Wrap-up of official news

Okay, I have to admit that I'm way behind in this. I haven't even gone through all of the sets yet. LEGO has been releasing so much stuff about their official lines, that it's hard to keep up. It's not just that I'm constantly behind in blogging - so every day I bookmark things I want to post, but don't have time just then to post, but also I'm more interested in highlighting great MOCs that simply pushing the corporate product. But I do aspire to completely covering the field on this blog, so I'll use one post here to mention several official announcements that have come out recently (or not so recently). BTW, if you are looking for more timely updates, be sure to follow Brick Heroes, FBTB and Brickset, as those guys are much more up-to-date than I am.

Okay, let's start with the most recent. Last week LEGO released an Avengers movie poster based on the real one. News today is that they will give away 2 million of these on the opening day of the movie.



Also in the immediately new news category is the announcement of an exclusive Hulk figure. If you buy $50 of merchandise through Lego.com between May 16 and 31, you'll get this free fig. This hit the web yesterday, so at first I thought it was just another April Fools prank, but, no, it seems to be real.



Within the past month, the Marvel sets have started to roll out. They've been seen on the shelves at John Lewis, a British store, and you can order them on such sites as Walmart.com (they sold out quickly and should restock soon), Amazon (pre-order still) and Target (pre-order). You should be able to get these at a store near you in the next couple of weeks. Some people have started to get the sets, so reviews are starting to appear, such as this for the Quinjet, this for 6866, Wolverine's Chopper Showdown, this for 6868, Hulk's Helicarrier Breakout and this for 6865, Captain America's Avenging Cycle.




Aside from the set itself, the review of the Quinjet led to some other exciting news. In the packaging, we saw the characters for the yet-to-be-seen set, 6873 - Spider-Man's Doc Ock Ambush. We'll get Spider-Man, Doc-Ock, and, here's the exciting part to me - Iron Fist! That means that we're going to go further into the Marvel Universe, seeing some of the less prominent characters. Will of Brick Heroes points out that Iron Fist will be a featured character in the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, so that makes sense for the LEGO merchandising tie-in (so it's not like we'll see Black Lightning any time soon) (checks - ah, wait, he was DC - I was just grabbing for someone obscure). However, Will adds that the Ultimate Spider-Man series will also feature Nick Fury, Nova, White Tiger, Power Man, Venom and Dr. Doom. Of course Nick Fury will be in the Avengers movie, so I'm baffled he isn't already in a set (he's in that movie poster, after all), but by far the most exciting character here for me is Dr. Doom - second only to Magneto on the all-time list of Marvel baddies, IMO (btw, not just my opinion, the IGN list of top 100 comic book villains put Magneto at #1, then Joker, then Doom).




Okay, jumping over to DC, they tricked me. I thought they'd already shown the cover art for the upcoming Batman 2 video game, but this week they released the official final cover art.



Also on the video game, if you preorder, you can get an exclusive Lex Luthor fig in a powersuit.



Various other promotional art has come out for the video game as well.

On some older news, at some point in the past month LEGO put some content on their official Marvel Superheroes page. At this point it is just a big panoramic scene that you can scroll back and forth. When you click on different characters you get their statistics (Thor - really strong, but not so bright, Magneto, not as strong, but smart, etc).



The official DC Superheroes page has more content. When you first log in you get a little Batman vs Joker video. Content includes character bios, product news, and the coolest bit is the comics builder, where you can choose different characters, vehicles and settings and put them together to make your own comic adventures.





I don't think I ever posted the exclusive figs that were available at Toy Fair New York. Why oh why didn't they do Iron Man like this? It looks so much closer to the comics, and the opening faceplate feature really isn't worth it. I mean, who really cares what Tony Stark looks like?



Whew. I still have to finish up giving my own thoughts on the official sets, but otherwise I think I'm caught up with all of the news of the line.

Tumbler

Legohaulic made this great version of Batman's Tumbler.

2x2 stack to save the day

Presumably inspired by this viral image, Si-MOCs came up with Block Buddy heroes and villains. Who do you see?

Missing person - HeatherLEGOGirl

If you're a regular reader of the variety of major LEGO blogs out there, you've already seen this, but I'm passing it along on the theory that at least some of my readers come from outside the hobbyist community. Heather Braaten, who you may know on various online forums as HeatherLEGOGirl, has been missing for the past week. She was last seen in Seattle, Washington. If you see Heather, or know anything of her whereabouts, please contact Lino Martins at linotopia AT hotmail DOT com , as he is in close touch with Heather's family, or directly contact the Seattle police department. Or use any of the contact information on the flyer below.

Swamp Thing

I don't think I've ever seen any Swamp Thing MOCs before, but this custom by Jaypercent is perfect.

Phoenix airport

This weekend I had a layover at the Phoenix Arizona airport and saw this ad. I have no idea what DPS 2012 is. I assume it's some convention being held in Phoenix, but Googling isn't helping me. DPS in Arizona seems to be the Department of Public Safety, their state law enforcement. There are a couple of conventions coming up that might appeal to comics/gaming/LEGO/geekdom in general fans- Con Nichiwa (an anime convention in Tuscon this week) and LepreCon (a sci-fi and fantasy convention in Tempe) (BTW, the featured speaker there is Stephen Furst, who you either know as Flounder from Animal House or as Vir Cotto from Babylon 5) - but neither of those fits the initials "DPS". So, how many geek-friendly puns can you come up with based on the word "con"? Anyway, this sign was a nice little surprise on a long travel day for work.

Fantastic Four save the day

Eric Druon built this great rendition of the Fantastic Four versus Galactus.

More Flash

Mark Sandlin made this great little wind-up Flash. I have to admit a little confusion here in that I don't know if there was ever an African American to don the mantle of the Flash. There was a super-fast member of the Global Guardians named Impala who was first introduced in relation to the Flash, but he had a very different uniform. Anyway, regardless, the flying dirt and the hand-crank background here are brilliant. - Oops, further information helps here. He built this for his friend who is both African American and a huge fan of the Flash. Be sure to watch the video.

Fastest man alive

In celebration of the mention the other day that the Flash will be included in the upcoming Batman video game, check out Sparkytron's great Flash.

Joker

The Brothers-Brick ran an article on minifig customization by JasBrick, and it had a pic of his great Heath-Ledger-style Joker.

Spider-man and (not) friends

Let's take a quick break from the official sets. AnonymousBug made a great series of virtual figs, that could all be made using existing molds (albeit with new colors). Here, for instance, we see the Sinister Six.

Daily Planet

The MOCathalon category 'the elephant and the fly' asks builders to take a full scale model and make it microscale. George G took Mr. Xenomurphy's Superman and Young Justice vs Braniac and made it tiny.

MOCathalon

One of the categories in the 2012 MOCathalon is 'The Supers are back!', inspiring such creations as Alex Mack's The Dark Knight Rides and Rinse Jan's Super Jan (okay, this one technically isn't Superman, but let's just pretend he has black hair, because it's a really nice scene).

More Batman game

More screencaps from the upcoming video game have been released. The WorthPlaying article notes that the characters will talk, unlike the previous game, and there will be new suits and new abilities. Perhaps most exciting, there will be "50 DC Comics characters, including The Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and many others". That's the first mention I've ever seen of the Flash in any official LEGO product, and to get 50 we'll have to dig much deeper into both the lineup of heroes and villains. I wonder if those may also result in actual sets with some of those additional characters in the future?

News for gamers

I've been remiss in not posting more about the upcoming video game whose trailer went up a couple of days back, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes. According to Amazon it will be available June 1 (you can pre-order now). It looks like it will follow the same idea as the previous Batman game, but will add Superman, Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, and Lex Luthor to the mix (no mention of any other non-Batman heroes or villains). This will be available on all of the usual video game platforms. Will at Brick Heroes has pointed out that DC Comics has released a screenshot of the game and that the French language version of Amazon has the game cover art (the English language Amazon just has a logo).




Quick admission here - I've never gotten far on LEGO Batman. Whenever I fire up the Wii, my kids want to play, and, well, you try to complete a level with a three year old and a four year old as your partners. Oh well, they have fun running the characters around (and, quite often, into that big pool of acid on the first screen). I'm just not that much of a gamer that I will stay up late after they go to bed playing.

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

LEGO, Travelers Tales, etc have just released a video teasing the upcoming Batman 2 video game.



Via FBTB.

6868, Hulk's Helicarrier Breakout

Okay, next up is 6868, Hulk's Helicarrier Breakout. Okay, I just have to say it. I can't stand these LEGO sets that basically come down to "Recreate these 30 seconds from the movie that we're using for cross-promotions!" I mean, the Avengers were created in, what, 1963 (okay, I'll admit it, I just checked, but I knew if was before I was born)? And for the key set we have to get shoe-horned in to the latest Hollywood blockbuster that will come and go and then get relegated into being replayed on some random cable station on Saturday afternoons? Is this setting something recognizable that will stand the test of time (like, for instance, the Batcave - sure, we've seen many variations over the years through comics, TV and movies, but they're all recognizably the Batcave)? I, quite honestly, do not care about this setting. I'm sure I'll see and enjoy the movie, but this LEGO rendition is fairly forgettable.



The jet is nice, but, again, I've seen better from MOCs. I hadn't noticed before that Hawkeye has a cool new compound bow.



There are some nice new printed tiles and computer screens, but, let's face it, if you're spending US$50 on this, it's probably for the figs. Loki looks pretty good. His helm is kind of silly, but it is in the comics as well.



At the time of Toy Fair, Hulk did not yet have a face. I'm sure that made him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.



Thor looks good (the stickers at Toy Fair will be replaced by printed torsos), and we get a new mold for Mjolnir.



Here's another view, where you can also see Hawkeye and the Hulk. Hulk's face got better, btw.

6865 - Captain America's Avenging Cycle

Next up for examination is 6865 - Captain America's Avenging Cycle. At Toy Fair LEGO was being coy, only showing a portion of the set to avoid giving away a plot point from the upcoming Avengers movie.



However, high resolution images came out later (I think via Amazon, but I'm not sure on that). There has been much online speculation as to the identities of these as-yet-unnamed enemies (Skrull? Kree? Atlanteans? Asgardians of some sort? Inhumans? Etc etc etc).



At $US13 this is a relatively cheap set, so I'm sure most comic fans will pick this up. Basically, IMO, all you're really getting for your money is Cap himself. The motorcycle is nothing special, basically the Catwoman cycle in different colors. BTW, LEGO, Noddy, Michael Jasper, SimonStorm, Fat Tony, and doubtless other builders I'm missing have shown that you can construct really awesome motorcycles out of actual LEGO, rather than simply going with a 1 or 2 piece molded bike. WHY can't you do the same? I'm sure that we would all be much more excited to buy a set with one of those designs. Anyway, IMO the baddies are kind of lame looking, though I suppose they will closely match the movie visuals. Also the little flyer is bad as well (it looks a lot like the Green Goblin's flyer, and I really hated that flimsy thing).



Sigh. I'm sure I'll buy this for Cap and throw the rest in the parts bin. You've got my $13, LEGO, but not as much of my respect as you might have had.

6866 Wolverine's Chopper Showdown

I've been very remiss in not discussing all of the upcoming Marvel sets, so let's try to remedy that, starting with 6866 Wolverine's Chopper Showdown. At US$20 this is a really cheap entry into this line, and it gets you three awesome figs. I'll definitely be getting this for the figs alone, especially since Magneto is (IMO) the greatest Marvel villain of all time (okay, Dr. Doom is cool too, and I've always loved Spidey's set of classic antagonists).



OTOH, the helicopter is only so-so. They've made better helicopters in the past.