Review: 76145 Eternals' Aerial Assault
Posted by CapnRex101,Deviants are available throughout the Eternals range, varying significantly in their appearance. 76145 Eternals' Aerial Assault includes an avian example, featuring impressive wings alongside the appealing pearl gold and dark blue colours which characterise the Deviants.
Two minifigures oppose this Deviant, including one exclusive character. Sprite and Ikaris appear marvellous, while the price of £8.99 or $9.99 provides an inexpensive entry opportunity for the Eternals theme, which is certainly welcome.
Minifigures
Ikaris appears in three Eternals sets, surpassing other characters in that regard. While greater variation would have been appreciated, this minifigure looks magnificent. The blue and metallic gold decoration across the torso and legs features outstanding detail and closely resembles the onscreen hero. However, this double-sided head inexplicably lacks appropriate facial hair.
Despite her youthful appearance, Sprite shares the exceptional longevity of her fellow Eternals. This minifigure therefore exhibits similarities with Ikaris, notably including the circular pattern on her torso. The teal colour is distinctive though and looks wonderful, while the double-sided head captures fantastic personality. Strangely, only Sprite's smiling face appears in official images.
Unfortunately, the hair element seems too short when compared with the onscreen character's hairstyle. Ikaris' hair colour leaves something to be desired too. Their accessories are excellent though, including two trans-orange Power Blasts with pearl gold weapons, the purpose of which has yet to be confirmed.
The Completed Model
Several monstrous Deviants populate the LEGO Eternals range, exhibiting various similarities. The colour combination of dark blue, pearl gold and dark red remains consistent between sets, while specific elements are also repeated. However, this creature displays some distinguishing features too, including dramatic wings and claws.
The model measures nearly 11cm in height, although its wings can be angled to increase this apparent size. Moreover, the articulation is excellent as ball joints are located at the shoulders, wrists, hips and ankles. Numerous poses are therefore possible, although the hips are unusual because they are offset slightly, rather than being absolutely symmetrical. Fortunately, that can easily be disguised when displaying the Deviant.
Golden claws are present on the creature's legs, resembling dewclaws. They appear unusual and complement the narrower claws on each hand. Five stickers also decorate the model and these look reasonable, but were perhaps unnecessary because many colours and textures are already included, without the requirement for stickered accents.
The head includes printed eyes, matching those from 76155 In Arishem's Shadow. These look appropriately menacing, flanked by conspicuous ears and including a golden spine on the chin. The wings appear fantastic too, integrating twelve trans-opalescent black curved pieces. These are perfectly arranged and appear on several Deviants throughout the Eternals range.
Overall
While large products from the Eternals range overshadow this example, 76145 Eternals' Aerial Assault provides good play value for the price of £8.99 or $9.99. The menacing Deviant seems impressively detailed and its articulation ensures superb display value as well, even though the hip joints appear somewhat awkward. Using the Technic beam with three ball joints could have avoided this problem.
The minifigures are appealing too, although neither is perfect. Ikaris lacks facial hair which is disappointing, especially because the same minifigure appears in two other sets. Sprite looks great though. Nevertheless, I think the bigger Eternals sets are more exciting and this addition could therefore be skipped, if you are hoping to purchase the larger and more expensive sets.
This set was provided for review by The LEGO Group, but the review represents an expression of my own opinions.
80 likes
23 comments on this article
Love the opalescent colors which seem to be coming more prominently as time goes by.
The Deviant doesn’t do much for me, but I’m not eight years old either. I need to see the movie to get a feel for the Eternals since they were never at the forefront when I was into comics. I’m sure I’ll be thoroughly brainwashed, just like with everything else in the MCU.
I'm sure they're pretty accurate to the source material, but all of the Deviant builds feel a bit cobbled-together. The color scheme is so big. I like the trans-opal black, and I like dark red and dark blue in general so they're fine as Moc fodder, but I don't think I'd keep any of them assembled
Those torsos should be good for custom figs
I don’t know why, but as a hard core Ninjago fan, considering I’ve never brought any other theme apart from city, I am loving all of these eternal sets! They are so…. Interesting. I don’t know how to describe it.
@fakespacesquid said:
"I'm sure they're pretty accurate to the source material, but all of the Deviant builds feel a bit cobbled-together. The color scheme is so big. I like the trans-opal black, and I like dark red and dark blue in general so they're fine as Moc fodder, but I don't think I'd keep any of them assembled"
100 percent agreed. I will pick this up as a relatively inexpensive minifigure/parts pack.
The tail on third to last picture looks like an editing error…
I wish they'd make more unique head prints for specific individuals. I feel like they used to try and make something that looked like the actor, but now we have the same few heads used for dozens of completely different looking people.
The deviant build could’ve been a bit better, but those two outstanding minifigs for only $10? Sign me up!
I love LEGO Marvel, but I'm so tired of the bad minifigures. The torso and leg prints on all of these Eternals figures are a great improvement over others in the line (although they could do with arm printing), but the faces on some of them are just terrible. There are so many bad reused faces on Marvel minifigures and in 2021 they've reached peak stupidity with the Shang-Chi and Eternals sets. Why on earth doesn't Ikaris reuse a Superman face? His main distinguishing power is heat vision and yet he gets the same face as Steve from What If? The hairpieces on him and Sprite aren't great either since LEGO has better pieces that could've been used. I understand that LEGO can't make a ton of new face prints because it costs too much, but they could at least reuse better faces and not use the same faces for different characters.
I do like the Deviant builds in these sets. They're odd but I think the color scheme works in a weird way and you'll amass a nice little army of them if you buy all the sets. Can't wait for the rest of the reviews!
@ohrmazd said:
"Love the opalescent colors which seem to be coming more prominently as time goes by."
I'm not interested in this set but those trans-opalescent flame-blades are very appealing. Hopefully, they will be available through Bricks and Pieces.
I know nothing about this line. The trailer looked interesting, but I'm not as invested in these characters like the rest of the MCU. I have chosen to pass on these since I don't care about the sets (I do love minifig collecting though). And these figures look pretty solid. For $10, this might be a good set, but I wouldn't build it nor would I plan on collecting the rest due to costs. *shrug*
I like this, a really nice entry level set for the range which is complete in it's vision.
I'll probably only pick this one out of the Eternals series. They're all cool, but since I'm mostly after unique parts to use in custom builds, this gives me plenty of neat colors, hinges, and "feathers" for a small price.
The last time we got a set like this for $10 was, I can’t even remember! Some of those parts are real weird though
I just want the parts.
I love how Sprite’s katana is taller than she is. While I find it interesting that they’re using the short tousled hair on her, since that piece is almost never used on Minifigures of women/girls (aside from the secretary from Ghostbusters and Mae Jemison). The hair that they use for Deathly Hallows Ron probably would’ve worked better, maybe Larry the Barista’s hair in dark orange. The rest of the set doesn’t interest me that much but this might be the first $10 MCU set so that’s interesting, and it’s a great deal for one at that. Marvel sets seem like they’ve been getting better in that regard, even considering that awesome Price per Piece value has been fairly common for Marvel sets since the Infinity War ones. That being said, In Arishem’s Shadow is probably the only one I’m gonna get, it’s the closest we’re gonna get to LEGO Eson the Searcher… assuming they’re not one and the same.
I gotta admit, I'm not terribly keen on the Deviant builds, and since I don't really collect minifigures, I feel like most of the Eternals sets aren't going to be appeal to me.
Although I would like the Celestial, I can't even lie about that.
And narrow stickers on slopes just makes me sad.
The deviants are main reason to get these sets. Such cool designs, both as Lego builds and in universe.
That deviant is a mess: the colors are al over the place. Dark red and dark blue: fine, perfect.
But then there also sand green, teal (?) and black,...why oh why?
"Sprite", you say? That doesn't look anything like Kate Pryde to me.
I guess part of why they can have 2 figs and this decent size build for €10 is because of a whole lot of the parts are in multiples.
@Ridgeheart:
Pryde abandoned that name, and that costume, long before she switched from “Kitty” to “Kate”.