Clone OPatra

Repeating the same argument over and over is of no use. The point is that the Marvel properties continuously have new material and new characters from which LEGO can draw to make sets. DC, meanwhile, isn't coming out with new, current stuff for LEGO to draw from (besides the Superman movie for this wave), which makes LEGO's task in making sets a bit more difficult. They can't keep on making vehicles for Batman because there aren't THAT many vehicles to do. Besides, Cap, Thor, Iron Man (plus Spider-Man and potentially Guardians of the Galaxy) are a lot more properties right there than Batman alone, so saying saying that three (4 with Spidey) characters are equivalent to one in DC still shows that Marvel has a greater base of stuff to work from.

I inspected the battlepack closely when I was a in a LEGO sore recently, and I think I noticed the little moulding marks on the hands that are one of the signs of coming from the Chinese factory.

At an internship once, it turned out that my boss was a serious AFOL who buys every Star Wars set, plus multiples to keep around and sell later on eBay! I noticed that he had a couple minifigs on his desk, but a lot of people like a minifig or two. Then I noticed he was looking at LEGO websites on his phone, and I just had to ask.

They have made figures of dead characters after those characters died in the show, like Even Piell and Nahdar Vebb. I don't think seeing Satine is that likely, but her being dead doesn't really make is LESS likely, it seems to me.

They did use the profile bricks, in the big castle itself. They're right under the panels. The older castle sets, talking about the early 90s and before (but not all the way back to the earliest days), do have a certain pleasing aesthetic created by their raised baseplates. They weren't all purely square, and had nice proper courtyards that were a lot more playable because of the baseplate designs.Since 2007 Castle, though, LEGO has been sticking to castles that revert to the aesthetics of their original casltes: gate, square, four walls, tower with throne. Sure, they could make the walls entirely brick built like in Helms' Deep (besides for the back structure, whose walls are panels), but brick-built walls would drive up the price like crazy. Troll Mountain Fortress was a great set, but it worked on the 'lots of built rocks' level because it had a very unique styles. It also incorporates its fair share of BURPs, though. A knights' castle should look less sloppy, with more smooth surfaces, just like real life castles. I'd love to see new castles with raised baseplates and more unique looks, but honestly this castle still looks good even if it doesn't present anything brand-spanking-new.

Take a good close look. The only one of these sets that uses a large amount of wall panel pieces is the castle itself - the dragon mountain appears to have one or two, and the good guy outpost set uses none at all. Of course this theme isn't going to share aesthetics with LotR, and asking it to is just ridiculous. Helm's Deep is a big, expensive set aimed at older kids, teenagers, and adults (as is the entire LotR theme). You may certainly prefer the LotR style, but holding a fun and fancy free castle theme aimed at 8-year-olds to the LotR 'fiddly little detail bits' standard is simply coming at it from the wrong direction. That said, with a close look at these, one will notice a LOT of detail. The big castle looks a little plain, but there's still all the masonry bricks around under the wall panels, plus the gatehouse, which mostly doesn't use any big panels. The dragon mountain and castle outpost sets look incredibly detailed for this type of theme. Anything before the Fantasy era themes does not compare at all. I for one am pleased to see a pretty streamlined and fun-looking castle theme for kids that doesn't involve much 'rock-building.'

Nobody's seemed to throw this one out there yet, but… why the heck is there a random, driver-less car? I guess it's supposed to be a projectile, and LEGO loves vehicles, but really this set to me shows the weakness of sets based on Superman in general. LEGO clearly wanted to do a cheap set with the main hero and villain so kids could recreate the fight, but the 'meat' of the set is a big stretch. I'm not saying that I think it's a bad set; it's good to get the figures and the car looks decent. The point is that the builds in this set don't appear to be exciting in relation to the film. I hope some of the other sets and the Iron Man 3 sets have builds that do a bit more to recreate something important from the movies.

While I don't disagree that some arcs definitely should not have been four episodes, it's not certain that this arc would've benefited from having more. It's all the stuff going on that makes these episodes (unusually) action packed and engaging! I agree that a few bits in the previous episode felt rushed, but expanding the same story out to two episodes might've produced too-drawn-out, dull episodes that would've been far worse than an episode with a couple of rushed moments. Nobody can say for sure, but packing a lot into an episode is a good way to go in my book.

London has, in the past, been a strictly camera-free zone. It's not just about 'spilling the beans;' there's supposed to be no photography at all. With any luck, the most we can hope for is some detailed descriptions from people who go and pay close attention. Possibly there will be a fluke and someone can take a picture from a walkway up above the booth (which happened last year), but that's not a guaranteed thing.

Could you explain what you didn't like about it? Nobody has said that Maul alone was the reason they enjoyed the episode. Personally, I thought Maul was very well done, and more enjoyable than he has been in the show so far. More importantly, this episode was really going somewhere. It was a great setup for a larger story, what with the planned betrayals by Viszla and Maul and the pulling together of an army of thugs. Sure, not that much happened in a larger story sense, but unlike the first episodes in the preceding arcs, this one was used to really setup a grander story and got me quite interested to see where that story will go. They also turned Viszla into a somewhat sympathetic character because he's so steamrolled by Maul, which was an interesting turn. Of course Viszla is an evil guy in the end, but it just shows that the show got some actual emotions going this time around (an area where they usually drop the ball).

I think this topic title is a little too specific, and would be better served as a general discussion of what people do with their LEGO when visitors come over. Really, it's only an issue when there are kids that come over. Adult visitors who aren't AFOLS might still think the LEGO stuff is cool (although I suppose some people might want to hide it for whatever reason). Kids coming over are much more complicated. I always try to keep the majority of LEGO hidden away somewhere or consolidated in places that the kids cannot access. I'm always afraid they'll destroy and break things. It's useful to have a little bit of LEGO you don't mind that kids play with, though, to satiate their LEGO desires (especially if they know there is LEGO in the house). When I was a kid, I hated that friends who came over would always want to do a LEGO 'war' which basically entailed smashing everything into bits. I've always been more into building the actual sets than building my own stuff (for the most part), so this irked me so much. It was nearly impossible to tell a friend that we shouldn't have a LEGO 'war,' though.

Yes, it's supposed to glow just like in my picture in the review. That's strange that it doesn't; I'd contact them about it if you want a nice glow-y sticker.

My window wiggles. I just figured that's how it was. Honestly, with the set placed on a stationary surface, it looks just fine. I guess technically the window isn't perfectly centered between the arches, but there aren't gaps and you can't see the top edge of the window assembly if memory serves right. It is a bit strange that it rattles a little if you pick up the model, but it doesn't bother me much.

Nice review! This set is a tough one for me just because the figures don't go with anything else I have. They look terrific on their own terms, but they don't go with the majority of SW stuff because they come from a completely different time period. That said, they could be used for purposes other than SW since they're not iconic, widespread 'SW looks' like Clones and Stormtroopers are. I really don't get the complaints/comments about the heads. In older times, these would've had either blank flesh (or yellow) heads, or blank black heads. Getting actual faces, which are so much more useful for MOCing purposes, is terrific! Yes, LEGO faces are sometimes designed for specific characters, but they can be used for anything! Especially faces like these, which don't particularly look like anything anyway. Using Harry Potter's face, scar and all, would be much more difficult. However, for nearly anything else, it's nice that LEGO can be multi-purpose within its own sets (the old Leia and Anakin faces were used for female soccer players, after all).

Thanks for the review! I really quite like the waterfall - LEGO is doing a superb job of creating an atmospheric world for Chima with these little builds in the Speedorz sets. However, the price (which I believe is 15 dollars in the US and possibly more in Europe) is tough. Not that it's wrong for what you get, since I'm sure the bike is somewhat costly to produce and you do get more parts than in Ninjago spinner sets, but it means you'd be dropping quite a bit of cash to collect these things. I also despise the Leonidas figure, and it's making me think twice about getting the small croc set. His torso and leg printing is great, and the lion helmet is a great mould, but that expression is way too dopey. It's ok to have a slightly comical character, but LEGO really took it too far on this one. Is he stoned all the time?

Merry Christmas everybody! Christmas may be winding down now, but regardless, please enjoy my present to you: an overly-long review of… Set Name: Batman: Arkham Asylum Breakout Set #: 10937 Theme: DC Universe Superheroes Pieces: 1619 Minifigures: 7 (and two halves) Year of Release: 2012 Price at Release: US $159.99 - CA $209.99 - DE 159.99€ - UK 129.99£ - DK 1399.00 DKK Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink LEGO Just browse the pictures? Flickr set INTRODUCTION First of all, credit must be given where credit is due: to our own Bonaparte and LEGO for sending me this set to review, and so speedily to boot! Many thanks to you! (LEGO really is the most wonderful company when it comes to community interaction, although since I don't participate on the international Coca-Cola forums, I can't really say that Coke doesn't have such a high level of interaction as well.) A quick note about the pictures: unlike my usual reviews, this time I've uploaded the pictures in their huge un-shrunk glory, so please check out the Flickr set link above if you'd like to see the minute details of all the dust that accumulated on the set in the five seconds between when I took it out of the box and when I snapped the photos. And now, without further ado, let's see what this big bad boy has to offer… BOX This box is just one thing: beastly. Really, it's absolutely ginormous (I've added Riddler for a little size comparison). This being the European version, the front isn't adulterated with parts count and stuff, so you can really enjoy the humungous, gloomy, dark scene. The artwork is quite beautiful and suits Arkham very well. There's more action here than you usually find on the big exclusives; it's still a Superhero thing after all. Since the box is so darn large, the back feels empty despite having all the usual back-of-box trappings. It's fun that LEGO still puts on the comic-style arrows and noise words even on a big-kid geared set. Just because this box dwarfs all the others by a factor of twelve doesn't mean it isn't part of the line! For the top they went with the character that physically takes up the greatest amount of space, because hey, they could. I never knew the top of European boxes were so empty… There are some more box views in the Flickr set, but I felt we had more important things to see. You can see the box yourself in a LEGO store any time. CONTENTS In the box we get nine numbered bags, one bag with big plates and the white rope, and this lovely thing to keep our sticker sheet, comic, and instructions from getting bent out of shape! I don't really care about smashed instruction manuals on small sets, but on such a large one like this it would be quite a bother. It's great LEGO makes sure that doesn't happen! Here's the front of the comic, which I'm pretty sure is exactly the same one you get in the Arctic Batman set except a lot bigger because why not. Just like Oky mentioned in his Arctic Batman review, it's got an odd smattering of stuff inspired by different media, movie Bane being the biggest sore thumb (though the Tumbler is the background is a little odd too). The inside contains a fun but average wordless comic that you can enjoy flipping through once and then never look at again. The back, just like on the Marvel comic, has last year's DC figure lineup and this January's. Some choices are a bit odd, though, like putting Ivy and the guard in both when they're exactly the same, having two Harleys in the right-side one, and not having blue-winged Batman on the left side. But ok, whatever. Lots to collect, go buy sets, etc. We get three lovely instruction manuals that cut off in completely arbitrary places. I literally have no idea why LEGO decides to move onto another manual when they do, especially because these manuals have different amounts of pages. It's not like you move onto a new build; no, one step you're in one manual, the next step you're in the next one. But… #thingsthatdontmatter The inside is an orangey-yellow gradient that looks just fine. It doesn't muddle things up, anyway. Here you see how the minifigures are spread out over the bags to spice things up just when you were starting to feel minifigure-withdrawal. The steps are easy to follow, and there are piece callouts (though I don't use them because I'm stuck in the old 'search the picture for differences' method). I found just one mistake in the instructions, and luckily not a biggie. It's just that the grill piece already appears in this step, when it isn't added for a few more steps. Odd. Lastly, everybody's favorite: the DSS. Most of these stickers are just fine, and I didn't mind them (although the instructions do seem to mock you by showing the stickers going on perfectly straight). The ones for license plates, though, are terrible because they're smaller than the length of the plates on which they go so it's quite annoying getting them smack-dab in the middle. As you'll notice on the set pictures, I wasn't having the best stickering day in general. PARTS …or, the section in which I arbitrarily pick some pieces out that I find interesting! No, I'll try to actually comment on the parts, bag by bag, with the parts I find interesting in a picture-within-a-picture. Bag 1 builds the truck and the restraining stretcher for Joker, so we get a whole bunch of lovely fresh white. It might make you think there are actual colors in this set, if you count white as a color (I think it's more of a color than grey). Parts of interest are the big white doors, small white doors, some SNOT stuff, that curvy Cars part exclusively in white and the clear windshield, just because… well, it's not actually rare, but you know, it's nice. No more tricks; here's the actual color scheme for the set. Grey, grey, grey, and black. Still, less grey than a Star Wars set. In Bag 2, which builds the gate, we get four lovely black wings from Chima, the 3L brown flex tubing that's also in TMNT sets, and the Ninjago skeleton arm now in dark bley! Plus dark green and dark red, and a bunch of dark metallic sais, lovely. The two big plates are from the unnumbered bag of big stuff, but the rest is Bag 3, which builds the entrance. From now on, we'll see lots of the tall grey pieces with a groove in them, which lend a lovely look to the finished model as we shall see. I had no idea this piece has only been around since 2010! Before that they just stacked up 1x2 ones when they needed a tall column for garage doors. Other cools parts here are the chair in dark green (because dark green), the brick brick (because it's still slightly a novelty), and the red phone (because yeah). You build above the entrance with Bag 4. Included are those tall black industrial-like pillars, more groove columns, metallic teeth, square bricks with groove, that printed computer screen, and some nice accessories. Plus lots of trans-black little screen parts; large quantities of things are always fun. Bag 5 makes the cell block, and there's nothing of exceptional interest. Many grey 'log' bricks are nice, though, as are dark red and leaves. There are also more jail bar parts than I think you'd see in a City set normally. As you might be able to tell, Bag 6 builds Poison Ivy's cell and surrounding small room. The corner brick with double concave slope makes an appearance, there are a couple nice smoke tiles, and the big clear rounded panels are cool. Black periscope… not super sure why I threw that one in there. Bag 7 builds the tower cell. A bunch of cool stuff to be found here: trans-red doughnut piece, grey double clip piece, dark grey frog, more dark grey skellie arms, trans light-blue cheese… nice! Bag 8 makes the bottom portion of the remaining Arkham section. Just the same old cool parts we saw before. This caps it off! A little more tan to break up the grey/black combo. The brick with grooves actually appears to be new in tan, though there's just one. As we'll see in the model, I'm not sure why it's necessary at all, but hey, I'll take it. Maybe it'll be more prevalent in another upcoming set. There are more extra parts in this set than there are parts in a SW Battlepack! Ok, maybe not, but there's still a boatload of extras here. Somebody should start a 'build using only extra pieces in big sets' challenge. MINIFIGURES For once, I'm not more excited about discussing minifigures than I am about discussing a set. But still, minifigures are lovely goodies! Let's look at 'em. I've collaborated with The Penguin to bring you info about the inspiration for the specific designs of each figure; since the set's not tied to any particular media, it's interesting to see what designs were chosen. Here's everybody; from left to right: big-wing Batman, Robin, random guard #7, Scarecrow, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and prison outfit Joker. But they're so far away when they're all lined up; you need to see them up-close! The Good Guys All of these guys are not so fresh. The guard is the twin of the one that failed to stop Two-Face's robbery last year, though he still has a snappy torso. This Robin is styled after the one in the Arkham City game, which would make him Tim Drake, the third Robin. Of course, he just uses parts from the Robin of last year, but it's cool to see him in this darker outfit anyway. An all-new Nightwing would've been better, though. Batman may also come from Arkham City because of the wings, though I think the wings are a common move, so he really could be anything. He'd be better with an alternate cape, but I do like the winged look. Unlike in the Catwoman set where Bats has a whole jetpack on his wings, these he wears straight up. Perhaps they're really just supposed to be a cape, as Bats often does have a cape that becomes stiff to help him swoosh around. Robin's cape feels pretty soft, which surprised me. Being older and more experienced in the weight-room, Bruce has better back muscles than his young buddy. Bats still has his good old cheeky reverse face, and Robin has his ridiculous face. It doesn't work as well with the hood as it did with his other outfit, though. Overall, these good guys are necessary, but nothing outstanding. The Old Bad Guys Old because we've seen them before, but still possibly my two favorite figures in the set. Poison Ivy, who is just an amalgamation of regular comic-book Ivy looks, is a gorgeous figure. The printing in her hair, the plant-y body, the green lipstick… lovely. A nice addition too for anybody that didn't get the Batcave. Joker is also wonderful. He wore a prison outfit in the Batman: Under the Red Hood movie, so this outfit could be based on that; regardless, it's a great torso with wide usefulness. The Joker face and hair was superb to begin with, so coupled with the lovely torso, it's just another superb figure. I was surprised to find that the color under the neck is actually flesh (sorry yellow lovers); I thought it was white from pictures. Both have reverse faces that I like less. Joker's works well for being locked up and maniacal, but the grin is a bit too creepy-wide for me. Ivy's mouth looks a little too close to her eyes, but it's still ok. Ivy has some quite low-cut back printing, and Joker has a inmate number. The number is really the only detracting factor from the torso - if you collected a bunch of the torso, all your prisoners would have the same number! Or maybe that's useful for something. The New Bad Guys Dr. Harleen Quinzel is clearly from Batman: The Animated Series where she's introduced, subsequently goes mad and becomes Harley Quinn. The Harley outfit under her doctor's coat isn't from anything specifically, but perhaps in the context of this set it's showing that she's already Harley Quinn and is merely dressing up like her old self. The face is great (girls with glasses, yay!) but I find the torso to be fairly bland and single-use. This Penguin with lovely lilac pants is reminiscent of the Gotham Underground Penguin; LEGO pulled off a fat look very well, and it's useful parts all around, but still I find his face pretty ugly (ugly still is useful, though). Scarecrow has a generic Scarecrow look, but frankly looks amazing! The old one was a bit creepier, but this one is more on the adorably creepy side, which I like. He looks so sly and mischievous. More lovely stitch-work on Scarecrow's back, while the others have fairly regular, by-the-books back printing. Still nice for a well rounded figure in today's LEGO day and age. Harley has a reverse 'Harley' head with sloppily applied white face paint - a great touch. Scarecrow has lovely printing on the back of his head that could be quite useful for other things, like plain scarecrows. It's stuff like this that make him a standout figure. I was sad to find that the Harley face is the same as the one on the full-Harley figure. This would've been a great opportunity to get a third expression for her, but instead we're stuck with the same one I didn't like much last time anyway. Her hat is glossier this time, though. Minifigure Accessories There are surprisingly few true accessories. I say 'true accessories' because plenty of the detail bits in this set, like the sais or the axe blades or spears, could double as accessories, but these are the only ones LEGO tells you to use as accessories. Just a plain pole for Robin, a batarang for Batman, handcuffs for the guard, and a fish and umbrella for the Penguin. Scarecrow is really sorely missing a scythe. BUILD HIGHLIGHTS I'm not going to show the whole build; most of it is pretty straight forward, or you can see what's done on the finished model. There were just a few things that stood out, so I'll show you them and provide musings, as always. Quite early on is the use of two newish SNOT pieces together to make the front of the truck. Just made me think about how useful all the new SNOT pieces are, and how well they work together. I imagine that to people who actually MOC regularly (unlike myself), these must be amazing. You think that SNOT is cool, check out the side of the truck. Seriously, this thing needs a tissue. But it's awesome! This is a nice little assembly for a lantern that I hadn't seen before. The single stud is the top, and the cone slots onto another bar. This assembly, though, is utterly annoying. These are necessary to attached the windows on the center part, so four are built over time. Stacking everything straight is a nightmare! I'm not sure of an alternative, and you can power through it, but man is it annoying. Shorter ones are also needed for the shorter window assemblies. Finally, somebody employed Shire architects in Gotham! It's the same technique used in the Bag End Hobbit set, and I was surprised to find that once it's closed with another arch on the other side, the window isn't actually snug - it rattles around. Still, the effect is worth it. THE COMPLETED SET After hours of toiling, the set is finished! Builds this big really do take quite a while. Before we get to the main shebang, the big cheese, *ahem* the Asylum itself, we need to go through the other stuff! The Van and Restraining Stretcher This van model is the best I've seen in LEGO. It's quite old school, with a 40s-ish vibe, and that's excellent. The front makes it look pretty tough, and it certainly gives you the feeling it's going to an old-school institute for the insane. The curved Cars part is employed so well in front of the windshield. Also major props to the set designer on the studlessness. Truly an amazing vehicle. The big tiles on the side give it a great, boxy look. I just love how the tiles hide half the wheels. Really this whole thing has spot-on proportions and coloring, and parts use. I know it'd still look great as an unmarked van without the stickers. Those big white doors on the back are great too. I can almost see this being converted into a milk truck; big white doors say 'refrigerator' to me. Here we also have the worst sticker - that annoying license plate that you're supposed to center somehow on a 6-long tile. The cabin is quite detailed, with a stickered radio console, steering wheel, and shift. There's even enough room that you could probably fit another figure in, though it'd be tight. Now then, since this is an Arkham prisoner transport truck, the guard is guiding Joker into the restraining stretcher. The bars and droid arms work so well on this thing to give it a creepy metal feel. Looks like the type of contraption Hannibal would be transported in. Once Joker is strapped (or in LEGO - clipped), he can be easily slid into the truck. The one thing I'd worry about is that there's no barrier between him and the guard in there, so if he breaks free that spells doom for our security friend. The Gate The black gate (no LotR reference) is quite intimidating. It's odd that the separate gate halves aren't designed to come together, but they still seem a bit tough regardless. The color scheme for the entire building is set up here: grey with dark red highlights and some black. The designer's got nice consistency going through the set, really bringing the gate and the building together. These dark guardian statues are wonderful. The Chima wings really take them to the next level, making them supremely spooky and intimidating. The angled piece below for a robe is also inspired parts use. Here you can also see the nice lantern build I showed earlier, and that the security camera is on a grey skeleton arm, another nice part use. I'm not too sure what the pieces with spears angling off are about; I suppose they give the illusion that the fence continues, which is nice. I'm not sure they're totally necessary, but I'll take it. The van, as you can see, fits nicely through the gate. The Asylum - Exterior We've made it to the main event, the Asylum! That is one freaking nice-looking building. It's got excellent repeating architectural themes running through it, like the wall pieces with groove, the rounded modified pieces at the bottom of each wall segment, the dark red, the similar windows, etc. but then each part of the building is spiced up with something unique to keep it from being monotonous. I love how the whole part of the building under the tower is a bit different, what with the big slope going down. It makes it look like it's built up more to support the tower. There are a lot of excellent small and larger details to see. The little spires with teeth and unicorn horns are lovely and provide a nice stronger look compared to the sais. The use of hand-claw weapons is also quite good. A very impressive larger aspect is the window design; for a moment I wondered why they didn't just use smoke pieces in 1x4 instead of all the 1x2s, but the 1x2s really give it a great window-ish look. It's great how there are taller window units on the main room, and then a shorter one of similar design off on the other room. This little gargoyle deserves special note. Another absolutely inspired use of parts, coming together to make this wonderful little guy (guys, since there are two). When I first saw pictures of the set, I thought it was some new head attachment, but no, just a frog! Brilliant. I just wanted to finish this section off with perhaps my favorite portion of all: the entrance. The doors, the surrounding steps, the little lanters… everything about this part is brilliant. The Asylum - Interior This set doesn't skimp in the slightest on interior design. Here's the overview, but that won't do… we need close-ups! I'll start with my favorite section - which is again the entrance. The doors look so strong due to the black handle parts and smooth-bottom tiles. Very asylum-like. The fire extinguisher is fun too, as is the phone, though I'm not sure why the danger phone is just sitting there in the hall. Unless it's not a danger phone. Really, my love for this section comes down to the security station. The way it's a step down from the main entrance, with the wood table-top part, and the controls and panic button - it feels so real and fun. There isn't even much to it, but sometimes it's the littlest things that work the best. Moving over to the right is the weakest part of the set: the rotating thing. On this side are the extra prison cell signs, so you can swap out figures if you want to/have them (aka go buy the other sets!). But let's think about this for a second. Ivy already has a dedicated cell upstairs, as does Freeze, as we shall see. So those are useless. I don't know who LEGO could've put instead; since I'm pretty sure Riddler never went to Arkham. Or if he did, then he should be here. Did Catwoman? Lex Luthor? In any case, two of these don't make real sense. On the other side is this little makeup stand where Harley pours out her love for Joker on a mirror and does herself up in clown makeup. The stand is well-detailed, and I dig the little bottles made out of flowers and round tiles, but there's no room at this thing. Harley has to stand off the building just to fit. Good idea, but bad execution. Also, the way the set is, I'd think a guard could just walk in and see her. Good thing there's only one guard staffing the place, I guess. On the other side of the entrance is the cell block. This part looks quite good: lots of bars, doors, nice printed tiles that look like electronic locks - no wild parts uses, but it does the trick. You may wonder why there is that odd 3-long technic pin receptor above the cells (I thought it was just for decoration at first), but all shall be revealed. The doors are constructed so that they can be slid away together for some whole-prison break fun. Sliding is fun! Or you could just open a single door, though it's harder to get your fingers in there to extract the figure. As you see, you can also have a bit of fun with the signs, lumping a lot of people in a single cell. Above Harley's secret area is a little office, probably also for her (I mean, do you see another Doctor in the set?). The desk is more ornate than it needs to be, though I do like the design. I'm not even sure what material it's reminiscent of in real life, but it looks great. The armchair is also a cute build with excellent color choices. One interesting note above: the roof uses two styles of hinges, allowing it to be in a very certain place but achieve angles that it couldn't with only click-hinges. The middle room is an examination area. The big black columns make the ceiling feel very high, and the room spacious. Small cramped spaces are scary, but there's something equally creepy about the thought of being experimented on in a cavernous room where your screams could really echo. Ok, enough morbidity. The table has some great details, like the bottles of stuff, and the drawers, one of which uses a hinge brick to permanently look open. It's weird, but looks cool. You could always 'close' it by taking out the hinge brick. The exam table is also a great use of parts. To the left we have the room with Ivy's cell. I love the huge glass doors, which I hope are made out of thick glass in the 'play' world. Otherwise, Ivy could easily cause plants to smash through them. The little plant build in the corner is cute, and kind of mocks Ivy. You know, heh, I'm a plant, etc. Ok, never mind. The use of cheese slopes on the window Scarecrow smashed out of produces a wonderful broken effect. Perhaps Arkham staff is especially nice to women, since Ivy gets a cell far more spacious than any other in here. Up top is the tower, with a lovely sticker showing temperature control. I love on the sticker the yellow button that mimics the design on the printed tiles (a design which has been in use for ages, I might add). But, why does it need temp control, you ask? It's a cell for Mr. Freeze, complete with some white snow and trans-light-blue ice! Very nice of LEGO to add this cell, making you want to spend more money on the Mr. Freeze set. Well, I haven't done that yet, so in the meantime they locked up Thi Sen. He can deal with cold, anyway. ALTERNATE CONTRUCTION Somehow I didn't even realize this until I got the set, but Arkham can be rearranged! It breaks apart into three sections, like so: Taking it apart is the easy part, though. Making all those pins line up is far more difficult, resulting in a bunch of what I like to call KABLAMOS. They look like this: Once you figure it out, you get this new arrangement. Personally, I'm not a huge fan. If you have very little shelf space, maybe do this to save room, but otherwise the first look is better. This set is already not physically that huge - it's packed with parts and details, but the actual space it takes up in the world once built is not that great. In this second arrangement, it takes up even less space, making it less impressive. Moving the tower off to the side also isn't as nice. The interior produced has ups and downs. Harley now has a lot of room by her secret Joker-fetish stand, but now nobody can stand on the other side of her desk. Also, it's much harder to access the second cell in the cell block in this configuration. CONCLUSION There's a lot to like in this set. Time and time again, I found myself wowed by building techniques and parts usages. I don't regularly get any of the exclusive sets, so that may be a common thing, but I'm really impressed with it in this set. The overall facade detailing of Arkham is also fantastic - not too monotonous, but very far from a hot mess too. The interior is good overall, especially in the entrance area, with the perfect little security station. The only part that really fails is the Harley stand, though the desk and chair in the office also are kind of filler despite being well-built. The van - I don't have many more words about it. The van is truly amazing. I'd buy it if they released it separately, no questions. The minifigure selection is good, not fantastic, but maybe that's just because I'm not a huge Batman fan. A different Robin would've been greatly appreciated, but there's a lot good about what you do get. The one slight problem in my mind is, again, size. I've been feeling it with most LEGO sets recently - there are tons of detailed packed in, but the resulting model isn't huge. This building is, of course, quite large, but not really bigger than older castle sets or the old Ninja Fortress in footprint, just way more parts put into detailing. Now, does it matter? To MOCers, certainly not. To people who want display pieces, still not really, because this is an impressive building. It's just odd how LEGO sets have gotten a bit… smaller. I'm not trying to say this set isn't a good value, and eventually I'll just have to get over the size thing. For now, though, I still don't know how I feel. RATINGS Minifigures: 8/10 - Robin is dull, and Harley isn't so exciting herself. Not bad, just not standout. Parts: 10/10 - A lot of parts period, and a lot of interesting things, including a few parts in exclusive colors. Great! Design: 8.7/10 - Great consistently, but there are some parts that are downright annoying to build or annoying to sticker. Rearranging the model can also get tough, though I'm not sure anything's to be done about that. Price: 9.5/10 - Feels right for the US market anyway, though again, the finished thing isn't extremely large. Playability: 10/10 - Quite a lot of fun to be had in the set, roleplaying with the minifigures, sliding the cell doors, driving the van around, etc. I 'played' for an hour taking pictures of fun! Overall: 9.24/10 - A high score. There are a few little things about this set that don't completely hit the mark, but it still has quite a lot going for it. If you're on the fence, I'd say go for it if you like excellent buildings, or Batman, or cool vans, or hopefully all of that. I took quite a few fun or atmospheric pictures that I didn't end up using in the review to let a little of your bandwidth survive, so please check out the Flickr set if you'd like! Here's one I thought to take because I wished the rope in this set had been a different color: Thanks again to Bonaparte and LEGO for giving me this grand reviewing opportunity!

I totally agree with def. Perhaps my exceptionally low expectations led me to enjoy Cars 2, but really I just think it wasn't a bad film. Compared to the majority of kid-oriented animated movies that come out, Cars 2 was quite pleasant. Disney itself has also been making pretty good animated movies lately (I found Wreck-It Ralph to be terrific), so Planes could turn out alright. Since it was originally meant to be straight-to-dvd, though, I have some worries. This immediately reminded me of an animated short in Disney's Saludos Amigos - Pedro. That's quite a cute little movie.

Ooh, it's great to hear from the designer of the set! You really outdid yourself with the car model, if I hadn't said it enough times in the review already.I actually figured that's what the license plate was, but I opted to make a joke about Megabloks in the review anyhow. Keep on making great sets!

When I saw that TMNT LEGO was going to be a thing, I knew I had to get something. After great deliberation (maybe a couple seconds), I decided to test the TMNT waters with this guy: Set Name: Shredder's Dragon Bike Set #: 79101 Theme: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pieces: 198 Minifigures: 3 Year of Release: 2013 (sort of) Price at Release: USD 25, CAD 30 Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink LEGO INTRODUCTION I'm not a big TMNT fan by any means, but it can be quite amusing. I'll be honest, the main reason for me to pick up a TMNT set was to get a Turtle figure, which, from the pictures, looked awesome. But then came the conundrum of which set to buy. I didn't want to spend too much, so that narrowed it down, but then none of the sets looked all that amazing (in fact, none of the sets look great to me, though the Lair is pretty alright). I decided on the Dragon Bike because of Shredder. Yeah. That's pretty much accurate. The smallest set is still 13 bucks (which isn't so cheap) and doesn't come with much, the Stealth Shell looks like crap and Fishface isn't a regular minifigure (which doesn't much appeal to me), so Dragon Bike won. I still wasn't happy about this set from the pictures, so let's see how it fairs in the physical LEGO… BOX The purple and lime color scheme on this baby packs a nice pop. Purple on a "boy" set though, what is the world coming too! Purple is one of my favorite colors (part of the reason I chose the set with Doni), so hey, I like. The artwork is your typical chase type setup; nothing too shmancy, but kind of gritty and fits TMNT. Not sure why the Foot Solider is running away, though. Let's talk size for a second. This box is the same dimensions as the box for the 20 dollar Spidey set, except skinnier. Less pieces, less box, more money required for purchase. That's LEGO, though. It's expensive, and even the box doesn't make you think you'll really get your money's worth. The back of the box has some great black splats going on; it's quite a fun layout. If you notice, both play feature shots are about the flickr missiles… doesn't bode too well. The action shot is nice, though. This time the Foot Soldier looks like he's doing his job. Here's the story of the set up close: Shredder has some map, Doni chases him and snatches it, then Shredder has super rage. Also the engine on the skateboard is facing the wrong way and Shredder only sort of appears to have shoulder armor, but whatever. Again the Foot Soldier seems a bit useless. INSTRUCTIONS They were a bit rolled up as usual. Here we can see a better view of the Foot Soldier fleeing for his life, and a flick-fire that seems to have discharged itself. Gotta watch out for randomly firing flick-fires; they are quite a hazard. I'd heard in some other TMNT reviews that there were problems with the instructions: bleeding through pages, bad color distinction, etc. I had no such issues. Just a plain lime background and your typical, 21st Century slow-as-molasses instructions. Here's another Foot Soldier oddity; in the final step, he runs alongside Shredder, sword held high. Is there some running joke with these guys that I don't know? MINIFIGURES Here's the reason I bought this set in the first place! We get Shredder, Donatello, and a (apparently crazy) Foot Soldier. The instructions actually have you put Shredder's cape under his spikes, but the boxart has it this way, which I think looks better. Everything about these figures is lovely. Great new parts on Shredder, as well as cool prints (though his arms really should be flesh to be accurate). The Foot Soldier has a useful torso and funky head too. And Doni… what can I say besides brilliant. He's in the bright green color, sports lovely prints, and the head-piece has simple lines, which I love. Good expression too. The shell backpack piece is wonderful as well. LEGO made it a perfect size, and the figure can still sit down, a big plus. I also love that the straps match the straps on the front of torso printing. The Foot Soldier has back printing that's equally useful as the front, and even a wrap around red stripe. Shredder has no back printing, which is a bit of a shame, but he doesn't actually need it. His helmet is cool from all angles, which maybe makes up for it. Isn't that helmet great? (Hint: the answer is yes.) Shredder's face is nice, and looks made to be Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'm not a huge fan of his overall expression, though. His mouth is too similar to Bruce Wayne/Loki, which is bland to begin with. A slight grimace would be more interesting. Doni has a back print, but for some reason there's no diagonal stripe to match the front. I don't get it. It would've been better for Shredder to have a back print and Doni to have none; he really doesn't need it. I wanted to give you this close-up on the Foot Soldier because he has a little foot logo on him! Super cute. You might've also noticed here or seen in other reviews that Shredder sports a new cut of cape. The neck attachment is bumped out from the cape, so the cape falls more behind the figure and doesn't get wrinckled when used with other neck-armor. It works well, though I wish it was a tad longer. It made me think: knights in armor! So there you go. It's a bit odd looking because the cape is completely behind the figure, instead of slightly cradling the arms as normal capes do. Still, it's quite useful, and dark blue is a good color for royalty. MINIFIGURES with ACCESSORIES Everybody gets nice, fitting accessories. Shredder has two claw pieces that originated in Prince of Persia, which work well as hand claw weapons, as opposed to the Wolverine claws which seem more like part of the hand itself. Doni has a bo staff, which is really just a fancy way of saying a stick used to smack people. It's made of two pre-cut pneumatic tube pieces and a periscope, which makes it ginormous, but that's how all LEGO weapons are. The Foot Soldier is fitted with a regular katana, always nice, and the set comes with a spare. Finally, there's the lovely printed map that's integral to the set's story. Glad that one's a print (the flags on the bike are the set's only stickers). SET - By Parts Time we moved onto the set, eh? The build is rather quick, since this really isn't a big set. There's a bit of technic here and there, a bit of SNOT, and of course LEGO's new favorite: click hinges. This time they're used to SNOT the bike's spike, just like they're used (though I didn't show it) to SNOT the windshield in the SHIELD car in the Spidey set. It's a cool technique made possible by newer parts. Super Skateboard What else to call this vehicle? It's like a skateboard, but big and motorized. I assume there's something like this in the show, but you never know. It does look a little silly, but not at all sloppy. The colors work together, the choice of wheels is good, and the light on the front is a fine detail too. Not a bad little vehicle. Doni stand sideways and holds the lever to make the motor go (in imaginary land, obviously it's not a real functioning motor and Doni is a plastic figurine). There are some nice grey parts back there to make the motor look more powerful. The studs under the motor are metallic grey, which is a nice touch and more interesting than regular grey. While clips on Star Wars vehicles to hold lightsabers make absolutely no sense, a clip to hold a big wooden weapon is a bit better. Yes, in-universe Doni can probably hold it on his shell, but at least this isn't too ridiculous like lightsaber clips are. Shredder's Dragon Bike Now we come to the meatiest meat of the set, the dragon bike. The first thing you have to wonder is: what is this supposed to be. I tried to do some research into this thing and its show counterpart, but all I could find was an action-figure geared toy that looked similar, but was the size of a motorcycle. So… does that mean that in the show this is actually a motorcycle, but here it's hugo-gigantic!? Maybe. I'm not sure what else it could be. From this low angle, the bike actually looks a bit menacing. The front has a good dragon look, what with the fangs, orange eyes, and tons of black cheese for a sort of ribbing. The spikes sticking out from the wheel are nice touches too. Unfortunately, looking at the bike from a normal angle makes it look a bit mish-mashy. It's just bare overall, which isn't good. There's a lot of cheese, which is always nice, but it seems like it's trying to make up for a lack of substance. The light grey technic under the cockpit is kind of jarring, and the big spike is ridiculous the way it shoots up so high. Side views only make it worse. I do love the big firey smokestacks, but that's where my love ends. A bip problem on this model is that there's next to no integration between the wheels and the rest of it. There's no flaps over the wheels, or mudguards, or anything. It's just like: wheels, LEGO on top. The back wheel especially is so open, I can't help thinking somebody could just aim something sharp at it and easily pop the tire. This thing is so 'front-heavy' when it comes to details. There's barely anything at all around this back wheel, so while the size of the wheel itself is cool, it doesn't feel integrated into the model. All there is is the one flap way above the wheel. The last part to build is the dragon head on the front, which attaches on all at once, and when I'd finished it I went… 'that's it?' There's something about this model that feels incomplete. Maybe this is supposed to be a motorcycle, but since LEGO made it large for a bike anyway they needed to beef it up more. More armor, or at least more of a build on the back to balance the build on the front. (There are stickers for both sides of the flags, if you wondered.) There are no controls in the cockpit. I've found that 9 times out of 10, no controls in a cockpit on a LEGO set seems to be correlated to a crappy set design overall. I mean, really, why are there no controls? Does Shredder control it with his mind or his claws? There's even space right there, begging to be filled with some sort of controls. I know how much work goes into designing LEGO sets, but this still feels sloppy. Not everything can be a winner. The play features, obviously, are the flickr fires on either side that swivel around. I didn't bother illustrating what they do this time; you know what they do. Once again, almost anything looks cool from a close-up, low angle. Sitting in front of me on a table, though, this model is ugly. WHOLE SET and CONCLUSION There's what you get in its raw anti-glory. A mish-mashy, unfinished feeling bike that can't decide if it wants to be a big fierce bike or a motorcycle that fell in ooze and grew a bit, and a little skateboard build that's quite cute and fun. The minifigures are all stupendous, as expected, but apart from them I really can't recommend this set. Especially in comparison to the Spider-Cycle Chase and Arctic Batman sets, this set feels like a rip-off because you pay more but get models that are far less rewarding. Maybe I'm a bit harsh because I'm not in love with TMNT, but honestly this vehicle is junky. The stealth shell looks junky too from everything I've seen, and the Shellraiser is also a bit… strange. I'm not too unhappy I decided to get this set because what I really wanted was the figures and I love them, but I'd still be more satisfied if the bike wasn't so darn underwhelming. RATINGS Minifigures: 10/10 - A little gripe about Doni's backprinting not matching isn't enough to dock points. These guys are great. Parts: 7/10 - There's some ok stuff, but nothing amazing. A lot of cheese is good, as is the olive green motor, but otherwise this set isn't amazing for parts. Build: 6/10 - It kind of feels like it just ends. Getting the dragon head on straight is a little annoying because of how it's connected with a pin, and then after that, it's over before you feel the bike is finished. Design: 5.5/10 - No controls. Exposed wheels. Bare back. There's a lot wrong here. Price: 6.5/20 - More than the superheroes sets for less pieces and a far worse model just isn't right. On its own terms, 25 is to be expected I suppose, but this still feels like it should've been 20. Playability: 8/10 - Stuff rolls. That's always good, though the big boy wobbles a little. The flick fires are meh, as usual. You get the main baddie of the TMNT universe, though, so that makes it playable automatically. Overall: 7.1/10 - I tend to rank sets favorably, so this is low-ish for me. A low C, or just below average mark. That's how I feel. This set has some redeeming elements, like the great minifigures and the abundance of cheese, but overall it's kind of poor. On sale, this might be worth picking up if you want the parts as well as the figures. Otherwise, maybe look into getting Shredder seperately, and Doni if you want this expression on him instead of the gap-toothed one in the Baxter Robot set.

Thanks for the nice comments everyone! You might find that difficult to do and maintain the clutch power of the building solution that the set uses. It is possible to MOD it so that the wheels on each side swivel at once, but I can't quickly think of a way to do it that wouldn't leave the wheels free to swing all the time (although that might not be a bad thing necessarily). I'd be interested to see what you come up with! I know I have had problems with these types of stickers before myself, while I can't recall problems with clear ones. On some of my older sets, the color stickers have become brittle, and even on the recent Funhouse I noticed a little peeling of the large panel stickers (though that could be a problem with my application).It seems that the color-backed sticker issue has become a common LEGO gripe, like (dare I bring it up) the quality of parts from certain origins. I'm sure that the issue has some validity, or it wouldn't exist as a discussed issue at all, but it perhaps isn't as widespread as it's made out to be.

Sometimes you just know you've gotta have a set. You see the pictures and you need to order it pronto. For me, this is one of those: Set Name: Spider-Man: Spider-Cycle Chase Set #: 76004 Theme: Superheroes Subtheme: Marvel, Ultimate Spider-Man Pieces: 237 Minifigures: 3 Year of Release: 2013 Price at Release: USD 20 Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink INTRODUCTION LEGO has been blessing Superhero fans with these 20-dollar-range sets. Last year we got Lex Luthor Power Armor for DC, and the SHIELD Truck and Wolverine Chopper for Marvel. This year LEGO is back with the Aquaman on Ice set for DC and this guy for Marvel. 20 bucks is truly a great, buyable price range. I didn't actually buy Lex Luthor or the SHIELD Truck, but I can tell that both are great sets if you want them: exclusive figures, nice vehicles, cheap price. What else can you ask for? This set looked even better to me, though. Why? Nick Fury. Venom. Transformable hover car! I remember slapping together some crappy transformable hover car when I was a kid; ah, nostalgia. Anywho, all those ingredients are a recipe for awesome. So is the set awesome? Let's fine out… BOX So many things are great about this box art. The new comic city across the top (which also appears on the DC sets, but in blue of course) is amazing, much better than the dull striped pattern from last year. The main artwork, with blue sky, tilted up angle, and zooming vehicles about to smash together is so actiony and fun. Bright and awesome! This one side has a non-LEGO Spidey to compare, I guess. But let's talk more about the front. The set name is really stupid. Why did they need the 'Spider-Man' at the beginning? Who else would have a spider-cycle? Does Batman have a Spider-Cycle? I don't think so! But 237 pieces… One more detail: mini figures always look more epic when they have the same picture of themselves blown up but faded in the background. Wouldn't you agree? The main back box art is a bit bare. There's something in the big blue-dot picture, but I can't tell what it is. They still added a little action, and there are of course the play feature windows, but overall it's not too exciting. I love it when LEGO even uses the flap of the box for more great art. I find this city stuff just lovely. CONTENTS Pour that box out… and we've got three numbered bags, instructions, comic, DSS, and Spidey's web. Why his web didn't make it into a bag, I don't know. But hey, it doesn't matter. COMIC The comic is your usual nonsensical little thing involving big battles that don't lead much of anywhere. All of the figures from both new Spidey sets take part in the battle (as do the sets themselves), and then Iron Man randomly appears in the background of the final pane. Don't ask. Also don't ask who is flying Dr. Doom's jet on the cover if all of the figures are seen not in it. The back shows the 'all figures' picture from last year's wave as well as the seven new figs from this wave, more spread out of course. I especially like J Jonah angrily trying to take a picture of Venom's back. INSTRUCTIONS The instructions came rolled up and a bit torn, as usual, but I really couldn't care less. The fun artwork is seen more broadly here. It's really quite exciting. Here's a random page. The background is a comic-dot blue gradient, not too exciting, but fitting and a good contrast for the parts. On some pages, like this one, is a nice fade of Spidey, Nova, and Dr. Doom. Of course, a fade of characters who are actually in this set (besides Spidey) would be better, but hey, I guess it's a subtle ad. I found it amusing that LEGO has you put Venom on top of Fury's car in the final step. Fury doesn't seem too bothered by it. DSS The stickers are unfortunately the printed color kind, and not the clear back kind. These will probably start peeling in about a day. They're not too bad, though, as stickers go. I'm glad LEGO is finally starting to work references to the far superior building-toy Megabloks into their sets, celebrating the year Megabloks was started on the license plates (#bsalert). PIECES You thought I'd show you all the pieces, didn't you? No? Good, I'm glad you knew that wasn't going to happen. Instead, here are new(ish) parts, all found in bag 1. The SNOT piece has been showing up a bit now, but it's still quite useful. There are some nice spares from the set, like 1x1 round tiles, cheese, a tooth, and that other 1x1 goodness. Technic, eh, whatever, who cares about that stuff… MINIFIGURES Woohoo! Finally made it to the figs! I'll talk about Spidey, the only non-exclusive fig, later. For now, just look at Venom and Fury! Soak in the awesomeness. Venom, with his pink gums and huge white eyes looks quite terrifying, just as he should. Nick Fury is pretty BA himself. The face is terrific, and could easily be put on a more movie-ish torso and fit right in with Avengers figs. Fury's torso is a bit simplistic; that's not bad per se, but it stands out against other recent torsos. Everybody's got cool back printing and more muscles! Gotta love that Fury's eyepatch strap extends across the back of his head. Of course, since LEGO doesn't print sides of heads (besides Lobot), Fury's patch string has an awkward gap. It's weird, but not as jarring as Bane's mask, since this is so thin. I just wanted to give you a close-up on Venom's scary smile as well. If you pop some hair on Fury, the printing gap goes right away! Kind of a combo between old Fury look and Samuel L Jackson Fury. Now let me talk about Spidey. I don't hate him as much as I thought I would, but he's still got issues. I suppose he just looks way too cartoony; it does sort of look like he's a kid in pajamas, and though Spidey isn't a serious guy, this is a bit too not-serious. He's cute, maybe too cute. I find the old one (left) much better still, but the new one isn't terrible if cartoony floats your boat. MINIFIGURES with ACCESSORIES The accessory assortment is a bit bare, but these guys are supposed to be somewhat super just by themselves. Spidey gets his regular white string, which isn't good for much, but Spidey needs webbing. Nick Fury gets the out of place futuristic gun. Really, the mould is awesome, but modern weaponry just doesn't look like that. Why is all of the LEGO universe now using a gun introduced in a futuristic line? Venom gets awesome tentacles; they produce a great Venom symbiote feelers effect. Venom's tentacles are attached with a black pin bracket (its second appearance in black) and a cool round piece with clips. It gets the job done well without using too many parts and being the least bulky it possibly could be. SET - By Parts I didn't take any build pics, so I'll just show you all angles of the set. The build keeps itself varied, and besides for a 2X here and there, isn't too annoying. Watching the car spring up from a lot of pieces is quite rewarding and fun. Each character gets their own thing, which is pretty great. Let's get to it! Symbiote Bombs (or something) Venom gets these odd objects to toss around. I guess they are Venom symbiotic things that get all gooey and attach themselves to stuff, turning other people into surrogate Venoms. In LEGO form they're a bunch of spiky stuff. Honestly I don't understand why these are even included; the piece count is so high and these are kinda worthless, so surely they could've been left out. I'm not complaining about getting them, since parts are parts, but I don't understand. Spider-Cycle Here's Spidey, showing off his cool ride. It's pretty tall next to him, but we don't expect LEGO to be proportionally correct. I've seen much worse. Here's the cycle from the show, just for comparison: Obviously, the LEGO version doesn't look much like it besides for the color scheme. But that doesn't mean the LEGO cycle doesn't look nice. LEGO produced two similar-sized vehicles for Batman last year, and this one by far is the sleekest and most compact. The color scheme is a bit drab, but that actually complements Spidey's bright colors nicely. It's really not too long, and does't have too much going on. Sure it's not a motorbike, but Spidey doesn't look ridiculous on top of it. It looks pretty speedy and powerful too. Plus, you can barely tell it transforms. Of course you know it transforms, but it doesn't scream 'I transform!' if you know what I mean. That's a plus in my book. Voila! Just flip out the wheels, and you've got a hoverbike! You can even still roll it if you put them at the correct angle, or you can flip them all the way out so that it really 'hovers.' Yes there's no thrust, but this feature is still wicked cool. They took what just looks like a nice bike and made it transform into a hovercraft without being clunky. That's a win. SHIELD Car If you're a boss like Nick Fury, you need a boss of a car. That's just what he gets! This thing looks fierce. I couldn't find any specific images of SHIELD cars in the Ultimate Spider-Man show, so I don't know if this is modeled after a specific one. Regardless, flying SHIELD cars are a thing, so it's not like LEGO made it up. This car looks fantastic (it is regular green, btw, but my camera has trouble with some colors). It's both rough-looking and sleek. Though it's eight-wide total, it doesn't look overly bulky. The one portion that looks a little odd is the SNOT plates in front of the windshield; something just looks a little off there. Otherwise, superb. Using the windshield piece on its side is awesome. Of course, Fury can't really see out of it because he looks straight into the part where studs go, but LEGO isn't realistic anyway so I'm over it. The slanted bit behind the cockpit is quite nice too; from this angle you can barely tell it's a function. Here we are from the back. Another nice big bumper, and a big spoiler making this a sporty-looking vehicle. The metallic grills and contoured piece on top help with that as well. Of course, pick the right angle and you see the flick-fire peeking out. The cockpit only has room to seat one, which again isn't realistic, but since this is Superhero stuff it doesn't bother me (it' s much more annoying in City sets). The controls include two printed tiles with a print that goes way back, and a steering wheel. Maybe the tiles represent missile buttons in this case. Curiously, there's a 1x2 tan cheese slope behind the wheel that looks like it's begging for a dashboard sticker, but there's no sticker. As usual with LEGO, there's a bunch of hidden colors in the model. The blue plates seen here are not well-hidden, though, and really should have been green. I don't understand why LEGO does weird colors for pieces that will still be visible on the completed thing. They shouldn't. I showed you the peek at the flick-fire already, so let's look at that function. You can see the tip of the missile here, but overall it just looks like a nice back of a car. Tilt it up, though, and you've got a missile! Nick Fury must be such a good shot that one missile is all he needs. Given how much LEGO loves flick-fires, it's kinda strange that they couldn't manage to fit at least two in somehow. You can position it higher too, but no matter how you tilt it, flicking that thing is quite a challenge. This feature is a nice thought, but doesn't really work. The very similar feature in one of the Galaxy Squad sets appears to be much better in terms of firing missiles, but this of course looks like an awesome car. You could just pretend Fury puts it into missile mode and launches missiles without actually flicking anything. Then, simply twist down the wheels (each one twists independently), and you're good to swoosh this baby around! The car actually looks more magnificent in hover mode. Just think about it in terms of real life: who would want a normal car when you could have a freaking hover car! Note how Fury has to wave his gun way above the windshield if he wants to shoot it; just another limitation of awesomely SNOTing the windshield piece. You can see the whole glory of the hood sticker here too. The little intakes are lovely, as is the SHIELD logo. I wouldn't want to leave this sticker off, though the car would still look fine. WHOLE SET and CONCLUSION There we go. Fierce, sleek hover-car. Cool, transforming bike. Random black spiky stuff that didn't need to even be here but is anyway. Exclusive, awesome Nick Fury and Venom. Pajamas Spider-Man, but ok, that's to be expected. What else can I say? To my taste, this is the best $20 Superhero set yet. The other vehicles we've seen so far like Deadpool's chopper and the SHIELD truck have been nice, but they've got nothing on this hover-car. They are all good buys, don't get me wrong, but this one really has some oomph. I think ratings are a bit useless for this one. This set is a big 10/10, 50/50, or .063/.063 if you really want. Unless you hate Nick Fury, hate cars, hate hover cars, hate anything beautiful in the world, or are a curmudgeon who absolutely will not buy a Licensed theme, go pick up this excellent set at your earliest convenience. Until next time!

Just because it was produced during S4 does not mean that the Younglings arc can't before it. Hondo's hideout looks completely trashed when we see it in the Rebels arc. Why would it look like that, if not for Grevious trashing it in the Younglings arc? The Maul episode should come after the others, though, as that's when it was going to be aired in Season 5. They decided to make it the premiere to get the season off to a lively start. That's my theory, anyway, because the Maul episode was probably the best and most lively so far this season.

I'm not going to respond to all of your points individually Oky, because for me it all boils down to one thing. I understand what the episode was trying to do, and even why George wanted to do it. What I was saying in my previous post was what I thought they should have done, instead of trying to do this 'unique' 'something different' style episode. Just because they were (arguably) successful at making the sort of episode they set out to make does mean that I have to think it was a good decision to make that type of episode in the first place. A main reason that I don't like their decision to make this episode is that it is too 'unique' in the face of the show at large. The Clone Wars, a kids' show that is supposed to show the clone wars, or at least important big things going on during that time period, is not the place to try out a weird experimental-ish type of things about droids in the desert. If Lucas was to make this episode and release it as a short film online, maybe it would be ok. Just as straying away from the main focus of the show to dwell on magical force crap in the Mortis arc was absolutely dreadful, so too I find this brief diversion into however you want to describe this episode quite out of place.

Yes, but why make an episode about nothing? Well, because George felt like it, that's why, but that's not a good explanation. I watched the featurette, and the writer was exactly right about there being stakes… in the first episode. The hero droids had a mission to complete, and the Seperatist droids were actually a threat in the zero-gravity-fight sequence. In this episode, though, all stakes were gone. We don't actually know more about why the Republic needs the chip or what they will do with it. If they had cut away to scenes of some Republic commanders monitoring the mission, losing track of the droids because they got lost in the void, and becoming worried about getting the chip (which would provide room for some exposition about why they need it), that would've been a good episode. They probably wouldn't have needed more than five minutes of screen time to do that, adding some sense of urgency to the droids' wanderings and still leaving plenty of time for the battle of egos, existential crisis stuff. Instead, what we get is 22 minutes of droids in the void, with Gascon mentioning the mission from time to time, and that's it. We can't feel the urgency, there are no stakes, and the episode is pointless. Now that I mention cutting away to Republic commanders, I really have to wonder why the writers didn't do it. From the amount and tier of the Jedi standing around in the briefing at the beginning of the first episode, this seems like quite an important mission. Wouldn't somebody care that the droids have gotten lost, and shouldn't we, the audience, see that first-hand? Just another example of poor story telling in this show…

The original Batman line had an Ultimate Collectors' set in its first year. With LotR, since it automatically appeals to adults, a UCS-type set isn't out of the question.