train model! The minifigures also, like all the figures in the Lone Ranger line, are stunning. There's on oddity that stand out to me, though - Butch Cavendish (who seems to be the main baddie, but of course LEGO sets aren't always the best evidence) has one face with beard and one clean-shaven face. Does he shave halfway through the scene? Or the movie? It's odd too because the angry-beard face looks so menacing, while the smiley clean-shaven face looks like a slightly sadistic guy with scars. I wonder if this reflects the film somehow. (It's worth noting, though, that the Will Turner fig sometimes had one face with printed sideburns and one without, but it was merely a misprint. I doubt leaving off the whole beard could be a misprint, but you never know.)

I think that he's saying it's a sneaky and false tactic to show a 'list price' above every other store (and LEGO's) list price, and then slash it to the regular list price. But, if in a couple months TRU goes back to that higher price, then that really is TRU's list price. tl;dr TRU is a sucky place to buy LEGO.

Somebody mentioned humor on LEGO boxes, eh? As far as humor goes, my favorite is this one with a lady getting drunk in the background:

I'm going to go ahead and say 'no,' at least for the most part. I buy sets from many themes, since no single thing always strikes my fancy, but overall I find new sets looking and seeming different than previous ones I've bought. I'll grant you that some types of things have similar builds sometimes, but generally I find builds to be somewhat different. The builds for the SHIELD car in the Spider-Cycle set, the van in Arkham Asylum, and the SUV in the Chase McCain city set are pretty different, for example, yet all are four-wheeled vehicles. Within the City theme some things like cars and trucks follow a similar build structure for a while, but over time things change and the designers seem to look for different looks and hence builds for ground vehicles. I guess aircraft have followed a similar model for a bunch of years, though I don't own any so I can't comment on the builds. When it comes to mechs, perhaps similar techniques are always used, but the resulting mechs often look pretty different. I find it satisfying to see how pieces come together and make wildly different models, even when the builds are similar. The Samurai Mech looks very little like the mech in Galaxy Squad, for example. The small Ninjago Mech, while somewhat similar in build to the older Exo-Force small mechs, has some small key differences that make it so much better. So really, I can't see that mechs are all the same even if they share some techniques. Though I don't really feel that things are becoming the same at all, if you don't limit yourself to a certain theme or set of themes then you definitely should not find that everything is the same. New themes, especially Licensed ones, usually offer exciting new(ish) material that inspires at least a few cool, new sets.

I just wouldn't take it so seriously, and be willing to find the new movie fun (if it will be) even if it contradicts a tiny bit. X-Men First Class contradicts terribly with some dialogue in the first X-Men movie, and I expected it to be a prequel, but both can (and do) still stand on their own rights.

The 2014 waves are likely already set. Just like LEGO is releasing all these Episode II sets to coincide with releases that are no longer happening, there might still be CW stuff in the pipeline that can't just be cancelled.

Anybody else notice this part of the description of the Malibu Mansion Attack on LEGO.com? I wonder if they're explicitly eating mandarins in the movie.

The Simpsons is not an 'adult' show entirely. Sure, it contains some mild rude humor, and adult themes, but it's still a show that kids today can enjoy and that isn't too risque or rude for children to watch. Family Guy and South Park are ACTUALLY adult cartoon shows that are normally seen as too adult for children to watch; compare The Simpsons to these shows, and you will find that Simpsons is very tame. I don't think The Simpsons is any more adult than Pirates of the Caribbean, (probably) Lone Ranger, or Lord of the Rings. Sure, it's different, since The Simpsons contains some adult-themed humor instead of just violence, partial nudity and some intimations about sex (things that can be found in the various films I just mentioned), but those sorts of subtle things probably go over kids heads and they enjoy the show for different reasons, since that humor on The Simpsons is mostly subtle enough. I would never expect LEGO to make sets based on The Simpsons, but since it has been widely popular for years (at least in the US, can't speak for the rest of the world) and is acceptable enough for children (and definitely for the upper edge of the age range, 11 or 12), I could see this license coming to fruition.

That picture is misleading: the figure has the exact same reversible head deal as the new one, with lovely silvery printing to match up with the cowl. Here's a better picture: The eye-holes are farther apart, so perhaps the new one is better in that respect, but still the old one is a very nice figure (and I prefer the expression on the old one's face).

I don't understand the comments about the old Catwoman's cowl not working correctly. I have that figure, and the cowl is perfect with the printing. Since I'm not a huge fan of the 'shapely body' printing that LEGO has been using for the last few years, I actually prefer the old Catwoman.

The universe of the various X-Men movies is nearly nonexistent, I've come to realize. The trilogy of course holds together. Origins: Wolverine could possibly be in the same continuity as the trilogy, but then the Sabertooth-Wolverine dynamic in X-Men (the first movie) doesn't make too much sense. The new Wolverine movie is supposed to be set not long after Last Stand, so that one is supposed to be in the continuity of the trilogy. First Class, though, completely contradicts Professor X's dialogue about his past in X-Men, so that's basically a separate X-Men universe. I guess it'd be best to assume that Days of Future Past will be set in the First Class universe, and shouldn't really bump into the trilogy one at all. Just a little rundown I thought I'd share.

LEGO could theoretically do anything - make a DC-Marvel mashup set, why not? But, judging by what they have been releasing in this line, LEGO thinks it needs movies and shows, which actually makes good sense, given that superhero stories reach the widest number of people when they're on the screen, not when they're in a comic. From that standpoint, there's a lot more material from Marvel to work with right now. Comic-book fans might not be happy that LEGO sticks with content from movies and shows for the most part (obviously the Batman line isn't quite from any one thing), but that appears to be how it's working.