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.

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.

Midnight Air Raid Captain America

As I stated in my Dark Threat review, comic movie toy lines tend to go overboard with mission specific suits and wacky accessories. To make a few extra bucks, companies turn out figures like Arctic Armor Batman, Anti-Kryptonite Superman and Hydro-Disc Spider-Man. With characters like Batman and Iron Man, it makes sense to a degree, as the vast fortunes of their alter egos would allow them to waste millions on Neon Jungle Tracker Armor they would only use once. Captain America however is not one of those characters.

This figure depicts the thrilling scene in the movie where Cap flies a jet pack into Hydra headquarters and shoots up a ton of henchmen with giant machine guns. If you don't remember that scene, it's because it never happened. Midnight Air Raid Captain America is from the same Deluxe Mission sub line as Dark Threat, but because Cap isn't really known for costume variants, this one has a giant jet pack and rifles not present in the movie.



The Cap figure himself is pretty simple; As a pack-in, he loses a few points of articulation like ankles and waist, but can still get into a few poses. Articulation he does have includes hinge knees and elbows, swivel wrists, swivel thigh cuts, ball and hinge shoulders, elbows and hips and a head that might be on a ball joint but is placed so low you can't tell. Colors are red, white and blue as Cap insists on dressing like an American flag and sculpt detail isn't too bad, his armor especially has some nice scale-mail pattern to it.



Unfortunately, like Dark Threat, Cap has some paint issues. As you can see here, the paint on his arms is a bit sloppy, leading to the white paint of his sleeves not quite extending to the edges of the gloves like they should. Additionally, both the center stripe on his chest and the center stripe on his back have too much red slopped on, giving those stripes a thicker, darker appearance that stands out.



The jet pack, while silly in concept, is nicely detailed with large turbines and red and white striped missiles attached to the undersides of the wings. The backs of the wings also have peg holes to hold the twin rifles Cap also comes with. The "shield" on the jet pack is actually a launching disc that flies a decent distance when you push the tab below it.



Cap pegs into the jet pack via a hole in his back, the harness section slipping over his chest and snapping into the main piece via two clips on the shoulder straps. Midnight Raid Cap also comes with the two giant gray rifles seen here. These seem a bit out of character for Steve Rogers, even if he does use a pistol briefly in the movie. I kind of wish they had released him with his iconic shield instead.



At twelve to fourteen bucks when new, I could not really suggest this guy. Sloppy paint and limited articulation are two strikes against him and a cool (if silly) accessory doesn't really help in my opinion. Really, I bought this guy mainly because I wanted a more articulated Cap to pilot the Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor and because I thought the second firing disc shown in the package was a shield accessory. I was to be disappointed on both accounts. Though basically free since when I bought him and Dark Threat, the cashier failed to ring one of them up, I'm still not sure if he was worth it at that price. This exact same figure with the exact same accessories and a slightly different paint job was released as Air Assault Glider Captain America in the Deluxe Missions line if you prefer slightly darker, dirtier colors on your Cap.