LEGO Spider-Man: Fixing the Brand New Day Sets

Every LEGO Superhero fan knows the feeling. You finally get to watch the movie, you take a look at the LEGO sets and you ask yourself: When did Ben Kingsley have a flamethrower tank? When was the Hulk dropped out of a helicopter? Where the hell is the main villain of the movie? It’s the unfortunate consequence of toys based on concept art and the occasional burst of LEGOs imagination, but as LEGO finds itself returning more and more often to past films, especially an Avengers or Spider-Man, I’ve had a think on just what Spider-Man: Brand New Day is missing to be truly represented in LEGO form.

Brand New Day is better than most films when it comes to LEGO representation. With two minifigure scale sets, both of which actually represent two of the bigger action scenes in the movie, what exists is actually pretty accurate. Even the figures we get are all super accurate to their appearances in the movie, the exception being the random civilian minifigure in the DoDC set who I still don’t understand why they’ve been included. The fixes in the Brand New Day sets lie not in what we got, but what is missing. So what is missing?

*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY*

First, Ramrod. Let’s be honest, we all left the theatres asking for more Ramrod. Marvel’s greatest, most iconic villain appeared for a split second and everyone wants more. Okay, maybe not, but we got every other main villain from that villain montage set to TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me”, so why not Ramrod? Of course, that brings us to the other, nameless villains in the montage, the ones who actually show up the most out of all of them, the Hand! These ninjas even have wider MCU appearances if you count Daredevil, and could potentially have more in Born Again S3, so a LEGO version seems like an obvious choice. 

We can’t talk about villains without mentioning the renowned X-Men character and arguably the main villain of the movie, William Metzger, Director of the Department of Damage Control and played by Travel Tillman. Sure he’s kind of just a guy in a suit, but he’s a key part of the movie. While her status as a villain is debatable by the end, the main antagonist of the movie is perhaps the most notable exclusion, although with Marvel Studios insane secrecy around the role, it makes sense. I am of course talking about founding X-Man, Jean Grey, portrayed by Sadie Sink. While sure to get a figure down the road in an actual costume with upcoming appearances in Secret Wars and 2028s X-Men movie, it’d be nice to get one sooner than that.

We’ve looked at the villains, but even at his lowest point, Spider-Man has some allies too. We get the return of MJ and Ned, both of whom have appeared before in LEGO and don’t really need an update, but I wouldn’t say no to one too. Spider-Man’s new police friend: Jean DeWolffe is one of the key recurring characters and a pretty easy civilian character you could fit into any set. The most notable, and maybe the most egregious exemption considering how much he was in the trailer, is the Punisher, making his MCU movie debut after being in 3 different shows and a special presentation. I don’t know if it’s because he’s seen as too “adult” for toys or what, but him not being there feels strange. We get some brief appearances from Bruce Banner and Yelena Belova, but I don’t think we need another non Hulked-out Banner, and something tells me LEGO has no interest in Yelena in a bath.

We’ve looked at characters, but what scenes and set pieces are missing? Keeping with Punisher, two that come to mind are his van, and his little houseboat, the first of which seems like ideal set padding, something to give a set that little extra something. The most prominent location we don’t have would probably be Peter’s apartment, something that would fit great in a large Marvel based modular building, but I don’t see working on it’s own when we just got a comic-based set for Peter Parker’s apartment in the mini-modular scale. The same applies to MJ and Ned’s apartment. That leaves the more action-scene orientated locations, and the clear choice for a set, Damage Control’s Rykers facility. We have 3 main areas there; the prison, Jean’s cell, and the control room, all of which translate to LEGO in some way.

So what sets am I proposing? I think there are two clear choices that would cover the majority of what’s missing, while still being exciting sets worth getting.

Set 1: Showdown with the Hand!
Figures: Spider-Man, Hand Ninja x2, Lady Hand Ninja
Based on Spider-Man’s fight with the hand ninjas in Rykers, this would be a small, battlepack-esque set, with some small jail-cell style builds to represent the room the fight takes place in. Lots of bars to hang figures off, maybe some basic “exploding bars” functions, and a good few webs to web them up. This set would be made up of several small, connectable sections, all of which will connect to set 2. The Spider-Man figure would be a reuse, but could come with an alternate “Spider-hormone” head with black eyes if they’re feeling generous. The two Hand Ninjas would be the same with different weapons and faces, and then a separate figure for the “lead” Hand Ninja we see.

Set 2: Jean Greys Prison Break-out
Figures: Spider-Man, Jean Grey, William Metzger, Punisher, Hand Ninja/DoDC Goon
This set would represent the small control room where Jean is tortured from, and the bedroom-styled cell she’s kept in. While the Punisher is actually perched on a rooftop a mile away in this scene, it seems like a good place to get him and his van in there too to complete the set. Once again, a maskless Peter Parker would be great, but aside from that he’d be reusing the regular figure. Jean’s face would probably be reusable in the future, so it’d be nice to see a “powered on” face for her, even if that’s not quite how her powers are represented in the movie. Punisher would be all-new, and I’d love to see him at the same quality level as the other BND characters, while Metzger could reuse one of LEGOs many suited bodies and probably a face as well to keep the budget down. To fill the set out they could reuse the Prison Transport set’s DoDC goon, or one of the Hand Ninjas from the other set. These two sets would combine to form an approximation of the two main Rykers scenes.

While that still leaves a few friends and foes unaccounted for (sorry Ramrod), I think that’s the best way to represent the bulk of what’s missing from Brand New Day in just two sets. If you have any other ideas or things you think are missing, let us know in the comments or social media!