With only hours to go until I head off to the cinema to see Spider-Man: Far From Home, the excitement is palpable, I cannot wait to see the web-slinger back on the big screen. Before I head out though, it’s time to review the third and final of the movie tie-in LEGO sets and finish off this wave of LEGO Marvel magic.
Pieces: 504
Set Number: 76130
Minifigures: Spider-Man, Mysterio, Nick Fury, Happy Hogan
RRP: £54.99/$69.99
So far I’ve had the pleasure of building and reviewing both the Molten-Man Battle and Hydro-Man Attack sets, two equally brilliant LEGO creations in good price ranges and with an awesomely unique bad-guy for Spidey to fight. Now, however, we move on to the largest and most expensive of the trio, Stark Jet and the Drone Attack.
Compared to the elemental heavy sets that I’ve already reviewed, the name of the set, at least, gives me the impression that we’re in for something a little more generic and a little less interesting. LEGO Marvel has produced so many jet-based sets in the past, I’m not sure I’ve got room for another one. That said, Stark tech does tend to be a little different from the standard, so here’s hoping this set can shine through as something special.
How does the Stark Jet compare with what’s come before? Let’s take a look at the set in more details.
Minifigures
First of all, in all honesty, I brought this set for one reason, I wanted a modern Nick Fury minfiigure, that was the big selling point for me and more than enough for me to part with the asking price for this set. That may sound like madness, but Fury has shown up in so few sets over the years and I missed them all, I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity – well, I wanted to complete the Far From Home collection anyway.
Along with the infamous former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., we get Happy Hogan, Mysterio, and the hero of the story Spider-Man. On paper that is a pretty decent collection of minifigures, all named characters from the movie, but in reality, the minifigure collection is a little disappointing. Firstly Mysterio, he appears in all three of the Far From Home set in the same variant, and given that this is the only set that doesn’t include a elemental, it’s likely not to be the first set people pick if they’re only looking to buy one of the trio. Next, the Spider-Man variant, it’s identical to that used in the Civil War era of sets, same one used in the one Homecoming set, to put it another way, it’s the least exclusive MCU Spidey. Given the other two sets include superb exclusive minifigures for Spidey, there’s no draw here from that perspective either. That leaves Fury and Happy, and suddenly this set’s minifigure collection doesn’t look so amazing based on the price.
Let’s take a look at all the figures in a bit more detail.
We’ve already had Mysterio crop up in both of the sets, so let’s get him out of the way first (copy and paste) – it’s not to say the minifigure isn’t superb, it’s just if you’re buying more than one of the Far From Home sets then the excitement for this minifigure will wane with each unboxing.
The most noticeable thing here is the standard comic-book to MCU design upgrade in armour, there’s a significant amount of detail on the characters torso and legs. As a result of the upgrade in look, we get a much darker colour scheme than fans of the character may be used to, a darker green covering the minifigure as well as a more prominent gold replaces the more yellow colouring of the comic version.
In terms of the design, it’s not unlike the printing on Civil War era Iron Man minifigure, with clearly defined armour plates in the gold and purple colour-scheme fans will be familiar with. It’s interesting to note that one of the fan theories based on the mention of a multi-verse is that this version of Mysterio is actually the equivalent to the Iron Man of his world – I doubt that has even been considered in the design here, but the similarities may certainly hint at that.
The highlight of the front printing for me is the chest plate which meets the cape neckline connections, the geometric pattern of gold, purple and silver makes for a stunning design. Saldy, as with many of LEGO’s caped characters, there is a superb design on the back of the minifigure as well that never gets seen, again providing an impressive armour plating print, it’s just a shame it’ll likely get overlooked due to the fabric purple cape.
The torso armour design continues on to the legs piece with a wonderfully detailed waistline, impressively sharp given the tiny area of plastic to play with. Again, in comparison to the Iron Man armour design, the legs also include metallic looking knee plates and toecaps.
Moving up to the head and rather than a standard head and hair like we’ve seen the character appear as in the movie trailer, this Mysterio is fully armoured. As a result the headpiece is simply solid silver with no facial features or other printing and the goldfish bowl helmet sits over the top.
Keeping with the non-exclusives, let’s take a look at Spider-Man in his original Stark suit. Firstly, it’s a real shame they didn’t take the opportunity in this set to create a variant for the new black and red suit from the movie, but I’m a huge fan of the original Stark suit anyway so it’s still a great addition for anyone who missed out on the previous sets that included him.
In terms of design, this variant is surprisingly traditional given the technologically advanced Stark suit. As you’d expect with the MCU version of the suit, however, the blue and red colouring is much darker than the comic book minifigures we’ve seen recently. It seems to be a pattern with MCU characters in general compared to their comic book counterparts. Similarly, the chest logo is much smaller.
Aside from the colouring and logo, the design doesn’t differ too much from the variety of other blue and red Spideys we’ve seen from various LEGO sets, though the webbing lines are far more prominent here, a bolder black on both the body and on the head.
The best printing addition this variant has to offer is on the arms, with web-armour printing on both adding a far more complete Spider-Man suit on this minifigure. On the back we do get a more prominent spider logo and some additional webbing at the neckline and waist, but aside from that, this is a fairly standard Spider-Man torso, albeit the colouring. In addition to the bolder webbing, the head piece does include a very subtle silver outline around the eyes highlighting the mechanical aspect of this suit when compared to other variants.
It’s a great Spidey minifigure, but if you’ve been collecting MCU sets for some time then there’s a strong chance you already have this in your collection.
Let’s move on to the reason why this set peaked my interest, Nick Fury. While we did get a younger Fury in the Captain Marvel set that released a few months back, it’s been some time since the modern, eye-patched variant has made an appearance in an MCU set. Here, we get the veteran spy in all his glory, sporting his long black SHIELD logo’ed jacket, clearly ready for action.
In all honesty, this is my favourite part of this set, it’s a superb Nick Fury minifigure which captures the MCU version of the character brilliantly – If like me you dabble in LEGO photography, and want to recreate scenes from anywhere from Iron Man through to Endgame then the all-black look on Fury covers you for the large majority of that.
As this version of Fury is a bald character, this is no hair piece and only one face on the head which comes complete with eye-patch, goatie and slightly smug look. The biggest annoyance is that the eye patch strap doesn’t go all of the way around the head, but I’ll let that slip because of the very subtle, yet character perfect, scar lines around the patch itself.
The torso and legs make up one full design thanks to the knee length black coat that the character is wearing, outlines in grey so that it shows on top of the black trousers he’s wearing. The coat alone has some beautiful detail on it, from the folds and crease lines to the buttons, collar and partially obscured SHIELD logo. A turtle-neck sweater and belt make up the rest of the design.
Due to his large coat, the back of the minifigure is spartan in terms of detail, with only basic outlines in grey. The head does have part of the eye patch strap, but as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t go all of the way around, and looks a little odd from the side, in all honesty. Even so, this is definitely the best minifigure of the set.
Finally, we have Happy Hogan, and my first question has to be, what went wrong? It looks nothing like the character.
In my opinion, this is a poor effort for a character that has made appearances in multiple MCU franchises and has been in the movies since the very start. Here, Happy is reduced to a generic looking bad-guy with no defining features whatsoever. The hair piece isn’t accurate, the head could be anyone (and has no beard), there’s nothing special to talk about with these bits at all.
Happy is constantly suited and booted so I’ll happily let the all black legs go, so let’s focus on the torso piece. Well, let’s face it, it’s a suit, white shirt and black tie, accurate to the character, but nothing overly special. The suit is well printed and, similar to Fury, outlined with grey so that you can see the pockets, buttons and collar. It’s a great addition for utilising the suit elsewhere, but for Marvel fans looking to boost their MCU minfiigure collection, it’s a let down.
The Drones
Before we move on to the big build of the set, let’s take a look at the drones which are attacking our hero. There are two identical builds included in the set and they look great, in all honesty. The builds are a bit fiddly and will require some supervision is you’re buying this for a younger LEGO Marvel fan, but the end result is something that wouldn’t look out of place in the Batcave….maybe Batman is the one attacking 😀
In all seriousness, on the subject of Batman, I’d compare the build for these to the Batwing from the LEGO Dimensions LEGO Batman movie pack, they’re a similar size and as you can see from the picture above, the pieces used for the additional detail aren’t that different from Bat’s winged micro-build. Both drones also come with dual stud-shooters.
The Stark Jet
Finally, on to the big build of the set and the first thing to say is it does look great, that’s definitely not in question. Does it, however, look like something Marvel specific (aside from the Stark branding), not at all.
The problem with the Stark Jet is the fact that this is a private jet essentially, and as a result we don’t get anything too fancy on it. Us Marvel fans have been spoilt for choice with jets and spaceships from both comics and movies over the last decade, and this one is just a little too generic to be of huge interest – I love my Endgame quinjet too much.
In terms of build, it’s great fun to construct, a good hour or so and despite some impressive building techniques on both the exterior and interior, there is very little in the way of complex fiddly bits to this plane’s construction.
The single best part of the design here is the cockpit, and more importantly, how it opens. A good portion of the front of this jet is connected to a hinge that can be lifted to reveal a large open interior with three seats (sorry Mysterio). It’s quite a significant leap from most of the LEGO Marvel jets of the past which usually only have the main windshield on a hinge and make it fairly difficult to put in the minifigures, usually two at most. You’ll have no issues here, however.
Inside, there are three stickered consoles by the pilots seat and additional detail included with light translucent 1×1 plates. As you’d expect from one of Stark’s creations, there aren’t any physical buttons or levers to use on this craft, it’s all screen based in sticker form here.
While there aren’t technically seats, behind the pilot’s spot, there is space for two more minifigures with clips either side are the most rear spot so that Spidey can make a seat belt out of his webbing. There are a few additional bits of detail, one which looks like a tablet (stickered again) and a couple of jars, looking not far off experiments Mysterio appears to be running in the base in the trailers.
Behind Spidey’s seat there is an empty space with a external button activated trap door. The logic behind this is that you can put bombs in here, push the button, let them free. That said, you could use this for a quick Spidey exit as well.
Moving to the back of the aircraft and there is another large hinged opening to get into the rest of the interior. It’s a much smaller space, though you could fit a minifigure or two in there if needed. Based on the instructions, this is where you store the bombs for the trapdoor in the other section. It’s spartan on detail, it’s just an empty space for storage so not much excitement to talk about here.
In my opinion, and I’ve said this on many reviews, stickers can make or break a set as sometimes they add that little bit of needed detail and others they can cheapen the overall look of a build. Here, it’s the former as we get very few external stickers, only the plane windows down each side and the Stark Industries logo on either side of the rear. The cockpit windscreen piece is pre-printed, which in my view is a massive win for the set overall.
As this design is going very much for the standard private jet all-white look, there aren’t many opportunities for the designers to do anything overall exciting on the exterior and so with the exception of stud shooters, a one-stud circle piece and a light light translucent 1×1, there’s nothing but white flat pieces making up the bulk of the wings. The vertical wing tips are sadly not on hinges either, so there’s really not a lot that can be done with these to change the look.
The one saving grace for detail comes from just underneath each wing, where you’ll find a small rotatable thruster. It’s a small, but definitely worthwhile addition and cleverly made using a ball socket.
Finally, on to the back of the jet and we get one huge barrel-shaped thruster. It’s fun to construct, looks great with the large blue fire poking out, but sadly it’s all about the form over function here – it doesn’t do anything interactive. That said, there are four tail wings on the back and while two of them are one piece sails, the upper two are constructed from plates and connected to a stiff hinge that allows you to rotate them 90 degrees without issue.
Looking back at the jet, it is a good build with enough to keep fans happy in terms of accessibility and play value, it’s just very generic for an MCU set when the other two Spidey sets have offered so much more for less money. In terms of overall size, however, while not as bulky in body, in length and wingspan it’s pretty much on par with the Avengers Endgame Quinjet, which is a fair size.
Overall
Overall, this set is a bit of a disappointment and not because it’s a bad set, mainly because the other two tie-in sets are just so good. If I was buying this jet as part of a LEGO City set then I would be singing it’s praises, but the premium price that comes with the LEGO Marvel licence demands more movie specific content than this very generic private jet.
The jet itself is well designed and very light of stickers, but sadly the designers didn’t have a lot to play with in terms of fun external detail – it’s a white private jet, what can you do.
Returning to the minifigures and on first glance this set looks great in terms of value for figures, you get four of the main cast from the movie here so what is not to like? Sadly when you break it down to the fact that the Spidey is an old minifigure variant, the Mysterio figure appears in all three sets, and the Happy Hogan figure looks nothing like Happy, you’re really left with only an awesome Nick Fury minifigure to draw in the collectors.
The drones are a nice addition, a fun build, but I’d much rather have Spidey battling one of the elementals from the other two sets than these batwing micro-builds.
The set as a whole has playtime value with some great generic builds and figs that can be used elsewhere, as a AFOL collector, however, there isn’t a massive amount to get excited about here.
THE GOOD
- Four main characters from the movie included as minifigures.
- Fun builds from both the drones and the jet.
- The jet design makes the most of a bland premise, large open cockpit seating three, minimal stickers.
THE BAD
- The Happy Hogan minifigure looks nothing like Happy.
- No new Spider-Man variant and yet again the same Mysterio as the other two sets.
- The jet is very generic.
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