Review: 76201 Captain Carter & The Hydra Stomper
Posted by CapnRex101,
The forthcoming What If...? animated series will document certain important variations from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Such changes would provide interesting potential and 76201 Captain Carter & The Hydra Stomper recreates one such imagined alteration.
Peggy Carter receiving the mighty Super Soldier Serum, replacing Steve Rogers, could undoubtedly have decisive consequences. Agent Carter would become Captain Carter, or perhaps Captain Britain, while Steve Rogers' military career might involve an experimental armoured suit, resembling those later designed by Tony Stark.
Minifigures
Peggy Carter would undoubtedly be a deserving recipient of Doctor Erskine's incredible Super Soldier Serum, thereby becoming Captain Carter. This minifigure is intriguing because trailers for What If...? have featured the character sporting brighter colours. This dark design is instead equivalent to Captain America's stealth suit from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
The metallic silver Union Jack emblem looks marvellous, complementing buckles around her belt and shoulders. These black accents correspond with Captain America's stealth suit and I think Peggy's double-sided head seems effective, returning from Nymphadora Tonks in 75980 Attack on the Burrow and featuring an appropriately fearsome expression for combat.
Naturally, the heroine wields a Vibranium shield. However, this example displays the metallic silver Union Jack rather than Captain America's star motif. The decoration looks perfect and I welcome such consistency between the figure and her accessory, contrasting with the brighter equivalent from 71031 Marvel Collectable Minifigures.
Steve Rogers accompanies Captain Carter into battle, controlling the Hydra Stomper and thus sporting military fatigues. The olive green colour looks excellent and numerous straps decorate both sides of the torso, securing a parachute pack. That printed pack evidently lacks depth and appears slightly odd, although I love the intricate stitching.
Unfortunately, the legs appear bland, particularly beside the detailed torso. This double-sided head looks great though. The design was originally produced for Han Solo but does resemble Steve Rogers, displaying cheerful and determined expressions. Moreover, the medium nougat hair component works nicely, matching Steve's previous appearances as Captain America.
76166 Avengers Tower Battle introduced an updated Red Skull minifigure and the design has improved again here, now featuring decorated legs. Remarkably, this design was designed for Professor Snape and has appeared on several subsequent characters. The design looks good here though, lining up perfectly beneath the torso and producing an accurate trench coat.
Furthermore, the torso features impressive detail, including the famous Hydra symbol on Red Skull's silver belt buckle. The dark red highlights and metallic silver studs appear excellent too. However, I dislike the head, which seems appropriate for comic book versions of this character but decidedly unsuitable for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Red Skull includes a stud shooter which seems odd, alongside the Tesseract. This esteemed accessory is cleverly represented by a trans-light blue Minecraft head, undoubtedly improving upon the 1x1 brick which has appeared previously. Admittedly, the Tesseract seems noticeably large beside the minifigure, although LEGO accessories are generally disproportionately large!
The Completed Model
LEGO has created numerous mechs resembling the Hulkbuster, sharing relatively consistent design features. This example measures 15cm in height and the green colour scheme seems unusual, reflecting the dedicated military application for this vehicle and therefore varying from Tony Stark's armours. Olive green might have been more accurate, but green looks appealing.
Articulation is always an important aspect of successful mechs and this creation incorporates the standard shoulder, hip and ankle joints. These are helpful for display, although the elbows include click hinges rather than ball joints which is unusual. The resultant movement is slightly restricted and the joints are exposed, perhaps intentionally to capture the technological age of this armour.
The head appears almost identical to that from 76190 Iron Man: Iron Monger Mayhem, using exactly the same shoulder element. The decoration has been adjusted though, now including metallic silver bolts and accurate eyes. Unfortunately, the colour matching between this green faceplate and the neighbouring green parts is poor. Such problems are becoming increasingly common.
Several stickers are placed across the torso, including Captain America's familiar shield which varies from the source material. The original mech features an American star emblem from the Second World War, hence this change was necessary. The round hatch and angled dark bluish grey highlights appear perfect though, when compared with the animated series.
Accessing the cockpit involves lifting the head and lowering the breastplate, as demonstrated below. The interior is sufficiently spacious for a minifigure, but lacks any controls which seems rather disappointing. Simple levers or a stickered display inside the chest could have improved this cockpit design substantially.
The rectangular Arc Reactor houses a glow-in-the-dark 1x2 plate, placed beneath a trans-light blue 1x2 tile. Glow-in-the-dark elements are most effective without any obstructions, hence the glow seems relatively subtle. Nevertheless, I appreciate this feature and I think the Arc Reactor appears reasonable in standard light conditions.
Promotional images and trailers have shown the enormous rockets mounted on the reverse of this mech. They are accordingly present here and their shape appears accurate. However, the trailers have also featured Captain Carter riding between both rockets and the omission of any attachment points for the minifigure is disappointing. Presumably the designer was unaware of that feature during development.
The aforementioned elbow joints are relatively conspicuous from every angle, although heavy armour around the forearms ensures some concealment. These are decorated with vents and their shape distinguishes this mech from other Hulkbuster equivalents, which is welcome. This model also includes articulated fingers, with stud shooters situated neatly beneath each arm.
Four additional trans-orange 1x1 round plates are supplied, mounted on a reddish brown 2x2 slider. This design seems somewhat strange, especially because there is comfortably room to accommodate the ammunition somewhere on this vehicle. The stocky legs, for instance, could definitely have integrated storage boxes, although they do make good use of stickers.
Overall
What If...? undoubtedly provides interesting source material for LEGO, hence the creation of another Marvel mech seems unoriginal. However, mechs are evidently successful and 76201 Captain Carter & The Hydra Stomper does include several distinguishing features. The blocky limbs are distinctive, for instance. Perhaps these reflect the technological inferiority of Howard Stark's mech armour.
While that could excuse certain design decisions, the bland cockpit could definitely have been improved. Furthermore, I think the price of £27.99 or $29.99 feels relatively expensive, despite the inclusion of three brilliant minifigures. On that basis, I consider 76201 Captain Carter & The Hydra Stomper among the weaker recent Marvel Super Heroes sets.
This set was provided for review by The LEGO Group but the review represents an expression of my own opinions.
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26 comments on this article
The M in MCU stands for 'mech', apparently. Another mediocre set that'll sell well.
I find it odd that they went with the Stealth Suit for Captain Carter. To be honest, I think the other one that's apparently coming later looks much better. All the grey just doesn't look quite as nice.
I'm also not too big on the green coloring of the mech. I don't know if it's a case of parts in olive green not being available or LEGO not wanting to imitate tanks. If it's the former then that's understandable, but the printing on the cockpit is just awful. If it's the latter then... it's a giant robot- not a tank. I don't exactly think those are very realistic in regards to WW2 anyway.
DC sets are noticeably lacking in supporting characters, but thanks to this Marvel set, I will finally have a Jimmy Olsen minifig, or at least a head to build from.
Military fans should rejoice at this new Steve Rogers torso. At the moment, there are no parts available from this set on bricks & pieces (maybe it's too early?? but still very odd)
What if Tony Stark made his suit out of cheese instead of Iron?
What if Bruce Banner turned blue instead of green?
Is this even out yet? Because I quite like it but I also like the Sakarian Mech with the watcher and Valkarie in it!
@HOBBES said:
"Military fans should rejoice at this new Steve Rogers torso. At the moment, there are no parts available from this set on bricks & pieces (maybe it's too early?? but still very odd)"
It hasn’t been released yet in most (all?) regions
Edwin Jarvis minifig please.
This is an instance where the color-matching doesn't seem to be a huge issue, considering that we've got three shades of green in the mech to begin with
Cap's shield did actually change when he wore the Stealth Suit. It was covered with some kind of coating to dull the colors which made it looks blue and silver under some lighting conditions, although faint bits of red could still be seen. Other toys have been made of it too.
This set kinda sucks, IMO. We're getting three Hulkbuster-sized builds releasing on the same day here in the U.S. and this is definitely the worst. The legs and arms look too stocky, the color is wrong, it's under-detailed, and Captain Carter can't even ride on the Stomper's back. Her figure has a good torso and shield print, but I don't understand why the CMF face and new hair mold weren't reused here. They'd really improve this figure.
What if Peter Parker was bitten by a roach
@GoldenNinja3000 said:
"Cap's shield did actually change when he wore the Stealth Suit. It was covered with some kind of coating to dull the colors which made it looks blue and silver under some lighting conditions, although faint bits of red could still be seen. Other toys have been made of it too."
I thought that was the lighting aboard the ship at the beginning of the movie, but I see the Sideshow figure from The Winter Soldier did carry a shield with muted colours and they are usually accurate.
Oh good. Another Meh-ch...
@sirventricle said:
"The M in MCU stands for 'mech', apparently. Another mediocre set that'll sell well."
Not just "mech", meh too. Nothing really special here.
The Peggy Carter minifigure from the new CMF series is way better than this one
Holy crap, that Peggy Carter looks even worse next to the CMF series one. Of course they couldn't get that detailed for a set, but they could've at least given her dual molded boots and that new hair piece.
If CMF Wanda can have a face from a set, then why can't a set have some of these new molds?
@OscarWRG said:
"The Peggy Carter minifigure from the new CMF series is way better than this one"
Do we have any idea when the Marvel CMF series is going to be released? I can't find any concrete info on a release date.
The only parts of the set that interest me are the minifigs(classic Marvel move). Even then, I only like Peggy's torso and Red Skull's legs/torso. I also love the stealth suit shield. Hopefully we get a Captain America stealth suit with the shield at some point. As much as I like seeing the Minecraft head reused, why didn't they just use either 1 1x1 plate or 2 1x1 plates with a tile top?
Thank you CapnRex for the review!
Does anybody know if this is a retail exclusive in Canada? I have found the rest of the wave but not this one.
@sirventricle said:
"The M in MCU stands for 'mech', apparently. Another mediocre set that'll sell well."
Mech or mediocre
I never thought I'd say this, but I am getting tired of non-stop mecha. It doesn't help that this one seems almost identical to the Iron Monger mech, just in green. It's an easy skip.
Plus, I have to say, the last Lego mech I bought was the small mech from this year's Ninjago underwater line --- and it was a horrible, horrible mech. The elbows and arms were awkward and hard to pose, the leg ball-joints were too loose and whenever you so much as touched the thing, the whole mech buckled under its own weight.
I don't know if anyone else has had that experience, but I am definitely not in the, "Another mech! Must have!" audience, right now.
Y'all are too negative. Maybe just me, but part of the fun of Lego is building stuff out of it, not just collecting it. For example, I took apart a few kind of meh star wars sets to make a larger spaceship moc.
This set is green, not flashy red (or teal and orange, for that matter) so it could be fun to mod into lots of other generic military-ish mechs if you don't like it. For me at least that makes it worth the price.
This mech will look great mixed in with my green Toy Story army men 7595!
@SinKiller_Nick said:
" @OscarWRG said:
"The Peggy Carter minifigure from the new CMF series is way better than this one"
Do we have any idea when the Marvel CMF series is going to be released? I can't find any concrete info on a release date."
It is coming out September 1st, I think
I like mechs, even an abundance of them. I don't like the face, though
Usually Lego Product Management finds a good balance of vehicle / playset / display sets in one wave. I have no idea what happened here with 3 almost identical mechs coming out at the same time. Very weird.