REVIEW: 76004 Spider-Man: Spider-Cycle Chase

[Clone OPatra]

Sometimes you just know you've gotta have a set. You see the pictures and you need to order it pronto. For me, this is one of those:

Set Name: Spider-Man: Spider-Cycle Chase

Set #: 76004

Theme: Superheroes

Subtheme: Marvel, Ultimate Spider-Man

Pieces: 237

Minifigures: 3

Year of Release: 2013

Price at Release: USD 20

Buy it? Inventory? Bricklink

INTRODUCTION

LEGO has been blessing Superhero fans with these 20-dollar-range sets. Last year we got Lex Luthor Power Armor for DC, and the SHIELD Truck and Wolverine Chopper for Marvel. This year LEGO is back with the Aquaman on Ice set for DC and this guy for Marvel.

20 bucks is truly a great, buyable price range. I didn't actually buy Lex Luthor or the SHIELD Truck, but I can tell that both are great sets if you want them: exclusive figures, nice vehicles, cheap price. What else can you ask for?

This set looked even better to me, though. Why? Nick Fury. Venom. Transformable hover car! I remember slapping together some crappy transformable hover car when I was a kid; ah, nostalgia. Anywho, all those ingredients are a recipe for awesome. So is the set awesome? Let's fine out…

BOX

So many things are great about this box art. The new comic city across the top (which also appears on the DC sets, but in blue of course) is amazing, much better than the dull striped pattern from last year. The main artwork, with blue sky, tilted up angle, and zooming vehicles about to smash together is so actiony and fun. Bright and awesome!

This one side has a non-LEGO Spidey to compare, I guess. But let's talk more about the front. The set name is really stupid. Why did they need the 'Spider-Man' at the beginning? Who else would have a spider-cycle? Does Batman have a Spider-Cycle? I don't think so! But 237 pieces…

One more detail: mini figures always look more epic when they have the same picture of themselves blown up but faded in the background. Wouldn't you agree?

The main back box art is a bit bare. There's something in the big blue-dot picture, but I can't tell what it is. They still added a little action, and there are of course the play feature windows, but overall it's not too exciting.

I love it when LEGO even uses the flap of the box for more great art. I find this city stuff just lovely.

CONTENTS

Pour that box out… and we've got three numbered bags, instructions, comic, DSS, and Spidey's web. Why his web didn't make it into a bag, I don't know. But hey, it doesn't matter.

COMIC

The comic is your usual nonsensical little thing involving big battles that don't lead much of anywhere. All of the figures from both new Spidey sets take part in the battle (as do the sets themselves), and then Iron Man randomly appears in the background of the final pane. Don't ask. Also don't ask who is flying Dr. Doom's jet on the cover if all of the figures are seen not in it.

The back shows the 'all figures' picture from last year's wave as well as the seven new figs from this wave, more spread out of course. I especially like J Jonah angrily trying to take a picture of Venom's back.

INSTRUCTIONS

The instructions came rolled up and a bit torn, as usual, but I really couldn't care less. The fun artwork is seen more broadly here. It's really quite exciting.

Here's a random page. The background is a comic-dot blue gradient, not too exciting, but fitting and a good contrast for the parts. On some pages, like this one, is a nice fade of Spidey, Nova, and Dr. Doom. Of course, a fade of characters who are actually in this set (besides Spidey) would be better, but hey, I guess it's a subtle ad.

I found it amusing that LEGO has you put Venom on top of Fury's car in the final step. Fury doesn't seem too bothered by it.

DSS

The stickers are unfortunately the printed color kind, and not the clear back kind. These will probably start peeling in about a day. They're not too bad, though, as stickers go. I'm glad LEGO is finally starting to work references to the far superior building-toy Megabloks into their sets, celebrating the year Megabloks was started on the license plates (#bsalert).

PIECES

You thought I'd show you all the pieces, didn't you? No? Good, I'm glad you knew that wasn't going to happen.

Instead, here are new(ish) parts, all found in bag 1. The SNOT piece has been showing up a bit now, but it's still quite useful.

There are some nice spares from the set, like 1x1 round tiles, cheese, a tooth, and that other 1x1 goodness. Technic, eh, whatever, who cares about that stuff…

MINIFIGURES

Woohoo! Finally made it to the figs! I'll talk about Spidey, the only non-exclusive fig, later. For now, just look at Venom and Fury! Soak in the awesomeness. Venom, with his pink gums and huge white eyes looks quite terrifying, just as he should. Nick Fury is pretty BA himself. The face is terrific, and could easily be put on a more movie-ish torso and fit right in with Avengers figs. Fury's torso is a bit simplistic; that's not bad per se, but it stands out against other recent torsos.

Everybody's got cool back printing and more muscles! Gotta love that Fury's eyepatch strap extends across the back of his head.

Of course, since LEGO doesn't print sides of heads (besides Lobot), Fury's patch string has an awkward gap. It's weird, but not as jarring as Bane's mask, since this is so thin. I just wanted to give you a close-up on Venom's scary smile as well.

If you pop some hair on Fury, the printing gap goes right away! Kind of a combo between old Fury look and Samuel L Jackson Fury.

Now let me talk about Spidey. I don't hate him as much as I thought I would, but he's still got issues. I suppose he just looks way too cartoony; it does sort of look like he's a kid in pajamas, and though Spidey isn't a serious guy, this is a bit too not-serious. He's cute, maybe too cute. I find the old one (left) much better still, but the new one isn't terrible if cartoony floats your boat.

MINIFIGURES with ACCESSORIES

The accessory assortment is a bit bare, but these guys are supposed to be somewhat super just by themselves. Spidey gets his regular white string, which isn't good for much, but Spidey needs webbing. Nick Fury gets the out of place futuristic gun. Really, the mould is awesome, but modern weaponry just doesn't look like that. Why is all of the LEGO universe now using a gun introduced in a futuristic line? Venom gets awesome tentacles; they produce a great Venom symbiote feelers effect.

Venom's tentacles are attached with a black pin bracket (its second appearance in black) and a cool round piece with clips. It gets the job done well without using too many parts and being the least bulky it possibly could be.

SET - By Parts

I didn't take any build pics, so I'll just show you all angles of the set. The build keeps itself varied, and besides for a 2X here and there, isn't too annoying. Watching the car spring up from a lot of pieces is quite rewarding and fun.

Each character gets their own thing, which is pretty great. Let's get to it!

Symbiote Bombs (or something)

Venom gets these odd objects to toss around. I guess they are Venom symbiotic things that get all gooey and attach themselves to stuff, turning other people into surrogate Venoms. In LEGO form they're a bunch of spiky stuff. Honestly I don't understand why these are even included; the piece count is so high and these are kinda worthless, so surely they could've been left out. I'm not complaining about getting them, since parts are parts, but I don't understand.

Spider-Cycle

Here's Spidey, showing off his cool ride. It's pretty tall next to him, but we don't expect LEGO to be proportionally correct. I've seen much worse.

Here's the cycle from the show, just for comparison:

Obviously, the LEGO version doesn't look much like it besides for the color scheme. But that doesn't mean the LEGO cycle doesn't look nice. LEGO produced two similar-sized vehicles for Batman last year, and this one by far is the sleekest and most compact. The color scheme is a bit drab, but that actually complements Spidey's bright colors nicely.

It's really not too long, and does't have too much going on. Sure it's not a motorbike, but Spidey doesn't look ridiculous on top of it.

It looks pretty speedy and powerful too. Plus, you can barely tell it transforms. Of course you know it transforms, but it doesn't scream 'I transform!' if you know what I mean. That's a plus in my book.

Voila! Just flip out the wheels, and you've got a hoverbike! You can even still roll it if you put them at the correct angle, or you can flip them all the way out so that it really 'hovers.'

Yes there's no thrust, but this feature is still wicked cool. They took what just looks like a nice bike and made it transform into a hovercraft without being clunky. That's a win.

SHIELD Car

If you're a boss like Nick Fury, you need a boss of a car. That's just what he gets! This thing looks fierce.

I couldn't find any specific images of SHIELD cars in the Ultimate Spider-Man show, so I don't know if this is modeled after a specific one. Regardless, flying SHIELD cars are a thing, so it's not like LEGO made it up.

This car looks fantastic (it is regular green, btw, but my camera has trouble with some colors). It's both rough-looking and sleek. Though it's eight-wide total, it doesn't look overly bulky. The one portion that looks a little odd is the SNOT plates in front of the windshield; something just looks a little off there. Otherwise, superb.

Using the windshield piece on its side is awesome. Of course, Fury can't really see out of it because he looks straight into the part where studs go, but LEGO isn't realistic anyway so I'm over it. The slanted bit behind the cockpit is quite nice too; from this angle you can barely tell it's a function.

Here we are from the back. Another nice big bumper, and a big spoiler making this a sporty-looking vehicle. The metallic grills and contoured piece on top help with that as well.

Of course, pick the right angle and you see the flick-fire peeking out.

The cockpit only has room to seat one, which again isn't realistic, but since this is Superhero stuff it doesn't bother me (it' s much more annoying in City sets). The controls include two printed tiles with a print that goes way back, and a steering wheel. Maybe the tiles represent missile buttons in this case. Curiously, there's a 1x2 tan cheese slope behind the wheel that looks like it's begging for a dashboard sticker, but there's no sticker.

As usual with LEGO, there's a bunch of hidden colors in the model. The blue plates seen here are not well-hidden, though, and really should have been green. I don't understand why LEGO does weird colors for pieces that will still be visible on the completed thing. They shouldn't.

I showed you the peek at the flick-fire already, so let's look at that function. You can see the tip of the missile here, but overall it just looks like a nice back of a car.

Tilt it up, though, and you've got a missile! Nick Fury must be such a good shot that one missile is all he needs. Given how much LEGO loves flick-fires, it's kinda strange that they couldn't manage to fit at least two in somehow.

You can position it higher too, but no matter how you tilt it, flicking that thing is quite a challenge. This feature is a nice thought, but doesn't really work. The very similar feature in one of the Galaxy Squad sets appears to be much better in terms of firing missiles, but this of course looks like an awesome car. You could just pretend Fury puts it into missile mode and launches missiles without actually flicking anything.

Then, simply twist down the wheels (each one twists independently), and you're good to swoosh this baby around! The car actually looks more magnificent in hover mode. Just think about it in terms of real life: who would want a normal car when you could have a freaking hover car!

Note how Fury has to wave his gun way above the windshield if he wants to shoot it; just another limitation of awesomely SNOTing the windshield piece. You can see the whole glory of the hood sticker here too. The little intakes are lovely, as is the SHIELD logo. I wouldn't want to leave this sticker off, though the car would still look fine.

WHOLE SET and CONCLUSION

There we go. Fierce, sleek hover-car. Cool, transforming bike. Random black spiky stuff that didn't need to even be here but is anyway. Exclusive, awesome Nick Fury and Venom. Pajamas Spider-Man, but ok, that's to be expected.

What else can I say? To my taste, this is the best $20 Superhero set yet. The other vehicles we've seen so far like Deadpool's chopper and the SHIELD truck have been nice, but they've got nothing on this hover-car. They are all good buys, don't get me wrong, but this one really has some oomph.

I think ratings are a bit useless for this one. This set is a big 10/10, 50/50, or .063/.063 if you really want. Unless you hate Nick Fury, hate cars, hate hover cars, hate anything beautiful in the world, or are a curmudgeon who absolutely will not buy a Licensed theme, go pick up this excellent set at your earliest convenience.

Until next time!

[Captain Nemo]

Great review! This is a really good looking set, and a great buy at $20. Lego Superheroes are really pulling out the stops on these small sets. (Now, if only they could throw a Killer Moth in there somewhere?)

[Masked Builder]

I'm really looking forward to this set too. In fact, the two $20 superheroes sets really excite me. Thanks for the excellent review!

[Esurient]

Holey Moley... This set is great!

I love everything in this set especially Venom

Fantastic review Clone O'Patra!

[Crownie]

Your reviews are always fantastic, and this one is no exception. You make me want to run out and buy sets for themes I don't even follow. I never considered myself much of a 'car person', but that hover-car is completely awesome. And it transforms! I'm already swooshing it around in my head, lol.

[J.V.D.]

Nice review Cone O'Patra. I already had this set on my wishlist for next year, and your review and pics only confirm I 'll have to foresee some of my Lego budget for it.

Just a pitty that TLG translate 20 US$ into aprox 30 euro over here.. . (actual price range of the other mentioned @)$ sets over here, at S@H;.. Superheroes doesnt even apear in the official Lego catalogue). At 18 euro this would realy be a deal.

At least I hope it will actualy be available for about 30, since some webshops have it already prelisted / expected for about 45, while the "Batman on the rocks" set is foreseen to cost 25... I guess I will never understand TLG's pricing policy..

[Hobbestimus]

Can't wait to pick this one up. Great review!

[Kez]

Great review, definitely getting this set and all other 2013 superhero sets, it's funny about the rip in your instructions because in the 2012 doc ock set my comic had a massive rip in the middle (stupid packaging)

[DJ Bricks]

The black things are Symbiote globs to trap Spidey with. The set is cool I'll definatly be picking this up with the others.

The gun is cool in way, but it looks more comic bookie than realistic which they where most likely going for.

I think because the SH universe is expanding, they put the Hero/Herion who it's mainly about before the set name, nevertheless it's cool

Edited December 19, 2012 by Neville longbottem

[lightningtiger]

Nice review 'CoP', cool set.....in my to buy list for sure and the reason is two words Nick Fury !

Interesting bike and car designs......great for playability.....the only downsides......that eye patch strap gap and yes, why is every dam action set coming out with an AC pistol - I find it an odd looking weapon....maybe that's the reason it doesn't look like a current modern hand gun ?

Brick On Review On 'CoP' !

[Ceroknight]

Thank you for the review!

Yea this set is brilliant!

One thing though, I wish the wheels wouldn't turn independently, I would have preferred if they were connected in pairs so you swivel 2 wheels at once..I think I'll MOD it like that when I buy this.

[Aanchir]

Good review, but I still fail to understand the complaints about non-clear-backed stickers. I've never had a problem with them unless they were put on pieces that simply can't support stickers (like Plankton's face sticker here). Is this really a major issue? I can believe that it doesn't affect everyone the same way, but I'm baffled how it widespread this is for a problem that I've never really encountered myself.

[just2good]

Great review, 'Clone O'Patra'!

I really like this set, mostly because of Nick Fury.

I plan on getting this set before Christmas.

[CorneliusMurdock]

Thanks for the review, Cloney! I wanted Spiderman since the first wave but couldn't bring myself to spend money on that Doc Ock... thing. This looks like a great set with awesome minifigs. It's very nice to see so many pieces at this price point. The last waves' 20 dollar ones were pretty good but this one goes far beyond them in that regard.

[Gryphon Ink]

Nice review, looks like an excellent set. I'm not terribly interested in the superhero sets, but I might still buy this one.

I think the reason they stick Spidey's name in the set name is mainly SEO. If you Google "Spider-Man toys" or "Spider-Man Lego", a product that's called simply Spider-Cycle Chase won't show up.

[Clone OPatra]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

One thing though, I wish the wheels wouldn't turn independently, I would have preferred if they were connected in pairs so you swivel 2 wheels at once..I think I'll MOD it like that when I buy this.

You might find that difficult to do and maintain the clutch power of the building solution that the set uses. It is possible to MOD it so that the wheels on each side swivel at once, but I can't quickly think of a way to do it that wouldn't leave the wheels free to swing all the time (although that might not be a bad thing necessarily). I'd be interested to see what you come up with!

Good review, but I still fail to understand the complaints about non-clear-backed stickers. I've never had a problem with them unless they were put on pieces that simply can't support stickers (like Plankton's face sticker here). Is this really a major issue? I can believe that it doesn't affect everyone the same way, but I'm baffled how it widespread this is for a problem that I've never really encountered myself.

I know I have had problems with these types of stickers before myself, while I can't recall problems with clear ones. On some of my older sets, the color stickers have become brittle, and even on the recent Funhouse I noticed a little peeling of the large panel stickers (though that could be a problem with my application).

It seems that the color-backed sticker issue has become a common LEGO gripe, like (dare I bring it up) the quality of parts from certain origins. I'm sure that the issue has some validity, or it wouldn't exist as a discussed issue at all, but it perhaps isn't as widespread as it's made out to be.

[Dr.Cogg]

I still think the car should have been Blue, but I will still buy this set for Venom.

[TheLegoDr]

This is a beautiful set. I don't care for Spider-Man at all, but the supporting cast is awesome this year (last year was questionable). I will buy this for Venom and Fury, but it is nice to see a decent vehicle build out of it too. I may actually put it together. I did like the Shield truck last year, but I didn't put that together, so who knows.

Thanks for the review. It was very informative. But it's hard to persuade me to buy it when I already was going to! ha

[Rolf]

Excellent review. Plus first picture is all kinds of funny. Spiderman seems to have found a hat and said "OMG it's awesome hat... and ohh theres another! (puts hat on and start grabbing second one)

[Brickity]

I like Venom's face and the vehicle a lot!

[def]

Thanks for the review! I think this looks really good. SHIELD was never my favorite Marvel creation, but I enjoyed the flying car when it appeared. I wasn't blown away by the other vehicles in Marvel sets. They were decent, but not anything exciting, but I think I'll like this one. Looking forward to its release date on these shores next month!

[hoth2o]

this is a great review of what looks to be a great set! thanks!

[Gryphon Ink]

I just wanted to add that I'm very pleased with that car. Lots of SNOT and Technic and cool angles. It's interesting. And I like that it's an unusual color.

[Vindicare]

Another great review, Clone! Always so informative with text and pictures, yet funny to read.

[JimBee]

Nice review Cloney. I do really love that Venom figure, very creepy-looking. The car is pretty neat too, especially considering the set's price. For some reason it really reminds me of those classic Spiderman sets from the early 2000s. Well, obviously because it's Spiderman (duh ), but just the way the car looks and the transforming feature and the rest of the set. It's maybe a bit nostalgic for me.

By the way, love the blur on the parts dump pic.