LEGO Marvel 76178 Daily Bugle Review

The Daily Bugle; it’s a fictional New York City newspaper that will be familiar to Marvel fans, particularly those who are into Spider-Man. Like most New York City buildings, it’s tall and fairly dull-looking, yet when presented as a LEGO model it becomes suddenly alluring. Why? Because not only is it a giant model aimed at adults, cram-packed full of neat little details, but it also comes with a wonderful assortment of minifigures.

Needless to say, if you’re a fan of the web-slinging hero this LEGO set will no doubt be at the top of your must-have unnecessary purchase list. But even if you’re not an avid Marvel fan and simply like a good LEGO model, chances are you still might be intrigued and perhaps even be tempted to part with your cash for this 80cm tall monster of a set.

What’s in the box?

What’s inside of the Daily Bugle’s box you ask? The short answer is: a heck of a lot of bags. Like many large sets these days, LEGO 76178 Daily Bugle features a box within a box, containing pretty much half of the overall bags. Stupidly, however, you need to open the white box within the box to access the first batch of them. There are over 30 bags in all, and all but one of them is numbered 1 through to 16.

Alongside the bags is a 376-page instruction book with a nice introduction to the set by the designer, and two sticker sheets. Yes, unfortunately there are stickers. Over 30 of them, in fact.

The build

As you’d expect, you build LEGO 76178 Daily Bugle from the ground up. Starting out with the large base plate, you lay the foundations for the Daily Bugle building while also creating some detail for the area surrounding it. By the time you’re done with the first floor, which will use up the first six or so bags, you’ll have a wonderful entrance to the Daily Bugle offices, complete with a tiled floor entrance, reception desk, and other decorations. Outside, there’s a news stand to the side of building, planters at the front, and bins as the rear, as well as some other minor detailing.

There are four floors to the Daily Bugle all in all, with the upper three containing a mixture of offices and storage rooms. All are wonderfully detailed, with desks, monitors, storage drawers and other office related furniture. Our favourite touch is a photocopier which you can open.

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Once the building is complete, if you want to see what’s inside any of the floors you can quickly pop off the front for quick access. Well, except the bottom floor. If you want to see what’s inside that, you’ll either have to gaze through the gap left by a removable piece of wall on the lower left-hand side of the model, or lift the three upper floors off the top of it.

On top of the Daily Bugle is a water storage tank emblazoned with some graffiti, a tower adorned with satellite dishes, and a wonderful Daily Bugle sign. Other wonderful details can be found on the outside of the model, too, such as a fire escape that runs from top to bottom on the right-hand side and Spider-Man’s buggy that’s scaling the left wall. The real showstopper, however, is the Green Goblin bursting through the third floor windows. He’s held in the air via a clear rod, while the broken window pieces are attached with ball joints.

Aside from the sheer number of stickers in the set, most of which are used to provide pictures for the many screens found in and outside of the model, putting together the windows for the Daily Bugle is perhaps the only aspect that we weren’t enamoured about while building it. There are just so many of them. And with them being stacked six or so high, they’re quite flimsy when you then try to place additional layers on top. This truly is a model for adults – not only because it’s so big and intricately detailed, but also because you need to be patient and quite dextrous when putting it together.

As you’re building the Daily Bugle, 25 minifigs are built as you move through the bags, as well as an impressive taxi cab and the aforementioned Spider-Man Buggy. The minifig assortment is truly fantastic, with five of them being new and exclusive to this set. You might already have Spider-Ham, Mysterio and Venom, for example, but have you got Blade, Daredevil or Punisher? J. Jonah Jameson, the owner of the Daily Bugle is also included, as well as Black Cat. Some may consider this set worth picking up based on the minifigures included alone.

Play or display?

While the price tag and the 18+ age rating indicates that LEGO 76178 Daily Bugle is a display piece, it’s also very much suitable for play. Being able to pop the fronts off the majority of the floors means you can place the minifigs in and out of it as you please. There’s also the removable wall on the ground floor to consider, the numerous vehicles, and the many places to put minifigs on the outside of the building. If you have kids, or are a big kid yourself, there are many hours of fun to be had with the Daily Bugle, setting up epic battles and incredible scenes.

Most, though, will want to purchase it as a display piece. With its enormous height and generous detailing, it’s a model to truly be admired. It’s also been cleverly designed to fit with LEGO’s modular Creator sets; it carries the same footprint, and peg holes have been hidden into details on the sides of the model so you can attach it to other models

Value for money?

With a total of 3,770 bricks, including 25 minifigures, we think that LEGO 76168 Daily Bugle offers excellent value for money. Being what it is – a set based on a fictional building in the Marvel universe – it won’t appeal to all. But those who are into Marvel, especially Spider-Man, are sure to love it.

Thanks to the hard work that’s gone into designing this set, however, even LEGO fans who aren’t hardcore Marvel fans will lap this up if they choose to part with their cash for it. Putting it together and placing windows can get tiring, but everything else about building the Daily Bugle is so engaging and rewarding that it just doesn’t dampen your enthusiasm. We’d go so far as to claim that this is one of the best LEGO sets ever made.