Thoughts on DC and Marvel Buildable Figures?

arock68

What does everyone think of these? (4526, 4527, 4528, 4529, 4530, 4597) I can't decide if I think they are cool, or if I can't stand them. I am also curious about the secondary resell market for these. Will anybody care about them once they are gone? These seriously perplex me. Any feedback or thoughts would be great! Thanks everyone!

Renny

Just my opinion but I just don't get their appeal. I think they are ugly actually. They all look like they just copied and pasted a superhero's face onto Robocop's body and slapped on a new coat of paint. I can't see these increasing in value very much. Definitely not worth the effort for reselling purposes.

y2josh

I find them pretty awful, personally. Near me, they just sit on the shelves while a lot of the other stuff (especially the Avengers sets) seems to sell pretty well.

khmellymel

Yeah, I'm not a fan. I guess they are more like build able action figures, but the Lego purist in me doesn't like them.

brickmatic

^ Yeah, that's the idea. It was the idea behind Bionicle and then Hero Factory as well, to get into the action figure market.

RomanticWarrior

I'm not really into them, either. I have a feeling they may be heavily discounted in the future, just like the Ben 10 sets.

Bumblepants

The Iron Man one looks ok since it is a robotic suit, the rest look like garbage to me. Perhaps you have to be in the 5-12 range to appreciate them

AnthonyC173

im trying to collect all the lego superhero and didnt even bother getting those. thats how much i don't like it

arock68

AnthonyC173 said:

im trying to collect all the lego superhero and didnt even bother getting those. thats how much i don't like it

I am in the same exact boat. I immediately scooped up all the other Super Heroes sets, items, etc. I am a completist though, so it has caused me some turmoil to not buy these, even though they prety much suck. :)

AnthonyC173

^
i'd probably buy them if there were under 5$ just for the sake of completing it (sorta, since i don't have the sdcc minifigures)

arock68

Lol, I guess I should clarify...I don't have SDCC figures either, nor will I ever dish out the kind of money they cost. I complete collections by buying things that are readily available. Obviously I never had a chance at getting the figures that come with the newspaper on a certain day in the United Kingdom or whatever that was. But I would probably pick up the buildable figures for $5 too. And then I would build them. And probably throw them away afterwards. Haha.

BuriedinBricks

AnthonyC173 said:

im trying to collect all the lego superhero and didnt even bother getting those. thats how much i don't like it

I have at least one of everything (minus the con minifigures) from the Super Heroes line except these. The only way I would pick up any of them is if I found them for about 50% off.

arock68

Sounds like there is a general dislike for these. In fact, since I posted this thread, I have not seen one defender of these sets. Thanks everyone! Keep 'em coming!

BuriedinBricks

While I personally don't like them, I'm sure they appeal to kids just fine. I saw a kid and his father in the LEGO aisle at Walmart last night discussing the purchase of two of them to combine together into one big figure.

dragonhawk

Bumblepants said:

The Iron Man one looks ok since it is a robotic suit, the rest look like garbage to me. Perhaps you have to be in the 5-12 range to appreciate them

The Joker one actually looks (kind of) like the Joker-bot from the Lego Batman 2 video game (Spoiler?). At least that was my first impression since I saw the set after I played the game.

I rationalize the sets in this collection as robot / armor versions of the superheroes. Except for the Hulk. I have no idea what they were smoking when designing that one.

datkidde

My 4 year old loves them along with all Hero Factory. That might tell you the age group for these.

arock68

The funny thing about age groups...these LEGOs that we all love as adults are for ages 8-14. Lol. Age isn't always a good measuring stick.

brickmatic

Well the other thing to consider with age groups is that these types of Lego (Bionicle, Hero Factory, etc.) are different building techniques and aesthetic styles than what was available a couple of decades ago. People are biased towards the toys from their childhood, so I'm not surprised of the negative reaction of AFOLs today. AFOLs of the future may quite well have a different opinion.

datkidde

arock68 said:

The funny thing about age groups...these LEGOs that we all love as adults are for ages 8-14. Lol. Age isn't always a good measuring stick.

True True, haha.

CCC

brickmatic said:

People are biased towards the toys from their childhood, so I'm not surprised of the negative reaction of AFOLs today.

In my childhood we didn't have SNOT bricks. We didn't even have the headlight brick. Yet SNOTs, to me, have revolutionized the type of building I do. The lego of my childhood (mainly bricks in basic colours and no poseable minifigs) was plain boring compared to now.

murphquake

I own two HF sets, both bought for traditional parts they contained, but the abundance of ball joints is nice. I consider these basically the same thing, but with some really nice printed parts and interesting elements. I haven't gotten one yet but will eventually end up with all of them, maybe this month with Bricktober going on. The big Captain America shield alone makes me want that set. I think in a few years when exclusive elements from these show up in some of the better MOCs to come we'll all be paying top dollar on BL & Ebay and feel silly... if they'd taken a few bucks off in the [email protected] collections I'd probably already have them.

brickmatic

^^ SNOT bricks are not that different from traditional bricks. It's like a traditional brick with studs on the side. A more radical shift occurred in Technic when it moved to studless construction. Technic fans may have embraced this shift, but there was grumbling about it from some people used to the previous construction methods.

CCC

^ The bricks may not be so different, but the change in building style they offer is. In my view, the ability to build in different directions was a major shift.

brickmatic

^ But that's the thing, it only offered change and did not force it. Studless construction forces a change in building style. Constructable action figures force a change in building style. The first major use of a SNOT brick was to make headlights in car models. Sure you can do some radially different things with SNOT techniques, but a headlight is fairly minor and straightforward. It took a really long time to get from the first introduction of SNOT bricks to the appearance of advanced techniques in sets.

Also, interestingly I believe the first official use of a SNOT technique predates the introduction of SNOT bricks. Set #420 uses SNOT technique in 1972 while the first headlight bricks appear in 1979.