Why no Fantastic 4 in Lego form?

natro220

I know that the Fantastic 4 license is held by Fox, which is why Lego has not made any Fantastic 4 sets based on the movies that were made. But why no sets based on the comics? It seems this is the biggest omission in the Marvel Super Heroes line, and we keep getting rehashed Spiderman with an occasional X-Men or Avengers set. DC has expanded their line greatly with this wave (even though they still include Batman or Superman in every set, you still get new and interesting characters with nearly every one of their sets this wave). I know Marvel has a lot of movie based sets coming out later this year (Avengers, Ant Man), so does anyone think we'll see Fantastic 4 anytime soon?

Shib

Although the only people who could answer that 100% correctly are Lego and Marvel there's a lot of general speculation that Marvel are doing all they can to block the Fantastic Four franchise. The upcoming FF film is only happening to stop the licensing agreement from expiring and reverting back to marvel, which as you can imagine would probably annoy them quite a lot.
As a result the toy rights have been messed around a lot and the comics were stopped too.

LostInTranslation

No I don't think so. Marvel does not have the cinematic rights, and I don't think they are happy about it or want to promote FF in any way, having apparently cancelled the comic series in October . Plus they have so many characters involved in their own projects that I think these will take priority.

Now that they have the Daredevil rights back and a Daredevil Netflix series is soon to air I think we will see a Daredevil Lego set in 2016 though.

CCC

It is a bit of an omission, even more so when you consider there is a rather nice set of customs / fakes from Sheng Yuan including an all transparent Human Torch ...

Shib

LostInTranslation said:

Now that they have the Daredevil rights back and a Daredevil Netflix series is soon to air I think we will see a Daredevil Lego set in 2016 though.

A Daredevil set would be interesting, I hadn't even thought of the connection.

natro220

Wow CCC, those figs are awesome, thanks!

LostInTranslation

@CCC those are really cool. I sooooo wish they were Lego.

natro220

It would be interesting to get sets based on Marvel or DC television shows, as there are so many now. DC could easily leverage Arrow, Flash, or Gotham into sets, as could Marvel with Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, aka Jessica Jones, and Daredevil.

monkey_roo

I think the FF have become quite fringe in the Marvel Universe of late. With the exception of Reed Richards being in the Illuminate and Sue Storm cropping up in a Wolverine time travel story I can't recall them being in much and as said they now don't even have a comic to call their own.

As said Fox own the movie rights and Marvel don't really want to promote that or have any need to cash in on it. To be honest I think the Fox film might tank anyway, the promo we have seen wasn't much to look at, but too early to judge properly. But generally a film made out of contractual necessity isn't always the best (unless it is Citizen Cane that is), and with so many superhero films out there it will be tough to draw audiences to a film that has no really voice in the Marvel world, heck, the last two FF films didn't do that well commercially (although they were enjoyable) and they came out when the FF where firmly part of the Marvel world.

I think if the FF turned up in the Ultimate Spiderman show (as Doom has) we might see a figure or two but it is unlikely.

It would be nice to see a DD set thought, just one to grow the gallery of characters, chuck in a King Pin figure as well, that would be good.

LostInTranslation

natro220 said:

It would be interesting to get sets based on Marvel or DC television shows, as there are so many now. DC could easily leverage Arrow, Flash, or Gotham into sets, as could Marvel with Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, aka Jessica Jones, and Daredevil.

They won't do sets based on the shows because the shows are too adult I think. But I do think the fact of the shows giving the characters exposure helps, hence I am expecting a comic book based Daredevil.

I am very much hoping for a Black Canary fig in next year's DC lineup!

Shib

LostInTranslation said:

I am very much hoping for a Black Canary fig in next year's DC lineup!

+ Roy Harper ;-)

LostInTranslation

Completely off topic, sorry OP, but I hadn't realised David Tennant was going to be in one of the Netflix series (AKA Jessica Jones I think).
Now that he and Benedict Cumberbatch are joining the MCU I'm a very happy girl!

LostInTranslation

Shib said:

LostInTranslation said:

I am very much hoping for a Black Canary fig in next year's DC lineup!

+ Roy Harper ;-)

He's not that difficult to make yourself but I've had troubling finding an appropriate Canary torso.

CCC

natro220 said:

Wow CCC, those figs are awesome, thanks!

I seem to remember a review for this particular set saying the body prints were OK, and the face prints were quite bad. Although it is easy to remove the head and replace it with a similar genuine lego one. Sometimes you can get whole sets for $7-8 delivered, so it is worth it for the torsos alone if lego never do them plus there is that rather cool transparent figure which still seems a way off for lego.

natro220

LostInTranslation said:

Completely off topic, sorry OP, but I hadn't realised David Tennant was going to be in one of the Netflix series (AKA Jessica Jones I think).
Now that he and Benedict Cumberbatch are joining the MCU I'm a very happy girl!

It's funny how many DW alums have made their way into the Marvel Universe now...Eccleston was the dark elf in Thor, Amy Pond was Nebula in GotG, Tennant in aka Jessica Jones...my friend and I were just saying yesterday that Matt Smith should be in Inhumans.

LostInTranslation

I know it's DC, but another DW alum Alex Kingston is in Arrow. Great casting as Laurel's mum, they really look like they could be related.

carlq

^ Not wishing to push non-Lego brands in any way, but having seen this set in the "flesh", so to speak, I can honestly say that both the body and face prints are very good for these figs - although why the manufacturer think that Pyro of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (the figure in yellow and red*) is Johnny Storm in a new outfit, I have no idea. :-)

(* = like many of these clone figs, the Pyro one appears to be a direct copy of a custom fig created by a talented customiser - in this case, Poppunkmunky, from the USA - and I doubt very much they asked permission to use the design first. :-\ Still, I suppose by ripping offcopying good customisers, at least they ensure the product has quality printing...;-P)

natro220

LostInTranslation said:

I know it's DC, but another DW alum Alex Kingston is in Arrow. Great casting as Laurel's mum, they really look like they could be related.

Also John Barrowman - Captain Jack (not Sparrow) Harkness - is in Arrow.

Regarding the figs...isn't the head on Mr. Fantastic from Lord Business?

LostInTranslation

Of course, Barrowman too! How could I forget! (Because I'm not a big fan probably...)

I think Reed's hair is actually the one used for Sinestro with printing. They certainly used that one in the video game.

CCC

carlq said:

^ Not wishing to push non-Lego brands in any way, but having seen this set in the "flesh", so to speak, I can honestly say that both the body and face prints are very good for these figs - although why the manufacturer think that Pyro of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (the figure in yellow and red*) is Johnny Storm in a new outfit, I have no idea. :-)

(* = like many of these clone figs, the Pyro one appears to be a direct copy of a custom fig created by a talented customiser - in this case, Poppunkmunky, from the USA - and I doubt very much they asked permission to use the design first. :-\ Still, I suppose by ripping offcopying good customisers, at least they ensure the product has quality printing...;-P)

That's good to know. There printing has definitely improved. I recently got a superhero set for my kid (~$9 for 12 figures) and the printing was superb.

richl

I admit I picked up some superhero clone figures at NYCC specifically because they weren't ones I saw LEGO putting out in the near future - the FF (including a Thing minifig and bigfig), Kid Flash, Superboy....and then we got a far better Superboy in the Target box. I consider them placeholders until LEGO release the official ones.

MissKittyFantastico

I wonder if perhaps the tight-knit team nature of the FF works against them - you couldn't just drop one of them into a Spider-Man box as the 'and this guy too' character and ignore the rest, and doing such with all four would take up the non-core character slots of an entire season's sets. And besides you're facing the expenditure of new moulds for Thing and Reed (although the Toy Story Woody long legs wouldn't be out of place), even if you just use existing parts for Johnny and Sue. The only realistic way I imagine we'll see the Four is all in one set, but in that case, that's it for that box - even if you drop in a Spider-Man to get it under the USM banner, that set is The Fantastic Four, and that's what's got to sell it to kids, and parents looking for a name they recognise to convince them it's a worthwhile buy. And with all love to them, when you get outside their native fanbase they haven't covered themselves in glory in the public eye: their films are old news (and lukewarm anyway compared to Marvel Studios' runaway successes).

If the upcoming film rocks, well good - it looks a bit heavy going, but LEGO's shown with the Dark Knight sets they're not shy of riding the coattails of films made for an older audience so long as the characters have family-friendly incarnations somewhere. Unless they're outright barred from touching the characters (and if they can make a Doom, I'd say they aren't) we may see that 'Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four' set among the USM lineup in 2016; fingers crossed.

(I have to admit I'm tempted by the third-party options, but I just know if I started down that road I'd never stop.)