This is such a great set. One of my favourites for sure. Great figures, great builds, great pieces, great features, great value. The car even has a unique number plate in every set and the gate has a working alarm!

Oh I remember this set. This was the first one to use the new alloy wheel pieces, following the smaller ones tested out in the Speed Racer series earlier that year.

I was super excited for this one, even building my own BOLOCS version of the spy car. However, my six-year dark ages hit before I could get my hands on the actual set.

The original Agents theme was the best ‘secret agent’ theme. Disappointed I was in my dark ages for this one.

I absolutely loved the villains from this theme (I got the volcano base and filled it with the entire collection of villains), but I have to question the idea of making a helicopter where, instead of a seat to belt yourself in, you simply hang from a string. with the open air below you.

Also, this set was definitely built and photographed rather than being a CGI render. I can tell because I looked it up on the computer...

reminds me of clutch powers

This was an extremely lovely set! And it really exemplifies some of my favorite aspects the Agents theme in general. On the one hand, it has big, streamlined, and highly detailed spy vehicles with lots of tastefully concealed features. While its heroes did not have "specialties" as clearly evident and well-defined as characters in earlier themes like Rock Raiders or Alpha Team, they definitely had highly detailed and expressive facial features which helped speak to the differences in their personalities — not to mention snazzy-looking uniforms!

On the other, the Agents were opposed by numerous cartoonishly diabolical villains with wacky names, designs, and personalities. While they might not have had the sort of fantasy superpowers as the villains in the later Ultra Agents sets, they did each have their own gimmick, theme, or type of crime they specialized in, much like many of the most memorable Batman or James Bond villains. And of course, they topped that off with various sorts of sci-fi augmentations which helped to signify the theme or gimmick in question.

When playing with these sets or building MOCs inspired by the theme, my twin brother @Lyichir and I liked to interpret Dr. Inferno as the sort of criminal mastermind who felt frustrated about his scientific pursuits being rejected by mainstream society and chose to take it out on that society through over-the-top acts of villainy.

Moreover, perhaps due to being such a big fan of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" in the years leading up to this theme's release, I came to think of his various underlings as repeatedly marginalized "misfits" who, in spite of being firsthand witnesses to Dr. Inferno's schemes getting foiled time and time again, still felt a sense of attraction and devotion to him both for his maniacal charisma and his promise of vengeance against a society that had wronged them.

As the theme continued, we came up with additional motivations or backstories for some of the characters who showed up in its second year. Based on their similarities in design, we decided that Dollar Bill was Dr. Inferno's brother, a successful white-collar criminal who helped bankroll his sibling's sinister schemes, but decided to take a more hands-on approach after seeing his investment go up in smoke one too many times.

Likewise, we cast Dr. Inferno's liquefied look-alike Slime Face as a failed attempt by Dr. Inferno to clone himself, and their mutual resentment of one another eventually led the viscous villain to take a name of his own choosing, "Dr. D. Zaster", and to become a dark mirror of his creator in an effort to prove that HE was the superior supervillain!

(Is it any surprise that I have such fond memories of a theme whose pulp-novel premise could be encourage so many extravagant escapades, provoke such plentiful puns, and elicit such elaborate alliteration?) :P

Years later, I'm surprised how fondly these various interpretations/headcanons still hold up in my memory. Many of the sorts of plot developments I envisioned in this story remind me of ones from stories I've enjoyed in the years since, so perhaps I'm just a sucker for these sorts of stories where villains struggle at being villains — both from seeing their schemes fail again and again, and from realizing that even if they were to succeed, their pursuit of that gratification by any means necessary will have come at the cost of any loyalty or respect they had from the people who were closest to them.

[Continued in next post, because my ridiculous ramblings ran even longer than usual this time…]

[Continued from previous post]

Mind you, the aforementioned story ideas were all based in some way on the sets, which exclusively presented "in media res" action scenarios. Beyond that, the final year didn't present as linear a narrative as the theme's first year (which had the completion of Dr. Inferno's giant laser as its clearly defined climax). As such, I don't think I ever really thought too hard about what resolution there might be to all of those stories. It probably doesn't help that the heroes themselves were ancillary to the internal conflicts I'd imagined for their enemies, and that I never really thought too hard about whether they'd have any internal conflicts of their own.

Unlike some other stories I've enjoyed about villains who come to regret their actions, I don't really think Dr. Inferno has it in him to be a "good guy", nor do I believe he could ever work up the patience and good will to redeem himself for ALL of his nefarious deeds. However, thinking back, I suppose that the thwarting of his final, reckless rampage in his robo-suit might help to humble him. Between that last-ditch revenge scheme ending in humilation and the imminent threat of an unfeeling army of Magma Drones birthed from the very volcano which used to be his lair, perhaps he could be convinced to declare a temporary truce with the LEGO Agents in order to confront the destructive messes that he's left in his wake. And in neutralizing a mindlessly destructive threat to heroes and villains alike, hopefully he could at least begin to earn back the trust and loyalty of his former underlings.

I imagne that Dollar Bill is even more irredeemable. He may not have ever been directly involved in anywhere near as much destruction and mayhem as we saw from the other villains, but unlike them, I can't manage to convince myself that he had any motivatiions besides his own self-interest — his whole "billionaire crime magnate" gimmick does not hint at any ways he's been maligned or marginalized in a meaningful capacity. As such, once all the threats from that final year's sets are finally resolved, I like to think the LEGO Agents would arrest him and hand him over to face punishment for his crimes. Not that he would, of course — holding a guy as wealthy as him accountable is tricky even when you do catch them red-handed, so he'd probably end up with a short sentence followed by a flight to someplace far away where he can start over without ever truly having to feel remorse for his actions. Maybe that's cynical, but then, he represents a very cynical sort of evil, so I think it fits.

In the grand scheme of things, LEGO Agents is a silly, cartoony toy line with a silly, cartoony story. So maybe it's foolish of me to even imagine weaving any sort of powerful emotional arc out of it! It's just as plausible that the LEGO Agents and their wacky foes could persist in unending spy-vs.-spy antics indefinitely, with no resolutionn beyond stoppinng whatever each day's scheme happens to be.

But I guess it's still a lot of fun to think about this theme and its characters, even more than a decade later. And that probably says a lot about just how compelling I found it way back then, when sets like this one were still brand new!

@TheWackyWookiee said:
"Does anybody remember the robot chronicles game on LEGO.com? Loved that!"

I still play it at biomediaproject.com.