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LEGO hasn't released much for one of the flagship titles of the Marvel comics universe. Marvel Super Heroes X-Men vs. Sentinel is only the second set featuring those popular mutants. 4 Popular characters, an iconic vehicle, and the most notorious instruments of government sponsored mass murder in the Marvel Universe should lead to one of the best sets that LEGO has produced for this theme. Let's take a look and see how well they accomplished what should be an amazing set. Let's review. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 76022 Name: X-Men Vs. The Sentinel Theme: Marvel Super Heroes Parts: 336 Price: $49.99 The general consensus is that this set is overpriced. The number of pieces is really low for the cost, but you get a lot of big pieces. That may not mean much against typical evaluation though. BOX CONTENTS Some people may wind up picking up a set that is open box or, want to verify the box contents before beginning a build. For this set, there are 3 numbered baggies, a sticker sheet, a comic book, 2 Hull pieces and 2 instruction books. BUILD AND EXECUTION: BAG 1: Along with all the parts to make the Sentinel, you get Wolverine and Magneto. Magneto has a platform that you create for him to fly on. I guess 80's Magneto couldn't just lift himself? I forget. Magneto: You fool, attacking me when you have bones laced with metal. Wolverine: This is the80's bub, your powers are magnetic and Adamantium is non-ferrous so I can cut you into sushi. The first stage of the Sentinel has to be the torso. When I started, I thought for some reason that this was the shoulders. Magneto: Maybe we should team up. I've heard of these mutant hunting super robots. The fully printed slope for the torso is pretty great looking. It's too bad that they used up all of the printing money for the Sentinel. Magneto: Curses, this robot is also made from non-ferrous metal. It seems like in the 80's I was much easier to defeat. Wolverine: Don't worry about it bub, I've got claws. SNIKT The head also looks pretty good. I could have stood for the printed area to be larger, but it really does recall the classic sentinel. Magneto: Did you just say SNIKT? Wolverine: I'm the best there is at what I do and what I do is say SNIKT. I actually like the legs. He's got big stompy boots,just like the classic sentinel. Wolverine: Let's see, where can I go berserk on this thing, bub. Magneto: You fool, you're supposed to destroy it, not have a piggyback ride. The shoulders are slightly bulky, but I think that's just so it can look like it has biceps. I have no idea why a robot has to have muscular biceps, but that's the way it's been shown for a long time. Magneto: I'll use my metal hovery disk to pick up this monster. Wolverine: Hey I just thought of something, if my bones are all covered in adamantium, are my teeth metal too? I can chew through this guy, bub. Sentinel: ALERT! ALERT! MUTANTS DETECTED! The hands are actually somewhat clever. His hand blast is an interesting use of the spring missile. The flick missiles on his back look somewhat awkward. Sentinel: PRIORITY ONE! DESTROY MUTANT KNOWN AS WOLVERINE! Wolverine: UGH Bub! Magneto: Curse these magnetic powers that only work on magnetic metals. Sentinel: MORE MUTANT LIFEFORMS DETECTED! BAG 2 & 3: You start building the bluebird sorry I mean blackbird. Cyclops comes in bag 2 and Storm in bag 3. I find it interesting that the missiles are almost the first thing you build. I kind of expected them to be last. As with most LEGO planes, this set kind of looks like a boat when half completed. It certainly looks more like a boat than a plane. Also, here you see the first sticker from the set. Cyclops: Hmmmm, this sticker says that there's a Sentinel around. There's 4 seats in the bluebird, not terrible considering that technically there's only 3 X-Men. Cyclops: I love to sing while I work. "You put the boom boom into my heart . . ." I always assumed the blackbird would be sleek and ths build just makes it seem tubby and squat. You'd assume that with the seat being so low, the canopy would just go right there, but this big chunk with a handle goes right there, effectively blocking line of site for the person steering the ship. Cyclops: "Wake me up before you go go, don't leave me hanging on like a yo yo," Cyclops: Looking pretty good if I do say so myself (no, no it's not.) In bag 2, we come to one of the most consistent things in Super Hero sets, whether it's marvel or DC, there's usually a fire extinguisher. To paraphrase Tony Stark "We might not save the world, but you can be darn sure that we'll extinguish small fires." Cyclops: Hey Storm, can you help me finish building this thing? I think Professor X was way out of line thinking I could design, build and fly a jet all by myself. Storm: Where does he get enough money to build his own armed stealth jet? The cockpit canopy attaches with a pair of stickers and the blue whale is really taking shape. Check out the flick missile That doesn't look lame or anything just tacked on the outside. (Now that I called it out specifically, you're going to notice it in every picture from now on.) Wolverine: Oof bub, SNIKT. Cyclops: What the? where did he come from? Storm: It sounded like a distant explosion and he just came flying from somewhere else like he had been blasted here. (Tell don't show, I learned that from George Lucas.) There's another hatch for the back compartment. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the fact that they designed it so that you could actually play with your characters back there. Not that it's innovative or any better looking than any of the rest of this thing. Magneto: Quickly X-Fools, the Sentinel is coming, get your flying whale thing ready. Wolverine: Yeah, he's on our side for now. Cyclops: it's not a whale, it's a sleek blackbird. Attach the engines and a couple of stubby wings Magneto: Hurry fools it is coming! Storm: You know, it would go a lot faster if you helped Magnet man. Magneto: Unfortunately you designed this ship out of non magnetic metals so that I couldn't stop you in flight. Wolverine: too bad your arms are broken then bub. Magneto: But they're not. Wolverine: They will be unless you help, bub. The final stretch where you attach the wings provides an optical illusion. You almost think that it's sleek with those long canted wings. They're just sort of tacked on the back though. The rest of the ship is still an ungainly blob. I really wish they had made the wings more a part of the ship. The blackbird was based on the SR-71 blackbird, one of the most interesting planes of the 70's/80's. If you throw enough stuff around it, you might not notice how disappointing the plane is. Wolverine: Grrrrr, the Sentinel's here bubs. SNIKT Cyclops: Oops, why did I design this where I have to stand to fly it? Magneto: I'm out of here, you guys have a handle on it. Storm: Come back here you coward. REACTION: The Sentinel looks fine. It's not great, but it serves its purpose. I almost think that it works better than Groot. I wish it were bigger and solider looking, but what we got isn't terrible. The blue blackbird is not good though. I think it looks terrible. It's more like a blue whale than a black bird. Building this set and the Avenjet within a day of each other really makes me realize how disappointingly bulbous and goofy this set is.I was happy with the wings until I looked at the complete vehicle and realized how much more satisfying almost every other Super Hero plane that I made is. The minifigures are all unique. Magneto and Wolverine were both released previously in other costumes. The Brown and yellow costume is kind of classic for Wolverine. Magneto's Purple costume was a mistake from the 80's and should have been forgotten. I would have 1000x have preferred a straight repack of the previous Magneto. Cyclops hasn't worn this costume in like 30 years. I distinctly remember the last issue of X-Men that he wore it in (I think) X-Men 201 when Mohawk Storm beat him for leadership of the X-Men. Frankly, this entire set reminds me of the 80's, except that stupid plane. Wolverine and Storm are the highlights of this set. Cyclops is sadly a little too plain to really stand out, and Magneto is just lame. There are a lot of accessories for these guys. The only figure in the set without a dual sided head is Cyclops. The detailing on Storm is fantastic including the painted legs. Wolverine's goggles can be used with the mask or even the hairpiece. FINAL THOUGHTS: There's a part of me that looks at this set and sees the disappointing Sentinel and Blackbird and the lame looking Magneto and thinks it's a loser. The larger part of me looks at the fact that LEGO is not releasing X-Men sets consistently. So far there have been only 2 X-Men sets and the previous one blew up. I feel like this set is a slow burner. In a year, people will realize there's not another X-Men set coming and go after this one. This set has lingered a long time, but I think it's just because no one has confidence. They feel like this one is overpriced, so aren't putting money into it. When X-Men Apocalypse comes out, featuring most of these characters, it will disappear from retail. Plus, how inaccurate can it be? it looks like this toy from the 90's (gag) EXTRA PIECES: You get an extra missile and claws plus the standard small pieces

More often than not, the main question LEGO investors are trying to answer is “When is this set retiring?”. As we all know, once a set is retired is when it really has the potential to start growing in value, so it is not surprising that the EOL question is as common as it is in the forums. However, focusing entirely on currently available sets may be causing investors to miss on a potentially lucrative market: sets that have already been retired for quite some time. It is not the first time I write about this, and I know some of other members like fellow Mod Grolim used to bring up quite often in the earlier years of Brickpicker, but taking a look at my last article pushed me to write about a set that I see as a potential money maker even at its current market value. Before getting into that though, let’s take a look at some of the arguments in favor of investing in retired sets. Removes the uncertainty of retirement date and, in some cases, performance. Investing in retired sets allows you to reap the benefits of growth as soon as you acquire a set, removing the need to park your money waiting for a set to go EOL. Most of the already retired exclusives that are performing great are way more scarce than any of the newer exclusives will be once retired. It is pretty clear that the LEGO investing market has seen an influx of buyer over the past couple years, prompting LEGO to produce more and more of the popular sets and keeping them around longer; the older sets were not as massively produced or hoarded. Of course, there are also a couple of arguments against this practice, and it would not be responsible of me to simply omit them. The ones that come to mind are: Risk of remakes. We have seen the two sides of the coin related to this point, as the remake of the UCS X-Wing failed to completely depress the prices of the older version but the new Winter Village Toy shop completely destroyed 10199. Acquiring an already retired set increases the likelihood that investors will be holding a set at the time a remake is announced. High amounts of capital are usually required. While practically anyone can invest on sets that are currently available, it becomes harder when you are targeting sets that are worth upwards of $500. Also, it is important to mention that this article assumes readers are Buy and Hold type of investors. Flipping and selling other sets in the short term can more than likely generate the same or more returns by moving sets quicker. The case for investing in the UCS Super Star Destroyer Some of you may remember the good old times when we saw the Super Star Destroyer selling for $319 on Amazon. Clearly, those days are over, but that does not mean that it is too late to put some money into this impressive set with the idea of making some good money in a couple of years. Why do I even bring this up? Well, just take a look at the following chart showcasing the performance of some of the UCS sets in the past two years1: 1Actual values for December 2013 and 2015. 2014 Data is just an interpolation. Clearly, the performance of these sets has been outstanding over the past couple of years, and some of them were already extremely expensive back in December, 2013. We are talking about an average return of close to 93% in just 2 years over an average price of $750! (90% if we do a weighted average). Even more impressive, most of the sets shown in the graph above have been retired for more than 5 years at this point. Seeing these levels of growth over just two years indicates how solid most of the UCS models are in the long term. The UCS Super Star Destroyer is already selling for almost $1,000 based on the latest Brickpicker data. As mentioned before, investing in these expensive sets requires a certain amount of capital and a moderately high risk tolerance, but looking at how similarly valued sets have performed in the 2 years we have data for, it is a strategy with high reward potential. Back when the SSD was available for retail it already sold for $400 most of the time, making it one of those sets that are somewhat more difficult to hoard for most investors, reducing supply in the secondary market. Besides this, the set is probably one of the most impressive in both size and detail LEGO has ever released, and one that we are more than likely won’t be re-released for quite some time. LEGO has so many other sets to re-release before we ever see another SSD in stores (Imperial Star Destroyer, Millennium Falcon, Snowspeeder, etc.). Honestly, I see this set with the potential to reach $2,000 in a few years, much like its older sibling the Imperial Star Destroyer. This is only an opinion, but I figured I would bring the topic up for discussion and let each investors make up their own mind about it. Thanks for reading!