LEGO Super Heroes Spider-Cycle Chase

 In the past, I've brought you more than a few Lego creations of my own design, but I today I thought I'd break tradition and show you an actual set on shelves right this moment, the Spider-Cycle Chase from the Super Heroes sub-line. Since Lego now has the licenses to do both DC and Marvel based sets, Super Heroes is a bit of a catch-all banner they can be released under instead of having distinct packaging designs and whatnot for each company. The Marvel half of the line started out with mainly Avengers themed sets to coincide with the movie, but has branched out a bit into other heroes, like Spidey and friends here.

 I admit, half the reason I bought this set was for the Nick Fury mini figure. The thought of a tiny, Samuel L. Jackson-voiced Fury amused me to no end. Then I saw the mention on the box that this set is based off of the Ultimate Spider-Man comic and was not a quasi-movie set, d'oh. Oh well, seeing as Ultimate Fury is what inspired the movie in the first place, I guess I'll live. We'll start the review off with Fury and his wheels.

The first of three mini figures in the set, Nick Fury looks...well, exactly like you'd picture a Lego version of him to look. Like if you had no idea this figure existed and someone just asked you to draw what your ideal Lego Fury would look like, this would be it. Unless you drew a Lego David Hasselhoff chomping a cigar. If that was the case, you have still awhile to wait I'm afraid. Lego Fury has a determined expression, the requisite eye patch and bad-ass facial hair. He has a shoulder holster and belt lined with pouches slung over what looks like a tactical turtleneck printed on his torso, some black slacks to complete the international secret agent look and a pistol for firing wildly while yelling (Sam Jackson does that a lot.) I think the only thing that could make this figure better is if he had a little cloth trenchcoat piece and black sleeves on his shirt to match it. That might not be very Ultimate, but it would look cool and Lego has done a few cloth pieces as capes and such in the past.

Fury gets a vehicle in the form of a slick green two-door job from S.H.I.E.L.D. I don't know enough about cars to even guess if this one is based off of a real life model, but it has the chunky, tough-looking build a spy agency would look for in their field vehicles.

While Lego seems to be phasing stickers out in favor of tampographed detailing in their newest lines, this set has a small sticker sheet for details like this S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the hood and license plates on the front and rear bumpers.

I thought that "MB 19 89" must be some Marvel related in-joke, but all I can find on the internet is a rumor that it's just the initials of the designer of this set. That's not nearly as interesting as the Stan Lee-infused tale of mystery and intrigue I had in my head before.

A look in the car reveals that no matter how cool his car is, Nick Fury isn't bringing any dates home in it as there's only room for the driver. Hell, the doors don't even really open, Fury has to hop over the side every time he wants in or out. Admittedly, that's an awesome way to enter or exit a vehicle, but it does seem a bit impractical. Besides the steering wheel, the car from S.H.I.E.L.D. has two banks of controls (these details are tampographed) because did I mention it was a spy car?

Because it totally is a spy car

S.H.I.E.L.D. being S.H.I.E.L.D., the Furymobile has a few tricks up it's sleeve, the first providing proof that Doc Brown used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. The car's wheels flip down on pivots to turn it into a hover car in a simple but effective gimmick. The jointed black bit beneath the car is just my impromptu hover stand, pay it no heed.

If hover part alone didn't wow you, the S.H.I.E.L.D. car has one more surprise in the form of a missile launcher that rises up from the rear section. The missile is of the "flick" type where a small tube piece is snugged within a slightly larger "launcher" socket hole and putting pressure on the rear section of the missile (such as by flicking it with your fingertip) causes it to "fire."

Next up is the Spider-Man himself and his titular Spider-Cycle. I know what you're thinking, I thought it too.  Let's just say it together and get it out of our systems; Why does Spider-Man need a motorcycle? Much like the question of why Superman would need a clumsy robot walking machine when he could fly, one can't help but wonder how this really helps Spidey's overall performance. 

"Don't hate."

Not that it isn't a sweet little bike, but wouldn't an earth-bound vehicle just slow down a super hero noted for his speed, agility and disregard for gravity? He'd have to abandon it the first time a villain took out a grappling hook or fired up a convenient jet pack, it's not like it can fly...

Oh right, it absolutely flies. Much like Fury's car, Spidey's wild ride can flip it's tires sideways and call them turbofans to take the fight to the skies! Well, probably not much higher than Spidey would be swinging on his webs anyways and with the possibility of mechanical failure or a bird getting sucked into a turbine or... Look! Flying motorcycle! Cool!

You can't really fault Lego for the Spider-Cycle though, super heroes are hard to accessorize and sets with just a few mini figures and nothing else would be boring. Plus, I'm not really up on the Ultimate universe, but I'm pretty sure Spidey works directly for S.H.I.E.L.D. in that continuity, so maybe the motorcycle comes with the badge.

Spidey himself doesn't have quite all of the detailing present on the comic version of the suit, but much like Fury, he's close enough that you're not going to mistake him for anyone else. Also included in the set is a piece composed of a white string with short bars spaced along its length and a cap that can fit over a mini figure's hand or a single stud on brick pieces, meant to simulate Spidey's webline. This is a fun piece that works pretty well for having a figure "swing" from things or for "tying" villains up.

"We HATE you!"   "Yeah, yeah..."

Unfortunately, due to the slack nature of the string, the webline looks less impressive in any sort of pose requiring Spidey to shoot it forward in a classic "slinging" pose. And if you have him holding it while riding the Spider-Cycle like on the packaging, he starts to resemble a different Marvel hero.

"NONE ESCAPE THE SPIRIT OF VENGE- I mean, Spider-Sense tingling!"

Though he's already popped his head in a couple times now, I saved the best mini figure for last, VENOM!

Growing up, I loved Venom. He was an honestly terrifying villain with a very personal connection to Peter Parker and later was my first exposure to an anti-hero before I even knew that word existed when he turned "good." It's a really weird feeling to finally hold in your hand a figure like this after spending so long as a kid thinking about how cool it would be to have Spider-Man Legos. Lego Venom's deco is perfect with the giant white spider logo on his chest and back, huge white eyes, rows of sharp teeth and even lines showing muscle definition on his torso and super-thin lines of pink for gums!

Though he lacks a vehicle like his enemies, Venom has a few accessory pieces to give him a fighting edge. The first is a backpack with a free-spinning hub piece attached that has four clips spread around its edge. Black, spiny tentacle pieces attach to these clips to give Venom array of extended pseudopods for thrashing the heroes with. This rig gives Venom a stretched neck unfortunately, so I prefer to just leave it off.

Venom also has a couple of bricks covered in tentacle and spine pieces that I assume is to represent him throwing globs of his suit as weapons. Not a terrible idea as they would most likely be smart enough to further harm or at least hinder their target once they hit and the main symbiote could probably regenerate the lost mass fast enough. You can also peg or entangle them on and around Fury's car or the Spider-Cycle to muck up the systems.

And while there is only one webline included, Venom can still steal Spidey's and go swinging through the city.

"Well, at least it's not a giant shark..."

To me, the Spider-Cycle Chase is a solid hit. For twenty bucks, you get a large-ish vehicle, a small vehicle and three mini figures with accessories, a good deal for a good set and one that won't break the bank if the kids (or you) really want Spider-Man Legos. The mini figure selection alone is almost worth the asking price, the vehicles are just icing.

Iron Man: The Armored Avenger Hammer Drone

Though I've talked about the virtues of T.J. Maxx hunting before, it continues to pay off as yesterday's visit turned up yet another awesome Iron Man figure I'd never heard of before, the Hammer Drone. For those who have yet to see Iron Man 2 (and why haven't you by now?), there are mild spoilers ahead so look out.

A large part of the second film's plot involves Tony Stark's competitor, Justin Hammer, attempting to create his own version of personal mech armor. He gives up on that after a few less than successful prototypes and decides it would be much easier to simply steal the technology from Stark and with the help of Ivan Vanko (Whiplash), reverse engineer it into a series of variable attack drones to sell to the military. Clearly, nothing can go wrong with using a revenge-driven convict with his own agenda to design your automated military-class weapon platforms. Before Iron Man and War Machine destroy the majority of them however, we get to see three very cool armored drone designs, each adapted to a specific environment; land, sea or air.

This is not one of those models. In fact, I'm pretty certain this version isn't in the film at all, but there's nothing wrong with that because it is still outstanding. The Hammer Drone shares 99% of it's mold with the Weapon Assault Drone from the Iron Man 2 movie line, having only a new, skull-like head to differentiate the two on a sculpt level. Where the Hammer Drone blows the Weapon Assault Drone away however is paint scheme.



The Weapon Assault Drone is primarily a dark olive green with only a bit of silver in it's joints and weapons with white highlighting it's Arc Reactor, overall not a very exciting scheme. The Hammer Drone is far more visually interesting, using a lighter olive green than the Weapon Assault Drone on it's forearms, chest and lower legs, with silver making up the rest of the body color.



Like Stark Racing Armor Iron Man, the Hammer Drone benefits from quite a few tiny tampographed details, like this Hammer logo on it's right thigh...



And this one on it's left forearm, along with some of the warning stripes that are also present in a few other places on the Drone's body. There are also several small yellow triangles bordered in black and the black and yellow quartered circles you see on crash test dummies (I can't seem to find an official term for them.) The black and yellow detailing really pops against the silver and olive green and gives the impression that this is an early prototype, still being tested and recorded in one of Hammer's facilities before the design is given the go ahead for full production.



But just because it's a prototype, there's nothing saying it can't beat the snot out of you. Check out that whip action! The Hammer Drone includes the same serrated whips the Weapon Assault Drone sported, they're soft enough to get some whipping poses out of, but they won't hold any shape you try to curve them into and can't be used to strangle your Iron Men or anything (at least, not without some creativity.) The whips plug snugly into the inner forearms and can be switched out for the other weapons borrowed from the Weapon Assault Drone.



Big ol' chainsaws! While the whips look mean, these just look brutal. If supposedly emotionless robots can express sadistic glee, it would be on the face of this thing as it uses it's saws to slowly carve it's way into Tony's armor.



Unfortunately, the figure is packaged with the left saw in a section of the bubble tray that by very design, cannot help but bend the holy hell out of it. As the picture shows, you end up with a pretty warped saw on one hand. I'm trying to flatten mine out by leaving it pressed between heavy books and it could also be fixed via boiling water I'm sure, but really this sort of thing could easily be avoided. They managed to make packaging that didn't bend the Weapon Assault Drone's saws, why make a whole new tray layout that seems designed to damage an accessory?



The Hammer Drone features ball jointed shoulders, neck, hips, and ankles, though the hips are those weird ball-hinge joints Hasbro loves so much on their super hero toys these days. There is technically an ab ball joint, but it's far more restricted than the Weapon Assault Drone's so it's limited to mostly swivel movement. Rounding out the articulation are hinge elbows, double jointed knees and upper thigh swivels. I would have liked to see the Drone be a little more flexible (he sorely needs elbow swivels) but the clunky movement sells the walking tank aesthetic of the design. Just like the Weapon Assault Drone, panels on the Hammer Drone's forearms can flip up. I'm still not sure why, nothing is revealed beneath and I don't remember this feature coming up with any of the drones in the movie. Though as I've only seen the second movie once, eons ago, I'm hardly an expert on the subject.



Besides the paint scheme, the factor that turns a "meh" mold into an "OMG I NEED THIS" repaint is the new head. I can't put my finger on exactly what is so great about it, the four eyes? The skull-like shape? The fact it kind of looks like a Zaku from Mobile Suit Gundam? Most likely all these factors and more, but the bottom line is that it looks pretty damn sinister. Tilting the head down even slightly makes the Drone appear to be glowering at you, cocking the head to the side makes him look like he's scheming, it is a surprisingly emotive sculpt for being a largely faceless robot.



As is typical of these Marvel reviews however, after all the praise I heap, I have a bit of complaining to do as well. What you're looking at up there is the Hammer Drone's hip joint. That lighter band of gray in the center of the circular joint section should be the same metallic grayish silver as the rest of the joint. It isn't that color because fresh out of the package, the paint on his hip joints flaked off the first time I moved them. This isn't a huge negative, but it seems to me it would have been better to either leave the joints unpainted, or use the same method as the Weapon Assault Drone. That figure also has this problem, but the plastic of the hip joints are much closer in color to the metallic olive paint applied over them so it's far less noticeable.



My other issue comes from a couple of the tampographs. That isn't shoddy camera work in the picture above (well, not entirely at any rate), that triangle really does look that fuzzy and broken up on the actual figure and there is some yellow slopping into the black sections of this particular crash test dummy marking. Though these two are the only sloppy/blurry tampos out of seventeen or so on the figure so it's not that bad considering.



The Hammer Drone, if you can find it, will make a fantastic addition to your Iron Man or mecha collection. I really love the paint job and the idea of this being a "just off screen" character you could imagine being a step up from Hammer's earlier suits that tended to horribly malfunction (that poor guy who tried to turn at the waist...) and the polished final drones seen during the climactic battle. The Hammer Drone seems to be semi-rare and sells online for around twelve to twenty bucks depending on where you look, but if you have a T.J. Maxx or Marshall's nearby, I'd suggest searching there first as I only paid six bucks for my  Hammer Drone.


"Stop! ... Hammer Drone!"

Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor

To be honest, I could care less about the Avengers movie; I dislike Loki being the villain again right after being the villain in Thor, I would really prefer Edward Norton as the Hulk (or Bruce Banner if you want to be snippy about it) and I would trade Hawkeye and Black Widow for Spider-Man being on the team in an instant. I have been looking at Hasbro's Avengers merchandise all the same however and two gems immediately caught my eye, the Stark Tech Assault Armor suits.



The basic premise is that to help combat Loki's army of aliens, Tony Stark Developed and constructed powerful armored mech suits for himself and Captain America. Just himself and Captain America, apparently the rest of the Avengers are designated cannon fodder. It would be really cool if further along we got mech suits for Thor, Hawkeye and Hulk (though he hardly needs one and wouldn't fit in one), but there's a reason why I don't think we will and I'll get into it in this review.



The Stark Tech Armor sets consist of the large suit or armor itself and a pack in figure of the appropriate pilot, in this case, Captain America. If this Cap figure looks familiar to you, it should, it's the exact same Cap figure used for Midnight Air Raid Captain America, whom I reviewed earlier. If the figure looks really familiar, that's because it is Midnight Air Raid Captain America, I can't seem to find the exact Cap that came with the mech. Since they're identical and it doesn't really matter, this Cap will be standing in.



Here's the basic suit with all the weaponry removed to give you a better idea of the sculpt and articulation. There is a lot of detail going on here. Armor plating, rivets, pistons, wires and more come together to make this hunk of plastic really look like the hunk of high-tech metal it's meant to be. Also, stripped down like this, you might notice similarities between this armor and a certain other armored hero of Marvel's who hangs out with Tony Stark. No? Nothing yet? We'll come back to it.



Standing a little over six inches tall and probably a good four and a half wide at the shoulders, this is a decently bulky toy. Articulation consists of ball jointed shoulders, hips, and ankles, hinge elbows and swivel wrists and neck. Those translucent red cylinders on silver robot arms beneath the suit's main arms are control yokes that the pilot's arms slip into, these are also on ball joints, allowing the pilot to mimic the movements of the larger mech's arms which is a cool touch.



Color scheme is nothing surprising since it's Cap, but there are a lot of painted details including a white "A" on the mech's forehead, "STARK" painted in white on the right shin, and a white star across the chest. There are also some small tampographed details like warning stripes on the forearms, an arrow indicating the cockpit release and "CAPT. ROGERS, AV 02" on the left side of the chest.

Here you can see how Cap pilots the suit; swing the chest plate out, fold the shins down, and he slips right in. The panels close snugly around Cap so despite there not being an actual peg or anything holding him in place, he doesn't rattle around. An issue I have with the Cap mech but not the Iron Man version is that this mech's chest plate is too wide and strikes the shoulder armor if you open it too far, resulting in it popping off.


The armor includes several weapons that can be placed in a variety of places thanks to a universal peg and hole system. These weapons consist of a red cannon, blue machine gun, large blue missile pod and two smaller blue missile pods. The missile pods are meant to worn on the shoulder and sides of the legs respectively while the guns can be swapped between points on the forearms, backs of the hands and shoulders, though the extended forearm armor on Cap's mech makes placing them on the hands difficult. Both the cannon and machine gun fire gray missiles like the one visible in the cannon in my pictures and the suit comes with two. I don't have one in the machine gun because it looks goofy protruding from the center of a ring of gun barrels.


"Well, one of us is going to have to change..."

By now, some of you may have noticed that elements of the armor and weapons seem familiar. Or you've been reading my not-so-subtle hints and want me to get to the point. Well, the point is this; I believe this toy and the complimenting Iron Man version were originally slated for release in the Iron Man 2 toy line and this particular suit was to be War Machine. Looking past the patriotic paint job and Steve Rogers specific lettering, there are many design details from the War Machine armor present here: The forearms are thicker and more heavily armored, the chest is sculpted to include the "shoulder strap" sections that War Machine has and the forehead features the horizontal slat details also present on War Machine's helmet. I'm guessing these sculpts were probably developed late in Iron Man 2's merchandise push and didn't make it to final product in time, so some smart exec pitched the idea of repainting and re-purposing them for the Avengers line. And it works, it works well. Unless you're aware of the War Machine connection, Cap's armor just looks like a slightly different version of Stark's own, built with heavier arms and armor in mind. It works in-universe as well since it would be just like the brilliant, yet somewhat lazy, Stark to have designed heavy armor suits for himself and Rhodes in his idle time, only to have a light bulb go in in his head when Cap later mentions in battle the need for heavier and more advanced weaponry to even the odds. Not that I expect anything as cool as giant mech armor in the actual movie, but a man can dream.


"I'll be taking this!"


"Get lost Rogers!"


"For America!"


"Oh God, there's something right behind me, isn't there?"

Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor is part of the brand spanking new Avengers toy line and can be had from just about any of the bigger stores for around twenty dollars. In my opinion, it's very much worth it. He's a fun, chunky mech suit with a lot of weapons and a decent if not thrilling pack in figure for one portrait of Andrew Jackson. If shows like Exosquad, Robotech or Gundam are your forte, you may very well enjoy this red, white and blue bruiser as well.

Marvel's Hydra Soldier Dark Threat

First off, if you haven't seen Captain America: The First Avenger yet, I recommend it. It's a really well done comic book movie and doesn't take itself so seriously that it looks goofy instead like some movies with the Marvel name on them (looking at you, X-Men.)

When the movie tie in merchandise from Hasbro first started hitting shelves, I scoffed at a Hydra soldier with giant arm guns in the Deluxe Mission Pack line and thought it a clear example of over the top toy designs that would never actually be in the movie itself (for examples, see any Batman movie toyline from Returns on.) Call me embarrassed when not only was that soldier in the movie, he was pretty bad-ass before being soundly beaten. Twelve bucks was a bit more than I wanted to pay for him when he was new at retail, but that's where patience and T.J. Maxx pay off...

I'm guessing there was some sort of legal issue with just calling this figure "Hydra Heavy Trooper" or something along those lines, but man is that an unwieldy name. From now on, I'm just going to refer to him as Dark Threat. Overall, I'm pretty impressed; He's G.I. Joe sized but slightly bulkier (intentionally, he's bulkier than Cap from the same line) and would look right at home among your Cobra soldiers. Actually, with the fairly generic, semi-futuristic uniform and armor, I could see him fitting into a few different universes, you could just as easily have this guy running alongside your Clone Troopers.

Dark Threat's helmet is nicely detailed with layers that look like overlapping armor and padding and visored goggles that look like they're hinged to flip up. The mouth plate resembles a rebreather or compact gas mask and has a series of smaller plates and vents that link it to the helmet. On the sides of the helmet are tiny red circles with even tinier black Hydra emblems printed on them. Unfortunately, due to their size and the somewhat uneven application of paint, you can barely tell what the symbols are.

The body armor is made of soft, rubbery plastic and can be removed after unsnapping the waist belt and contorting Dark Threat a bit. The armor is composed of shoulder pads, a chest plate and a back plate with a small turbine and canisters attached to it held together with web gear-like straps. There are wide, silver belts that resemble ammo belts sculpted into the armor, appearing to run from the turbine up through the shoulder pads then continuing down the actual arms of the figure. I assume these are power cables or literal ammo belts from the Cosmic Cube powered backpack to the giant arm cannons. I'm forced to mention sloppy paint work again though, as the left shoulder pad's silver spray for the ammo belt section is a bit off and covers a portion of the armor instead, leaving a piece of the belt plain green.

The majority of his uniform beneath the armor is a slightly blueish green with a lot of black straps cinching sections tight or appearing to hold pieces of his clothing in place. Interestingly, he has another, smaller sculpted back pack beneath his armor which looks like it could be a standard kit or perhaps an oddly placed parachute.

Here he is using his giant guns and their first projectile type; flame thrower! The guns fit snugly over his hands and probably won't fall off unless you enjoy literally throwing your toys around the room. The missiles fly a good distance and the triggers are tight so you won't have to worry about accidentally blinding yourself just moving Dark Threat around a shelf. The flame effect missiles are very nicely done; cast in translucent yellow plastic and given an orange spray at the ends, they start as thin jets that widen into rough crescents and have a lot of twisting flame detail molded into them.

The second type of missiles are translucent blue plastic and are meant to represent the Cosmic Cube powered weaponry Hydra uses in the movie. These missiles don't look as cool as the flames partially because they are a lot longer but only have detail sculpted about halfway down their lengths and partially because he just looks like he's firing high pressure bursts of mouth wash at foes.

Articulation is fairly decent, though you'll be disappointed if you're expecting him to be on par with recent Star Wars and G.I. Joe. figures. He has eleven points of articulation including those joints that aren't really ball joints but allow the same range of motion in his shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. His head feels like it's on a ball joint, but the range of motion is so limited, it might as well just be a cut joint and his upper thighs have that weird swivel cut Hasbro has been using on Cap/Iron Man/Avengers figures recently. No waist, wrists or ankles, which is somewhat disappointing but I suppose they have to cut corners somewhere. Due to him not having a bicep swivel, you won't get him holding a rifle with two hands anytime soon, but since his weapons don't require that, I'm fine with it.

You would think with those giant guns and even bigger missiles, he would have balance issues but surprisingly, this is not the case. The oversized weapons and his pretty wide feet allow him to stand unassisted in quite a few menacing poses and his feet have peg holes which are compatible with the stands from the current Marvel Universe 3.5 inch figures if you should have problems with him still.

In the end, I'm quite pleased with Dark Threat. Due to the few sloppy paint sections and somewhat limited articulation, I wouldn't have dropped twelve dollars on him when he was new, but for seven bucks (and getting Midnight Raid Cap for free due to cashier error!), he's definitely worth it. I would highly recommend him if you can grab one for a decent price and are a fan of Captain America, Marvel or just armored troopers in general.