I’ve never been much of a super hero fan and I tend to give the LEGO® themes only a passing glance. Then again I’ve been really excited about the upcoming Black Panther movie, so I decided to check out one of the sets.
Nice looking box. Four minifigs in a $30 set that has reasonable price per piece. The fighter looks cool too. Let’s dig in.
Three bags of mostly black elements. Not too surprising.
I’ll be leaving the stickers off, but they add a lot to the model. Those striped stickers could be useful for AFOL builders. The others look a bit too specialized.
The first bag opens up with the title character. The Black Panther looks awesome, with detailed silver print on his head and torso. I’m disappointed that his legs are just plain black.
He has nice back print too.
Not many interesting elements in this set. A few recolors. I’m a bit mystified about the choice of white for the technic connectors.
Bag 1 builds the bottom of the fighter. The cockpit and prison cell are already taking shape. All of those technic bits will be used to attack some kind of steering vanes later.
Bag 2 gives us Killmonger and Nakia. Killmonger has a fantastic soft plastic head mask and both figures have nicely designed torso prints. He also has legs with some kind of cargo pocket print and should be useful.
Under his mask, Killmonger has a fairly generic face (having been used in four other sets in the last couple years). Still exciting to add a couple more brown-skinned heads to my collection and Nakia’s head is new (and black women’s heads are even rarer in the LEGO world).
Both torsos have back printing and Nakia’s head has an alternate face. Nice!
The fighter is building out nicely. Some cool use of snot techniques to sculpt interesting geometry.
It is also worth noting that Nakia has a pair of fighting rings that appear to be new elements. These only have one section that will accommodate clips and they’re a soft plastic. I fully expect to see some Xena builds in the near future.
The set’s second bad guy is in the third bag. I find vest prints an awkward, but I really like the open collar and thatch of grey chest hair. His hairpiece is pretty great too.
Simple back printing and a nice alternate face. The two faces are just a bit out of alignment though and that’s a bit weird.
The last bag has a dozen of these small technic wing elements in titanium metallic. These have great mechanical feel to them and I’m already thinking about using them in a mech build.
The final bag finishes out the fighter. Some great detailing here and the addition of the stickers would make it a fine little display piece. I particularly like the various fins and the use of gear racks along the top.
This was a fun set. The vehicle is handsome and has a few simple play features. I really like the assortment of minifigs. It’s too bad that LEGO is only releasing two sets (and a polybag) for the Black Panther movie. I think that there is a lost opportunity there to add diversity to an overwhelmingly white hobby.
Keep building and enjoy!