I love it when my kids save up their allowance and then blow it on toys that I wouldn’t otherwise purchase. In this case it was LEGO’s Iron Man Malibu Mansion Attack. I love LEGOs, specially the mini-figure worlds of City, Marvel Heroes, and DC Heroes, and the occasional series that comes and goes. This set is a lot of fun and it was great seeing my youngest put this together; he takes his time and knows when to walk away from a set when he goes LEGO-blind.
The set consists of five mini figures, Stark’s Malibu house from the movie, and the helicopter that blows it up. The mini-figures are Iron Man MK 42, Pepper Potts, Tony Stark, Mandarin, and a generic Extremis bad guy. The armor comes with a blank white head that can be left alone as a remote armor, or the head can be switched out with Tony, Pepper, or whoever you want in the armor. Pretty ingenious. As standard mini-figures, the sculpt is uniform, standardized, and there isn’t much to them. They are articulated at the following points:
- swivel hips
- swivel shoulders
- swivel hands
- swivel head
I think this is the standard articulation since their launch in 1978. The MK 42 is the real winner in the group. It’s a ton of fun to play with and looks good. The rest of the figures are OK, nothing to write home to mom about, but it is fun to have Pepper and Tony figures. Mandarin makes for a decent bad guy, and I guess you can pair him with Loki to start some kind of Masters of Evil group.
The paints are always good on the mini-figures. In fact, LEGO paint apps are usually some of the best in the business. It kills me that they include stickers and not painted pieces since the quality of the painted pieces is fantastic. But some-odd years ago LEGO thought it was better to include stickers. The mini-figures are not stickered, which is nice.
The sets are always fun with LEGO whether you are building them or playing with them. Over the years, it’s been amazing to see how they’ve been able to make more complex and better-designed vehicles and buildings. Whether through better construction or new pieces, some of the buildings are really impressive. The Malibu Mansion is one of these impressive designs for me. They really captured the look of the mansion from the movie and managed to make a fun playset out of it. The mansion does explode — it is built so it can be damaged. Tons of fun. Inside is Tony’s lab where there is space for additional armors, as well as room to build more. Included is the mobile robot arm with fire extinguisher so you can recreate some fun Tony and robot arm moments from the movie.
The helicopter is pretty standard fare and there isn’t much to say about it that hasn’t been said about any other helicopter that LEGO has produced before. In other words, there isn’t anything new with this design. But you can never have too many LEGO helicopters in LEGO city.
And as mini-figures go, these do integrate with LEGO City and other mini-figures. Yes, the skin parts of the mini-figures are molded in flesh and not yellow, but it adds diversity to the LEGO world.
You can still buy this set from:
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