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 Sunday, January 8th, 2012 at 10:39am by Andrew, BZPower News Manager[Source: Sisen] It is time yet again for another 2012 set review. Today Forum Assistant Sisen takes a look at Thornraxx, the oddly-named insectoid villain. To see what this bug brings to the table, read on! Presentation
The first thing you see before tearing into Thornraxx, who I'll call Matt throughout the rest of the review, is the packaging. You can see Matt flying fiercely through some sort of honeycomb type background with a shadowy figure following close behind. Matt looks like a fearsome foe on the packaging shooting a Zamor and sporting a glowing red stinger.
Matt's packaging features the same old information you get on every set. There is an age range, set number, set name (not Matt), etc. One notable difference about Matt's package is that it is not as large as the Hero packaging you would see for the likes of say Rocka or Breez. Now that we have discussed the outs and ins, which is shiny by the way, let us move onto the good stuff. Building
Matt comes with a nice amount of parts for such a small package. The bulk of the packaging is made up of the clear wings, orange tubes, and larger black pieces in the included bag.
The neat part about Matt is he is unlike every other Tom, Sally, and Donna. There is nothing similar to his build that you will see in one of the new Hero Factory heroes. Matt makes for a relatively quick and easy build, but the most important part is: it is fun. As the parts layer on and on the base torso starts to change and something else takes form.
There are some confusing areas in assembly, but we will focus on those later. The body comes together quite nicely, yet I was completely lost as to what exactly it was. While there are big giant insectoid wing things right there in the constructed body, my mind kept going to a speeder-bike. No matter which way you look at it Matt looks like a speeder bike from some faraway alien planet. Unless you look at him with a head.
Now we have a ferocious flying winged beast insect thing called Thornraxx, or Matt for short. Set Design
Matt comes with a few interesting parts that are newish and bluish. While he uses some borrowed and old pieces, we are going to focus on the potential. The black head piece is interesting and probably has more function for armor plating than an actual head in this case. Even the larger black armor has a lot of potential for use in other creations. The piece that was most attractive and caught my eye is shown below:
This type of ball-joint connector has endless possibilities. The larger black armor and the piece shown above have been used in other Hero sets old and new, but the latest models are featuring them more prominently. It is a good way to get your hand on these particular pieces if you are looking for them. The only gripe I had with Matt was his head maneuverability and the armor plating on his shoulders right next to his head. His head is very restricted in its movement unless you want to look straight down, which is probably helpful if you are flying around like he does. The bulky black armor does get in the way of posing him and moving him around in general.
Personally I like the blue and orange used in the set, even though it is overpowered some by the black. It would have been nice if a little more of the colors had been utilized. He's not all bad: sit boy! Playability
No! Matt do not sit on Rocka! How many times do I have to tell you Heroes are not your cushions?
Matt! Please do not interrupt the ninja while he is training! Do I need to remind you what happened last time?
There we go, good job Matt!
Matt is a ton of fun to play with, especially if you go back to the days of Nui-Rama and reminiscence. He has a similar look and feel, but has a style of fun all his own. Whether it be stealing Heroes from the ground to drop from the skies, or sitting on Ninjas Matt is an interesting villain. Final Thoughts
All in all, Thornax er Thornraxx, I mean Matt, is a cool set. Big thanks to Sisen for reviewing this set, and bigger thanks to LEGO for sending it to us to review. Please leave your questions and comments about this set and the review in the Talkback topic. Don't forget to keep checking out the BZPower front page for even more reviews and LEGO news!
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