The final Infinity War set... and also the one I actually got first, and was originally planning on doing first. Why leave it so late? Because of the Soul Stone. Let us return the battle of Wakanda, and see how helpful this Hulkbuster is.
Starting off with the minifigures. We get an Outrider (See views on the Outrider Dropship), a Bruce Banner that was reused from one of the Thor Ragnarok sets, who in itself is overall fine. While he is very loosely based on Mark Ruffalo, the overall look is rather basic compared to the other minifigures. It would work quite well for a city filler minifig, assuming you don't flip the face around, where we get angry Bruce with Gamma eyes. This is the face print I prefer, as it gives a lot more life to the minifig. Alongside those are two new figures for Falcon and the final member of the Black Order, Proxima Midnight. For Falcon, alongside a very similar looking print to his Civil War release (though its not quite the same, out of the two I do think this new one looks better thanks to the darker torso piece), he also comes with a brick built wingsuit and a little Redwing that can be removed from it. Said Redwing is nothing much to ride home about, its made up of four pieces, but it is in a better scale with the minifig compared to the Civil War release. As for the wing pack itself, one of the biggest problems it has is where the wings directly connect to the back, as it never seems to feel natural, and makes the wings look far more flimsy. The reason for this though is that the pack still had to connect to the minifig, and it was either flimsy looking (not in practicality) wings, or a very bulky wing pack. Which poison would you rather take? Unfortunately, this Falcon doesn't come with any weapon accessories, which makes him look incomplete due to the fact that he uses two handguns in the films for aerial combat. For Proxima Midnight, she's better off then her... um... fiance? Husband? Brother? What is the relationship between Proxima and Corvus Glave? Anyway, she's far better off then Corvus, in that she can hold her weapon far more comfortably, at the cost of moving her hair. On that note, the one flaw I have with her, as the printing for the body is nice, is the molding for her hair and torso. The blue hair and white torso stand out, and it feels like they should have been somewhat darker colours. They just feel unnatural, even in this context.
Before getting to the main event, the set comes with a turret to act as something the Black Order uses against the armor. In terms of functionality, the turret can fire any small lego ball using (what I call) a Thornrax Launcher Mark Two launcher (G1 Bionicle fan for the record). Squeeze the sides together, it fires the ball. Very simple, very effective. Along with this, the turret can "break" if you push down on the launcher, to simulate the Hulkbuster punching the turret to the ground, and the turret is where the compartment for the Soul Stone resides. The turret's fine overall for what it's trying to do, though it would have been better if the barrel could spin 360 degrees. The details are nice, and it does give off the feel of the turret belonging to Wakandan forces, but has been taken over by the Black Order. What you see in pictures though is what you get for the turret, there's nothing overly special about it.
The main event for the set though is the new Hulkbuster. Veronica returns, and this time she's piloted by Bruce himself. While visually, this is a step up from the Hulkbuster from Age of Ultron (the one from when the movie was in cinemas, not the newest Age of Ultron Hulkbuster), in terms of functions? It's about the same. The way you get minifigures out is, while more complicated (now you have to move four things out of the way), is a lot cleaner compared to the old one's "flip up the head, now pull down all the torso armor". The arms are just as poseable, as they're almost identical in approach, but the new and different pieces used help to make the new one far bulkier in looks. No stud shooters this time though, all you get are stickers. There is an optional gear function (turn blue core on the back, make arm swing around) though, which is very easy to disable if you, like me, don't care about gear functions in mechs. They even give you instructions on how to do it, which is a nice touch, even if the way to do it comes down to "take away this piece, push the block all the way down axle". I will also admit that using the Ringpiece from Lord of the Rings does make for a nice mini washer for gear systems. My problem though comes in once we get below the belt.
First, allow me to take you all the way back to 2006, a time when Lego RC trains were new, Lego Star Wars 2 was new, the DC superheroes line was just the Batman line, Bionicle had the Toa Inika and the Piraka, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue team was on the way, good times to be had if you were a kid like I was. Why do I bring you here? Because I want to introduce to you a Lego line I loved, and one that I wish would return (one of many, let me know if you'd be interested in a Top X list on the subject): Exo-Force. Imagine Lego Gundams (a very, very, very simplistic way of looking at the line coming from someone who hasn't gotten into Gundams). For a time, these were the sole places to find official Lego Mech armor, with a lot of really creative (if flawed at times) mechs. Were these perfect? No, but they did do one thing that a lot of mech fans love, complete possibility. Many of these mechs were extremely poseable and while some were compromised, you were always given strong posability for the legs, decent arms depending on how they were built, some even had waist swivels and fingers. Unfortunately, a lot of these design ideas haven't carried on past Exo Force, and instead of molding a new ratchet piece for things like Hulkbusters, Lego chooses to make legs that have locked knees. In the case of this Hulkbuster, ratchet pieces for the hips, ball joints for the ankles, nothing in between. It could be argued that its to keep it in scale with big figs, but for people who want it for the mech, it feels like a huge letdown. Could you fudge your way to poses? You could, but as someone who has had experience with the mechs with knees, I'd rather have knees return. And this isn't just a problem with Hulkbusters, a lot of Lego Mechs recently, even Nexo Knight power suits which are light enough to support themselves on far smaller ball joints, do not have knees. I'm genuinely convinced that someone in charge at lego has a hatred for knees that burns so hot that it makes hell look like the North Pole at this point.
Honestly, the lack of knees is the only thing that is a problem for me with this Hulkbuster. The brick and sticker details are well done, the gear function is well implimented, all it needs are knees. I personally wouldn't care if it was bigger if it meant I got something with a full range of poseability. At the end of the day though, this is still one of the best, cheep Hulkbusters you can get from Lego. Let's just hope that for the next one, they make the pieces needed to give it knees. Hopefully, when the bone in my foot has healed properly, I'll be able to get back to doing these set reviews, because these lego reviews have been enjoyable for me. For now, though, I'll go back to reviewing Transformers, and to some Decepticons who came in with the Power of the Primes. Up first to the block is Starscream.... Oh, how it pains me to do this. In the meantime though on the main site, the conclusion to MAYvel: Black Panther
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