Review: 40536 Miles Morales
Posted by Huw,
40536 Miles Morales is one of two Marvel Brick Sketches that are being released on 1st April.
Like 40535 Iron Man that I reviewed yesterday, it's far more substantial than previous ones and uses novel building techniques to create the character's distinctive hoodie.
Summary
40536 Miles Morales, 214 pieces.
£14.99 / $16.99 / €16.99 | 7.0p / 7.9c / 7.9c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
Very effective portrait of the web-shooting superhero
- The hood and colours combine to give a sense of depth
- Hood is a bit flimsy
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
For those like me who are not familiar with the comics, Miles Morales is one of the characters known as Spider-Man. He appears in the animated TV series Ultimate Spider-Man.
Construction begins conventionally with layer upon layer of plates, tiles and curved slopes.
The hood is assembled separately and employs two 2x2/1x4 plate hinges to position the angled sides. It's affixed to the 2x2 red plate at the top and nowhere else. Two semicircular 1x1 tiles at the bottom prevent it from being splayed out.
It gives the portrait depth, although it is a bit flimsy and will come detached if you're not careful.
The bright red garment contrasts well with the teal background, and the use of dark red inside the hood also helps to give the picture depth.
Overall, it's a very effective portrait of the superhero that offers a slightly different build experience to the others.
While Brick Sketches might not have the same appeal as similarly priced BrickHeadz or Speed Champions I think they have a place in LEGO's product portfolio and I look forward to adding more to my collection in the future.
It, and 40535 Iron Man, will be available at LEGO.com from 1st April.
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15 comments on this article
Why the price disparity? I hope it isn't even more so where I live. Two of this would make a great set and parts pack for me otherwise.
That is very clever with the dark red.
I do think the sense of depth works better for this character than Iron Man or Batman.
I do think this line has potential, but IMO the images need to be larger to allow for more detail, or more dynamic images than just “posing for class portrait.”
That’s necessitate a price increase, of course, and I’m not sure Lego thinks that’s going to help the line, but I think there’s a market for “affordable art” in Lego that’s not currently being tapped very well - Though it’s a “Botanical” I think the bonsai tree proves this as it’s basically a small sculpture.
Surely there has to be a mid-point between “sketch” and $100+ paint-by-numbers kit.
That dark red is clearly meant to represent headphones, right?
@mr_Fikou said:
"That dark red is clearly meant to represent headphones, right?"
Yes his ears are on the sides of his neck.
Though the build without the hood does make it look like headphones!
"He appears in the animated TV series Ultimate Spider-Man."
--Actually I think he is generally better known for the hit animated movie, "Spider-Man, Into the Spider-verse." If you haven't seen it, check it out, it was very well done.
@LegoSonicBoy said:
"Why the price disparity? I hope it isn't even more so where I live. Two of this would make a great set and parts pack for me otherwise."
???
€ 16.99 = 14.14 pound (vs 14.99 asking price)
€ 16.99 = $ 18.75 dollar (vs 16.99 asking price ex VAT)
US is generally a little cheaper, but this set actually seems pretty level.
@SinKiller_Nick said:
""He appears in the animated TV series Ultimate Spider-Man."
--Actually I think he is generally better known for the hit animated movie, "Spider-Man, Into the Spider-verse." If you haven't seen it, check it out, it was very well done."
It’s one of the best superhero films imho.
How soon until we see a Spider-Gwen mod of this?
Unrelated to this post but the Alliance one above: can we get the impossible to read text fixed? Why white highlighting with grey letters was thought to be a good idea is beyond me
EDIT: Thank you
Very clever using dark red to create a shadow inside the hood. I haven't seen Spiderverse either, but have heard good things about it. I never really got into Spiderman so I'll likely skip this one. But the shaping and depth work really well here.
Is the yellow part on the base a new piece? It looks like a 1x2 tile with a single slope. Like the 2x2 tile with two studs, but just 1 stud wide??
@kkoster79 said:
"Is the yellow part on the base a new piece? It looks like a 1x2 tile with a single slope. Like the 2x2 tile with two studs, but just 1 stud wide??"
No. It's a 2x2.
Nice review, and to add to the “other media” points, Spiderverse pulled 375 million and is getting one or many sequels.
And the PlayStation 4 Spider-Man game features Miles in parts with the follow up game was all about Miles and (Wikipedia says) is at over 6 million copies last summer - despite ps5 still being hard to come by.
Probably the best Brick Sketch yet. Love the use of dark red too: looks like headphones.