Lego Avengers Loki's Cosmic Cube Escape

Recently I learned that I misspent my youth. This is because I have never built anything out of Lego...Anything of substance that is...I can put together a mini-figure. We didn't have Lego as kids, so I didn't have a lot of exposure to playing with them. I did, however, have these giant tinker toys until the event of "The Great Rebellion" which involved swords, tinker toys projectiles and my mother's crystal candy dish. Those were cool, but I have since fallen in love with Lego mini-figures and seem to be gathering an adorable cadre of them.

Much to my dismay, you can't just purchase the Marvel Hero mini-figures (well, you can on ebay...but that's not as fun), so I had been debating, eyeing and considering actually buying a set to construct so I can add to my collection. My spatial relations aren't the best. I can't pack a car to save my life (but I'm not bad at Tetris). I figured this was a skill you needed for Lego, but then I was told...duh, they come with directions! I once put an Ikea coffee table together on my own, so I should be able to tackle this.

Thanks to a gift card and some Amazon searching (it was much cheaper online than at my local Target), enter Lego Avengers-Loki's Cosmic Cube Escape. Tiny Ironman, a little Hawkeye, and a mini-cosmic cube! Perhaps a stronger lady's will-power would have been able to resist...but not mine. So here goes....

Per the directions, first step, separate into color coded piles. Hooray! I know my colors!

Next step. Put together the mini-figures....I thought about doing this last, as a reward for finishing the set, but I also noticed a lot of small pieces go with making the figures so it's probably best to get those accounted for first.

These figures did not disappoint. Iron Man's mask flips up, and both the Hawkeye and Iron Man heads have two different faces to choose from, casual and "battle mode". Ironically, Loki is not two faced- Touché Lego.

Next up, start the truck. Uncharacteristically, this is a task I set upon with laser focus. In truth I'm more of a task hummingbird, flitting from one to anther overly multi-tasking, but when I flipped through the directions (which are visual) I realized it was probably best to stay centered on this. Basically you start building this truck how I imagine an actual truck might be build, starting with the chassis. Here it is at step 20...

At this point, I am realizing the importance of following the directions and of working in the proper sequence. I think I deviated once, and had to go back and redo a bit. Thankfully this is a forgiving medium, but message received. This kind of adherence to directions is probably good for me.

Slowly but surely, it's starting to look like something you could drive.

As you can see, some decals were painstaking applied. There is nothing worse than a crooked decal. I probably haven't said a word in over 25 minutes at this point...The Goog is looking at me with a mixture of amusement and concern.

Doors, a windshield, more decals....the truck bed, a hood. This is so close to being a truck! Just a few more steps and.....

Truck complete! Time to put the scene together.

Epilogue: I liked doing this set. I liked it a lot. So much in fact that I casually mentioned to The Goog that I might want to go by the Lego store in a local mall (I never go to the mall), you know, if he was interested. Was he ever! I also had a custom mini figure I wanted to make anyway. Things just didn't seem right without Agent Coulson.

So, after some time in the Lego store, a chat with a fellow bookclubber and a few purchases by both me and The Goog, a custom Agent Coulson was created (I had to paint his hair since there was no black hair) and the Goog gave me the Nick Fury from the Spiderman set he bought.

Now if only they made that Shaun of the Dead set I saw someone customize....