LEGO Avengers: Doomsday New Avengers Tower 76352 Set Review
Do you know how many Marvel movies in the past decade didn’t get sets? One. And it was the best one! Thunderbolts*. At least I knew that Avengers: Doomsday was on the horizon, and for better or worse they’d have a couple of New Avengerz in there. So when these sets were revealed, the New Avengers Tower was my second priority after the Sentinel. This is the 4th Avengers Tower LEGO have made, a comic/game based one, one based on Age of Ultron, and the massive £400+ one, and while there’s a lot to love in this set, it’s hard not to immediately see it as a step down. While the two sets in the similar scale are a complete tower that can open up, this set is more of an open dollhouse, with no walls at the back, yet it’s pretty much the same height as the others for a similar, if not higher price.
The build itself is largely solid, but the dollhouse structure leads to one other issue.Instead of a “slice down the middle” approach, it’s more of a missing wall and a half which leaves a real chunk of space unusable. The bottom floor is a great example of this, with the rounded piece blocking off a corner, yet it doesn’t actually include the continuation of the rounded window. It’s hard not to imagine a version of this where it just includes a flat wall that gives another 2 or so studs space to work with. Not a huge amount more space sure, but a build this size is always going to be a little cramped especially as you go up the floors and it would leave less wasted, unused space between the walls and windows. Aside from that issue, the interiors themselves are a bit of a mix, there’s some clear Thunderbolts* inspiration in some places like the bar on the top floor and the little of the tower we’ve seen from the post credits scene, but some spaces like the kitchen and reception area on the ground floor, while well built, do feel like they could’ve been used for something more interesting. It would have been nice to see a more close adaptation of the interior that we’ve seen from Avengers: Doomsday so far though.
The build itself is fairly straightforward, there’s really not too much you can do with a tower like this, but I really like some of the details such as the fancy patterns on the stained glass, and the antennae on the top of the tower. It’s great that the tower fits with the recent Spider-Man builds like the Oscorp and smaller Daily Bugle, although it doesn’t quite align right for some reason and they use a different base plate color than the rest. All easy enough fixes, but inconvenient. Comparing the actual build to the looks of Avengers Tower we have from the Avengers: Doomsday trailer, it doesn’t really compare well. While the A logo turned out really well, it looks incredibly stubby in comparison and the colours aren’t quite right. The glass plates on either side don’t quite work, especially the smaller of the two which feels a little detached. I think one more floor the same size as the bottom would go a long way to making it feel the height it should. At 954 pieces for £100 it’s a decent enough deal, especially with the 6 figures, but I think I would’ve been happy paying an extra £10 more to get that extra floor to make it really feel like a tower.
As already mentioned, the big draw of this set is the Thunderbolts/New Avengerz, but they’re not the only figures in this set. Like all Avengers: Doomsday sets we’ve got the standard Doom figure, but I’ve gone into him in great detail in my Quinjet review so there’s no point saying more than “really good” here. We also get something I thought sorely missing from the Fantastic Four: First Steps set – a powered up Human Torch. It’s a great use of the “new” flame hair piece, and a fantastic variant on the normal F4 torso with some great flame detailing. While I see the appeal of trans-orange pieces on a Human Torch, I think this one is pretty much perfect. It does make me hope we get a powered up Invisible Woman in a future Avengers: Doomsday set to complete the F4. Or maybe they already made her and she’s just…invisible.
Annoyingly, this set doesn’t come with the full Thunderbolts* team, just Yelena, Bucky, Sentry, and Red Guardian. As glad as I am to finally get them, the lack of a Ghost and US Agent is really disappointing and I hope we get them ASAP. Yelena is a fantastic figure, the small details on the face like the blue eye shadow are an incredible bit of detail and it’s great to see legs that are both printed and dual molded, the whole figure just captures her look fantastic. Red Guardian isn’t quite as good but still really strong, although he’s clearly lacking some sort of dark tan shoulder piece to give him a little more bulk. Bucky has a great torso, although it would’ve been nice to get the printing on his other arm with the red star too, and I can’t get behind this new head they’ve been using for Bucky the past few years. I don’t understand the black hair either, while I’d prefer the Han Solo hair piece, even just making it dark brown would be a huge improvement. Sentry has a great face print with a Sentry and Bob side, and the torso is good too, but the look is so dependent on the boots and cuffs that it feels a little incomplete without them.
While there’s a lot to love in the New Avengers Tower, comparing it to the other Avengers Towers’ LEGO have made leaves it a little lacking, and it fails to really capture the scale of the tower. That being said, the figure selection, much like the rest of the Avengers: Doomsday wave, is fantastic and makes it worth getting. It’s still worth getting, but unless you’re truly desperate for some Thunderbolts* I’d advise waiting for a sale.
