Review: LEGO 76107 Thanos: Ultimate Battle

April 15, 2018 | 23

If you’ve been a long-time reader of the blog, you’ll know that I bloody love the Milano Spaceship from Guardians of the Galaxy. I awarded a perfect score to the original ship (76021) and also gave a really high score to the smaller version from the sequel (76081).

The original remains one of my favourite LEGO sets of all time, so the bar is set really high when it comes to Guardians of the Galaxy spaceships.

Enter 76107 Thanos: Ultimate Battle in 2018, the latest set from the Infinity War theme that debuts a wildly different version of the Milano spaceship in a striking shade of bright orange.

The eye-catching colour scheme isn’t the only major change – the new Guardians ship isn’t even called a Milano anymore – according to the marketing material, the ship is called the Benatar!

Obviously an homage to Pat Benatar, and I’m willing to bet we’ll get Love is a Battlefield blaring over the cinema speakers as they open fire on Thanos.

I consider 76107 Thanos Ultimate Battle a necessary purchase if you’re into LEGO Marvel Super Heroes because of the excellent ship AND perhaps more importantly, the inclusion of the Thanos bigfig with the Infinity Gauntlet which you just HAVE to get.

Let’s jump into the review!

Name: Thanos Ultimate Battle
Set Number: 76107
Pieces: 674
Price: AU$119.99 | US$69.99 | £69.99 (Buy from LEGO.com [AUS] [USA] [UK] [Amazon])
Exclusive to: N/A
Minifigs: 3
Bigfigs: 1
Theme: Marvel – Infinity War

This is the sticker sheet included. Nothing too tricky or tough to apply – mostly just decorative elements for the Milano Benatar (Milano was such a cooler name and I’m going to have to get use to calling it Benatar) which are easy to apply, stickers for Iron Man’s space attachments, and details for Thanos’ gauntlet-holder.

Here’s the lineup of minifigs and Thanos. For the second largest Infinity War set, the minifigure selection is a little lacking. We get 2 Guardians – Gamora and Star-Lord, Iron Man, and a bigfig Thanos.

I think one or more minifigures would’ve made this feel a lot more substantial for the price. There’s a distinct lack of Drax (the only OG [Original Guardian] missing from the Infinity War lineup) or even Mantis, which I felt is a very noticeable exclusion.

All minifigures except for Star-Lord are exclusive to this set, although the Iron-Man minifigure is technically the same as the one from Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown sans fancy space-wings.

Here’s a look at Iron Man Mark 50  minifigure which features the space thrusters, and what LEGO and Marvel dub as an electromechanic armor suit. The printing on the body is sublime, with many fine printed lines and details.

I also really love that there’s printing on his feet, and the blue eyes which is a nice callback to the Heartbreaker Armour.

What makes this Iron Man MK50 minifigure unique to the one from the Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown are his space wings which are attached to his back by way of a neck clip. The details on the wings are achieved by stickers and I’m honestly not a fan.

The wings are much too bulky for me and totally throws off the balance of the minifig, so much so that it can’t stand on its own without being affixed to a base plate. The wings look worse when you compare them against the Hot Toys scale model which are so much smaller and sleeker.

I get what LEGO were trying to achieve, and the challenge of shrinking them down to minifig-size but it just doesn’t look good.

Popping open the mask reveals a Tony Stark face with the virtual heads up display beamed across his face which I really like.

Here’s a look at the other side of the face which has Tony smiling, as well as the back printing. Again, it’s kind of a shame that we don’t get arm printing, but I’ve kinda given up that coming back in 2018.

Gamora’s minifig has benefited from a small update, but the same can’t be said for Star-Lord, who is identical from his previous outing in 76080 Ayesha’s Revenge. Star-Lord also doesn’t come with his signature face mask which is bit of a let down.

Gamora on the other hand, benefits from a totally new outfit comprised of a brown leather trenchcoat, over a black leather outfit.

Here’s a look at the back printing and their alternate faces. I dig Gamora’s updated look, but Star-Lord just feels lazy from LEGO’s part, especially since we also got the same Rocket in 76102 Thor’s Weapon Quest.

The big draw of the set and big daddy of the LEGO Infinity War sets is of course the Thanos bigfig. Everyone’s favourite purple Titan makes his second outing as a bigfig which closely matches his Infinity War appearance.

He’s not really purple – it’s much closer to a shade of lavender but I do like how the colour contrasts against his dark blue suit, which has flecks of gold and purple detailing on it. He wields a big-ass sword in one hand, but does he really need one?

Here’s a look of Thanos from behind.

Thanos of course comes with the Infinity Gauntlet, which has its own nifty stand. The gauntlet has sockets for all the Infinity Stones, which are spread out across all 6 Infinity War sets to encourage people to buy ’em all to get a fully fitted gauntlet.

This set includes the Reality Stone, which is the red gem from Thor 2: Dark World.

You can swap out one of Thanos’ hands for the Infinity Gauntlet, which looks marvelous. The size is just right and the mad titan looks so much more menacing with it.

With Infinity War shaping up to be THE cinematic experience of the year (if not decade), most LEGO Marvel fans will no doubt be delighted with Thanos, especially if they missed out on him previously.

Here’s a comparison of the first Thanos bigfig on the left vs the newer Infinity War bigfig. The older version was included in 76049 Avenjet Rescue Mission from 2016.

I have a slight preference for the older one as I don’t quite like the sleeveless look and I feel that the newer Thanos is just a bit too pink, but an easy way to get the best of both worlds is to just perform an arm swap for best results.

Here’s the Benatar Spaceship in all its orangey glory. The Benatar’s shape has undergone quite a significant transformation compared to its predecessor, the Milano Spaceship.

The wings and overall profile of the Benatar is a lot more narrow and sharp, and I’ll have plenty of comparison photos a little later in the review.

I absolutely love the new shape of the Benatar – here’s a bird’s eye view of the bird-shaped spaceship. The design of the wings seem to have been inspired by a boomerang.

From the side, the Benatar truly shines as you can see the wings spread out the back like an eagle that’s mid-dive with the feathers flaring outwards.

The wings make very clever use of cascading plates, giving it a sense of texture and toughness to it. The wings retain a lot of the signature features of the Milanos, with the grey curved slopes angled downwards at the front.  I like that sense of design continuity.

While I like the design, the structural strength of the wings is a little too flimsy for my liking. While I was photographing it, the wings would dislodge with just the slightest bump which doesn’t feel me with confidence that it will hold up well to rigorous play.

On the underside of the wings, you can see two “engine pads” which make excellent use of a transparent blue webbed radar dish over a solid purple one.

The roof of the Milano opens up which allows you to place minifigures in the cabin which has 2 seats.

Here’s a look at the cockpit, which sees the same transparent cockpit from the 2017 Milano make a return. The bird-like features also make a return, and you can see the grey eye at the side, along with the curved slopes at the tip making the shape of a beak.

The cockpit glass lifts up, but the entire front can also be raised like a hatch. On the inside of the cockpit, there’s a Space Scooter, which can be ridden by Peter Quill and Gamora.

The Scooter is as basic as they come and isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s a fun little surprise and I did enjoy how they incorporated it into the overall build.

Here’s the Benatar from the back. There are back fins which can be swiveled backwards to give it a much more aerodynamic (cosmodynamic?) look. The back looks very awkward with the rigid and flat – almost like it’s incomplete.

Rocket’s Escape Pod from 76108 Thor’s Weapon Quest is actually part of the Benatar, and slots into the ship’s behind easily.

I like the fact that the designers spent a lot of time mapping out how different sets within the same theme interact with one another, aside from the obvious “catch ’em all with Infinity Stones” that’s going on. It gives a much stronger incentive for fans to buy the sets as they organically complement one another.

The downside of that is that with the Benatar, you’re really getting an incomplete ship, which bumps up the “true” price of the ship as you in reality need to factor in Thor’s Weapon Quest into the equation.

Here’s how the docking mechanism works in video form.

The pod looks great when attached to the Benatar – it makes the ship look a lot bulkier but I like it for the most part.

The ship docks using a combination of pins and two flaps (the orange curved slopes with stickers) that fasten themselves to the pod.

Lastly, the major question on most people’s minds – how does the Benatar stack up against the Milano. Like I mentioned, the Benatar has a much larger wingspan and is a lot sleaker whereas the original Milano has a much more bulky body.

Here’s a top down view to further illustrate how dramatically different their shapes are.

Here’s how the Benatar looks compared to the other 2 Milanos.

And now the billion dollar question – which one do I prefer? While I absolutely LOVE the original Milano spaceship, I have to say that the new orange Benatar has just supplanted the OG Milano as my favourite Guardians ship.

I’m a massive fan of the orange, and I think the overall design of the Benatar has matured so much, from the details across the body, mix of colours, to the overall shape of the spaceship.

There, I said it!

What I liked:

• The Benatar ship is just sublime in every way
• Connects to the Escape Pod from Thor’ Weapon Quest
• Thanos bigfig and the Infinity Gauntlet!

What I didn’t like: 

• Minifigure lineup is a little weak
• A little bit on the pricey side, but nothing a discount can’t fix
• Recycled Star-Lord with no mask

Final thoughts: I cannot stop obsessing over what a beautiful ship the Benatar is. The striking orange paint job is both exciting, contemporary and eye-catching in all the best ways, underscored by its great overall shape and design.

The contours and shape of the Benatar is just so pleasing, with or without the Escape Pod. It represents a level of maturity and sophistication from LEGO’s design team that has just translated so well into the model, making it a cracker of a set to put on display.

The ship is clearly THE star of the set (sorry, Thanos), and if you’re a fan of the other 2 Milanos or space ships in general, it doesn’t get any better than this.

That said, the set isn’t perfect and has plenty of flaws such as the minifigure lineup which is lacking in so many ways. For a set at this price point, you really expect more than 3 minifigures.

Heck, in Thanos’ first appearance, the set was cheaper, and contained 4 minifigs + 1 bigfig, so I don’t really know why LEGO skimped out on the minifigures here.

Adding insult to injury is the lazy recycling of Star-Lord, made worse by the fact that they don’t include Peter Quill’s iconic mask – which is almost criminal if you think about it.

The set is also quite pricey, as a standalone set, or if you want to consider the Escape Pod from Thor’s Weapon Quest as an additional cost to properly complete the ship. Sure, we all expect to pay the bigfig tax, but LEGO could’ve easily included Drax or Mantis in the set to increase the set’s overall value.

Thankfully, Thanos does a great job of justifying the price and is yet another major draw of the set thanks to the Infinity Gauntlet. I mean, if you’re collecting Infinity War sets, you kinda need the big bad guy and his golden gauntlet to fill up with Infinity Stones. Thanos makes the set’s relatively high price slightly bearable.

At the end of the day, the Benatar and Thanos make this an easy set to recommend, especially if you’re a LEGO Marvel Super Heroes/Avengers fan. In fact, the set’s virtues pretty much sells itself and if you can get this at a discount, you’ll be be mostly pleased with the set.

Rating: 4/5

Thanks so much for reading and apologies for the slight slowdown in posts. Some really big stuff happening in my life that I’m trying to sort out at the moment.

I hope you enjoyed the review and if you want to read more LEGO reviews, check out the the Review Hub where you’ll find links to other Marvel Super Heroes and other reviews.

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I’d love to know what you think of 76107 Thanos Ultimate Battle and the fancy new Benatar ship. Are you a fan of the orange colour scheme and shape? How do you rate it compared to the previous 2 Milano ships? Let me know in the comments!