MARVEL SUPER HEROES LEGO REVIEW: Ant-Man Final Battle (76039)

While Avengers: Age of Ultron got an entire theme from LEGO, Ant-Man gets just a single set. With Marvel Studios' next movie being represented by one LEGO set, it has to be a good one, right?

Well, I have good news and bad news about Ant-Man Final Battle.

The good news is that the set boasts three fantastic minifigures. Sure, we'll probably get new versions of Hank Pym and Scott Lang when the Captain America: Civil War sets hit stores next spring, but the Ant-Man set does an awesome job bringing these characters, along with villain Yellowjacket, into the world of LEGO superheroes.

The bad news? The rest of the set is pretty lame. I love the detail in the the giant-sized red and yellow brick-built LEGO pieces,  but the large ant is kind of lackluster. I unfortunately got the original version of this set that was plagued with legs that fall off when any pressure was applied to the top of the ant. If you wind up getting this version of Ant-Man Final Battle, give LEGO customer service a call. They'll hook you up with the additional 12 pieces needed to solidify the ant.

Ant-Man Final Battle contains 195 pieces and retails for $19.99. The set clocks in at just over 10 cents per piece.

The box for Ant-Man Final Battle is your standard Marvel Super Heroes theme box: Pics of the minifigs in action, an explanation of the super jumper piece and the promise of a comic book inside. You'll notice that while Hank Pym is included in the minifigure lineup on the front of the box, he doesn't appear anywhere else. Is Hank Pym in a black Ant-Man suit just something LEGO came up with for this set? Or is this a spoiler from the movie itself?

Ant-Man Final Battle includes a thin instruction booklet, a tiny sticker sheet, two numbered bags and two large, plastic wings. My wings got folded up while inside the box, so it took some rolling and flattening to get them back to normal. LEGO doesn't ship sets this small with a cardboard insert to protect the wings.

The first numbered bag builds the enlarged yellow and red LEGO pieces, two huge screws and the Yellowjacket minifigure with his armor. As you can see, the set also includes regular-sized versions of the two pieces, giving us the opportunity to have Scott Lang and Yellowjacket shrink down to ant size.

Bag No. 2 is all about building the giant ant. The ant's thorax creates sockets for the six legs and a place for a minifig to sit. The color choices — dark blue, black and even a few hidden pink pieces — are interesting for this set. Not quite sure why LEGO didn't just go with blacks and dark browns to create an ant.

Next comes the ant's abdomen. Sticking with the dark blue pieces.

The head of ant is reminiscent of the large spiders we've seen in LEGO sets for Harry Potter and The Hobbit, just with less evil vibes. In the original version of this set, the ant's six legs are built directly into this six Technic pieces on the thorax. LEGO updated Ant-Man Final Battle with an additional 12 pieces that strengthened the bond between the legs and the body.

Despite getting bent while in the box, the plastic wings included in the set shape up well once they're locked into the builds that attach them to the ant.

The minifigures

Ant-Man Final Battle comes with three minifigures: Scott Lang, Hank Pym and Darren Cross as Yellowjacket. With the exception of their printing, Scott Lang and Hank Pym are exactly the same. The Yellowjacket minifigure has a unique helmet.

I love the detail LEGO is putting into some of the new helmets we've seen in 2015. Like the Inquisitor seen in the TIE Advanced Prototype set, the three minifigs in this set all feature helmets molded from two different colored plastics. Scott Lang gets a gray helmet with transparent red cutouts.

The one problem with this trio of minifigures is that LEGO didn't create new face printings for any of them. For Scott Lang, the company reused the Ezra Bridger head piece seen in Star Wars Rebels sets.

Hank Pym's body is almost exactly the same as Scott Lang's. It's just missing the silver printing. Since the concept of Hank Pym in an Ant-Man suit hasn't been featured in any of the trailers or TV spots for Ant-Man, it's hard to weigh in on the accuracy of the minifigure.

What we do know, though, is that Hank Pym also got a reused headpiece. Despite the character being played by Michael Douglas in Ant-Man and Ian McKellen playing Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, LEGO went with Gandalf's head for its Hank Pym minifig.

Ant-Man Final Battle also comes with a solid black headpiece for Hank Pym. Curious to see how this plays out in the movie ...

And finally, we have Darren Cross as Yellowjacket. The villain's minifig features crazy detail, both on the body and the helmet. It's unfortunate LEGO reused a clone trooper headpiece from Star Wars for Yellowjacket, but that doesn't overrule the quality of this minifigure. As I said earlier, the three minifigures included in this set are some of the best we've seen in the Marvel Super Heroes theme.

The brick-built weaponry on Yellowjacket's back is also more detailed and functional that similar apparatuses we've seen on Doctor Octopus and Venom minifigs.

Play features

Not much it the way of play features in Ant-Man Final Battle. The enlarged red and yellow bricks do feature a lever that let you flick those big screws through the air.

Overall

For just $19.99, Ant-Man Final Battle is totally worth it to acquire the three minifigures. If you add it to your collection, make sure you either got the updated version of the set or call LEGO customer service to get the additional pieces.