I waited about 2 years to get this set and it was well worth the wait. This is the crown jewel of my marvel lego collection and it was a blast building it. Each section was really thought through and the mechanics of the rotors was really cool to see. Such a beautiful set.

It is an expensive set but if you are a true marvel lego fan then this is the set you save up for...this is the set you must have.

I bought this set back when it was first released in 2015, and from the moment I first saw the images of it online I knew I had to buy it. The completed model is huge; it has immense length, width, and a decent height to it, and it really dwarfs most other sets out there, with the only really exception that I've noticed in my own collection being the UCS Millennium Falcon.

Box:

I don't normally care much for the box, but in this case it is just so huge I felt it noteworthy. Serious collectors beware with this set, because you will need a decent space to store this box in.

Instructions:

The instructions are similar to those included in the UCS Sandcrawler and Slave I, as well as the 2018 Tantive IV, with a higher quality, single large book glued at the spine. This is somewhat useful as the build is long and you don't want to spend half of it irritated by poor quality manuals.

Minifigs:

Unlike most MCU based sets, the minifigures are not he main draw here by any means, though they are nice. To this day, the Romanoff, Barton and Hill figures in this set are the only versions I own, and the Fury in this set is by far the best version ever produced, and the only at time of writing to reflect his later appearances in the MCU chronologically. The cap minifig I could take or leave nowadays honestly, but at the time he was my first one so I guess that was kind of good, though if you don't have one this is not the set to buy him in unless you also want the rest of the set. At the time, a Bruce Banner minifig would have been a much more welcome inclusion I'm sure. The Maria Hill minifig is the only one ever produced to this day, so she is a slight draw, although I'm sure you could buy her separately if you just wanted her. By all means, DO NOT buy this set for the minifigures, buy it for the set.

Microfigs:

There are 12 microfigs included in this set; 8 S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Nick J. Fury, Cap, Hawkeye and Tony Stark. They are surprisingly well detailed, and really add to the overall feel of the finished model when dotted around on top.

The build:

The build is surprisingly fun, and even the four rotors don't seem repetitive as the front ones are subtly different to the back ones, so they feel like a new building experience. It takes a long time compared to other sets, but never gets dull (unlike some).

Parts:

The selection of parts is quite varied, and I'm sure they would be very useful for MOCs, especially if you are a fan of Star Wars. The runway plates, which I was fully expecting would be stickered, are in fact printed, so that was a pleasant surprise, although the plaque is still stickered unfortunately, and very troublesome (as ever) to apply; mine has a couple of air bubbles under it unfortunately. The clear wheels used in the turbines are also pieces of note, and I can imagine many potential uses for those.

The Model:

The model is nothing short of spectacular. It is very well designed, and really replicates its on screen counterpart with immense accuracy, save perhaps the rotors which should not be blue on this 1st gen helicarrier from 2012's Avengers: Assemble; indeed these look more they would belong on a helicarrier from The Winter Soldier. Perhaps this crossing over of different versions of a craft in oneodel is just a LEGO thing; they did this with the misplaced throne room in the UCS Death Star as well. Nonetheless the rotors don't detract from the finished product; they're just a bit odd. The inside is well detailed for the little space it occupies, and the front windows look really great. There is space behind the bridge for a battery box and motor to turn the rotors, however I found that the tend to stick too much and don't really turn properly when powered like this - although they do work when turned manually so I can only assume the battery box doesn't output sufficient power to overcome the friction in the connections between the axles. Possibly this space might have been better used with more interior, possibly the room in which they first have the sceptor, or the cell they place Loki in. The top runway is attached at a pleasing angle, and is surprisingly well secured. The quinjets and other small vehicles are what really set this set alive, and add a real sense of character to what could so easily have been a dull finished piece. The stand is a bit annoying in my opinion because it doesn't attach permanently to the model, and the model can only be placed on it with help from someone else to guide you onto it; it's almost impossible if you don't have help.

Closing Thoughts:

This is a superb set and a wonderful display piece, and so I would thoroughly recommend it. It is not without its flaws however, and I would say it is not worth getting the additional power functions to go with it, as even if they do work you will hardly ever want to use them. You could consider building in an additional room behind the bridge, although the lack of Thor, Banner, Loki, Romanoff or Hulk microfigs limit playability anyway. This set is very finely about displayability though, and is really not meant for playing with, hence the inclusion of microfigs and not more minifigs.

I was so excited when I saw this set announced and decided to buy it for myself as a tax return/end-of-semester present. It was at the time (and actually still is), the most expensive LEGO set I'd ever bought, and the biggest one, too. Even though I'm a huge LEGO and Marvel fan, I really wanted to make sure that I got my money's worth out of it.

Box/Instructions

I've bought and built my fair share of advanced modular buildings and some Star Wars Ultimate Collector's Series sets in the $100-200 range, but I was still shocked by how huge the box for this set was! The box is the standard LEGO Marvel Superheroes motif and it looks really nice.

The instruction manual is a sort of glue-bound book with a matte cover. I don't know if that's the exact right way to describe it, but there have been several recent sets with the manual in this style. It's such a welcome departure from the cheaper magazine-esque multiple booklets that used to be included. The book is several hundred pages long, so it really works well in this case.

Parts

I'll confess to not knowing whether any of these parts are exclusive to this set, but I do know there are some interesting ones, like the giant transparent fans used for the rotors. Not that I'd ever disassemble it, but I do think the pieces could be repurposed for a huge variety of MOCs, especially for Star Wars fans.

There's a great mix of large and small parts here, and I think the microfigures would be useful for MOCs of smaller-than-minifig scale. You could even strip things down a more standard aircraft carrier.

I'm overall happy with the contents here. I don't mind that there are stickers included, since they're high-quality and easy to apply. Several parts are printed as well, like the runway plates on top.

Minifigures

This set comes with five minifigures and several microfigures, which have become popular in recent sets. Essentially, these are minifig trophies painted to look like characters to keep them to scale with the larger model. This was a brilliant idea and adds so much more play value to the set as well as display value.

The minifigure selection is solid, but mostly underwhelming. The only character that is unique to this set (as of 2016) is Maria Hill, but Captain America/Steve Rogers and Nick Fury as presented here are unique to the set as well.

I think Maria Hill was a very nice inclusion and her sleeve printing looks great in particular. I also like Steve's head/hair and think that does the character justice completely. Any of these characters could be approximated with other cheaper parts on the market, so I don't think the minifigures themselves will be the main draw of the set by any means, but they look great.

The build

Hands-down, this was one of the most fun builds I've ever done in LEGO. I spent several hours assembling this set over a period of a few days (while spinning some records, sermons, or podcasts like I like to do) and the build kept me engaged the whole time.

The build is so satisfying since the model's unique shape required many different techniques to be used to bring it all together. In fact, between building the vehicle mini-models, the S.H.I.E.L.D. statue, and the Helicarrier itself, I sort of felt like I was assembling a "greatest hits" of LEGO builds. That is, you're sort of building in minifig scale, microfig scale, and huge UCS scale as well. Of course, that's sort of an illusion since essentially everything is to-scale more-or-less relative to each other (besides the minifig stand obviously).

Many times, I would flip to a page and be excited to build a section I forgot even existed on the craft, like the thrusters in the back! You will be absolutely amazed by the skill of this set's designers.

Putting this set together was so much fun, it's almost enough that I'd recommend the set even to non-Marvel fans. I think it's probably expensive enough that only a Marvel fan would want to spend that much money on it and make room for it, but I can't imagine a LEGO fan in general would be dissatisfied with the set.

The completed model

The final product is striking and very impressive. The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier is probably the most iconic vehicle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has a prominent place in many comics in some form or another. This iteration of the craft is immediately recognizable in its LEGO form, by an incredible feat of set design. It really looks stunning on a shelf. I've had my model for probably a year now and I still am regularly impressed by it.

The play features seem nice, between the removable top to peer into the command center and the crank on the back which spins the fans. The name/stats plate and stand really pull it all together as a display model and the microfigures and mini models look brilliant posed on the deck. I have zero complaints about the finished product and I doubt if the ship could be done better than this in this scale.

Overall opinion

This is a great set. It might be the best set I've built at any size, in fact!

The price-per-piece count is a little higher than it should be in my opinion, and I think including the power functions might have balanced that out a little bit. However, I do think the value is very much here overall given the size and quality of the set, not to mention the development time that must be behind it.

If you're on the fence about The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, I highly recommend stashing aside a bit of cash aside for it each week until you can walk out of a LEGO store with one of these. The build is so fun and satisfying that it's turned me on to these massive D2C sets that I previously was unsure about in terms of personal value. It's a must-own for any LEGO Marvel fan, and I'd even go as far as to say it's a must-own for any LEGO fan.

It's a lot of words, for a lot of pieces. Bare with me, because it's tough to review a set this size without rambling, and I think that might be why no one has written anything for this fella despite it being on the market for several months. Well here goes...

Box/Instructions

In a word, huge.

I can't comment on other similarly sized sets and their boxes, but from what I remember of the Death Star or Executor Star Destroyer, it seemed bigger. It was deeper than I could picture a Lego box being too.

A lot of colours, it showed off the play features, minifigures, mini vehicles, and even where to plug in the motors that can be purchased separately.

For those of you new to my reviews, I care very little for boxes and even instructions, however, I was taken a back by the sheer size of it. I'd like to say the instructions held my attention, but they didn't after I'd finished building, but there were three booklets, large sized, with a "novel" size thickness to each.

Parts

With nearly 3000 pieces, I can promise you many rare pieces will be added to your collection. The "invisible wheel" pieces and the blue Chima claws in the rotors are what come to my mind right away. A gray "hull" piece, as well, seems a rare piece in my mind, and was a central piece in early building of the model. Even mundane elements, like the SHIELD stand for the mini figures have dark blue pieces commonly used for the hull of small boats or tops of planes. There are dozens of wing pieces, huge long technic rods and connectors, and my personal favourite pieces are the black runway pieces. THEY WERE PRINTED! I was fully expecting a huge sticker for each one.

Full disclosure though, there's a large sheet of stickers, a number of them sporting the number 64, numbering the helicarrier.

By colour, there is an almost comical level of dark and light grey pieces, a solid level of black, dark blue and light transparent blue. and even a few bright yellow and red pieces stashed away within the helicarrier.

Minifigures

Unlike most super hero sets, I am not going to say the minifigures even factored into my choice to by this behemoth. That being said, there are two exclusive minifigures (well one exclusive, one exclusive version, and one exclusive head), and a swath (swath? That can be a unit of measurement, right?) of microfigures.

The microfigures consist of Nick Fury, Captain America, Iron Man (complete with a single transparent blue circle piece as his stabilizers), Hawkeye and 8 agents of SHIELD. You know those small golden figures from the "Emporer Palpatine Showdown" set from Episode III out a few years ago? These figures are smaller then those. All four of these guys are painted up quite well, and the level of detail is incredible. Hawkeye and Fury have a black leather look with details, Cap has a brighter blue with red and white, and his signature "A" on his mask, and Iron Man rocks his red with gold and white trim. No moving parts, but their all that can be done to add some scale model fun to the set.

Starting with Captain America, he is identical in his attire to the two from the other Marvel sets released this year. Red, white and blue armour, brown leather straps as part of the MCU version of Cap, his signature red shield...but his head is unique so far. Two sided, puzzled and angry, but with no mask!...and Chris Evans blonde hair too.

Nick Fury is a new version, so far exclusive to the MCU sets. The last version came from the Spider-Man series, and looked...more like a fast food work compared to leather jacket and flight suit look this one has. His head is the same one sided mug, with an eye patch and a grizzled face, but it's hard to move up from the last face that Nick Fury had on his last outing. SLJ would be proud.

Black Widow dropped her longer hair and has a shorter, peppier, "closer-to-the-movies" kind of hair piece. The good news is that she and her outfit (as close to a formfitting black number as you can get with Lego...Scarlett Johansson wore it better) is on point, the bad news is if you some how, like myself, bought this set and the latest quinjet, you now have a double, complete with a double barreled blaster. Worse tragedies have occurred though, you'll make it through buddy. Her two sided head is smirking and scared or angry too.

Hawkeye is another awesome minifigure, with his new spiky hair and sporty new red and black outfit, with the same problem. He has his same unique composite bow in black, and looks either smug, like the wonderful Jeremy Renner, or in his sunglasses looking a little hot under the collar, which is decidedly un-Renner.

Finally the unique Maria Hill. Her blue get up looks almost like a flight suit more then it does the formfitting janitorial smock fellow Canadian Colbie Smulders wears in the movie. She has a ponytail, which doesn't match up to the movies too well, but it's Lego, so chill out, and just be glad we're getting more female minifigures and female action heros.

There are also 9 vehicles in the micro format that I don't feel right slipping into other sections. They add character, and use fewer bricks then many of the brick built minfigures, so hold on, this is happening. There are three old school quinjets that seem like a "proper" micro build. They are small, but look insanely close to mini versions of the first quinjet set from the first Avengers movie. They even have the folding wing tips!

The other planes are three jets, trying to be harrier or raptors is my guess, made primarily from triangular helicopter rotor pieces, those odd 5 stud by 1 stud curved pieces with a technic hole in the middle and an angled piece for the cockpit. There is also a refueling truck and two forklifts, that fit in well with the little flourished on the finished model.

The build

This took me an entire rainy afternoon a few weeks ago. There were approximately 29 bags (I honestly stopped counting carefully near the end) divided up into 12 or so sections. Before tackling the big item, you're asked to build the frame and minifigure stand. Neither are too challenging, and both prove that this is first, foremost and without question a setfor enormous children with disposable incomes, not a $400 toy.

After the etcetera, you will begin work on the smaller section of the underside, which includes the command center, then slowly adds the details (such as the computers the extras played Galaga on, tons of 1x1 transparent smooth topped pieces), extends the hull, builds up the sides, and even gets the framework in place for the movie rotors, through use of a ton of technic gears and even more rods. The previous sentence contained spoilers, if haven't looked this up online, haven't seen it in a store, skipped the first part this review you're reading, or simply lack an imagination.

Then one by one, you add four nearly (nearly mind you) identical prolusion systems, which are the size of a medium size stand alone space craft each. Seriously, they have to be around 200 pieces each when you attach them on to the ship, and with some reconfiguring they would make some awesome looking flying saucer-esque space craft too. But don't break this guy apart, it's a display piece you monster!

Back on track though, after the 4 massive rotors are added on to the ship and the jets at the back, you begin evening things off, adding some rare pieces to neat affect (like the catwalk pieces looking like support structures) and getting the set primed for an angled runway on top. Most of this had to do with leaving smooth topped pieces at certain points along the built up walls to the lower hanger, and using rotating "cannon mount" piece to angle it properly. Laying the massive black base plate pieces, fixing them in, and then adding flight tower standing on a technic rod (with what I thought was just left over pieces thrown on top as measuring instruments). The last section is the jets, quinjets, trucks and flourishes like the boxes and roadblocks.

There is a final section where it shows how you can work in a set of motors to get the rotors moving on their own, instead of the little crank you build with the "vanilla" instructions. Interesting, but it's also a little troubling I spent $400 on a set that didn't include an extra like that. C'est la vie.

If you think my write up is long, try building it. I would recommend that you take breaks so it doesn't become a chore. No exaggeration, I think it took me 8 hours going at it non stop. Don't be like me, summer is starting, the weather should be getting nicer, don't spend as much time doing this as you would at work on a given day. Enjoy life between the instruction steps!

The completed model

Stunning.

There is a place for everything, and while they certainly didn't skimp on the pieces, they didn't add a bunch of superfluous elements either. Everything with scaled well, and making things bigger would just add to the piece count while not adding much more detail. Even the "extras" are efficient and small sized (like the on deck vehicles, the stand and figure stand), and won't totally alienate the rest of your collection for being a new scale. Well I assume this microfigure scale is new, I haven't found anything about them immediately after searching for them prior to writing this article. The smaller minifigures make it seem even bigger too.

The level of detail, from the runways, the interior of the command center, the vehicles, the jets, the propulsion and even just how it looks like pieces are mounted together from the outside make this truly a piece of art.

Overall opinion

This set is a goliath, and having it on display this long weekend collected a lot of comments from non-Lego fans while hosting. It might be the size, it might be nerd quotient, it might be the design, or the fact it's the closest thing since Indiana Jones to have a military-eque theme, but whether it is one thing, or several, or all, the set makes a huge impression. If you're buying it, you're going to show it off, and make sure you have storage enough for it. You don't buy something like this for any reasonable justification.

I got a big bonus at work, and part of it went towards this. This is not a toy, it's not meant to be played with, it's a model. As such, there are not a great deal of play features. There are no missile launchers, there are trap doors, there aren't cute side kicks (well maybe Hawkeye). many larger sets in my collection can be excused from this kind of classifications because, like almost all Lego I've bought before this, they are clearly meant to be played with. My At-At Walker, the Tower of Orthanc, Jabba's Palace, Helm's Deep, the Millenium Falcon, both Quinjets, the Batcave, literally anything else has/have flick missles, and hidden compartments, and a break away section, and even a Unikittiy/Rocket Racoon/Ewok/what ever Tony Stark's robot is. The only set in my collection close to the tone, and straight-to-the-pointness of the set is the Simpsons house, but there isn't an option to supercharge 742 Evergreen Terrace with a motor.

If you have the money, it's a stellar set. It's not a cheap set, it's not a high number of pieces for the price, and don't expect to spend hours playing with it with your children or child minded friends. You will build it, you will mount it, you will periodically show it off and have to rebuild it when someone thinks it's a playset as oppose to a show set. Enjoy it for what it is, art in the medium in Lego inspired by other mediums like film and graphic novels. It's not for everyone, but it could be for you. Happy building!

As a surprise, I bought this set for my wife. I was very curious to start scratching the long-awaited model.

The assembly itself took about 18 hours, mainly due to the search for parts. There are many unique parts of the model, so they had to look for them for a long time.

It was a fantastic experience to put together, we proudly put it on our shelf.