Five more Hasbro properties that need LEGO sets

Now 10302 Optimus Prime has opened the door to LEGO sets based on Hasbro properties, here are five more crossovers we need to see (that we never thought we would).

The newly-revealed Transformers set – which we’ve already reviewed here – is unbelievable in so many ways, but number one is simply that it represents two giants (and rivals) of the toy industry joining forces for a single product.

As recently as last month that felt like an impossibility, with rumours swirling that the LEGO Group’s new Star Wars contract still precludes it from producing Collectible Minifigures from a galaxy far, far away, seemingly because Hasbro owns the rights to selling Star Wars action figures. If that kind of tension still existed between the two companies, how could they ever work together for something like 10302 Optimus Prime?

And yet, here we are, with the first-ever LEGO Transformers set just weeks away from arriving on shelves. More Autobots and Decepticons would obviously be great to see further down the line, but there are also plenty of other Hasbro properties we’d love to see in LEGO form, given the chance – here’s just five…

lego

5 – Micro Machines

Image: Moxmarco, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

The LEGO Group has already experimented with its own take on Micro Machines through the lens of DC and Marvel in the short-lived Mighty Micros subtheme, but we’d love to see it double down on its own range of buildable mini motors. Small LEGO cars would be nothing new, but it’s the fold-out playsets we have such fond memories of and would love to see transformed (there’s that word again) into LEGO models.

Hasbro kiboshed the brand when it first acquired it in the early 2000s, but a recent revival in 2020 could fan the flames for LEGO Micro Machines somewhere down the line.

4 – G.I. Joe

If LEGO won’t go to war, will the company produce sets based on fictional soldiers? It seems unlikely, given G.I. Joe toys lean into modern warfare to a degree that the LEGO Group never has before, but if any brand can give it the excuse to do so – while protected by the defence that it’s ‘just a toy’ like never before – it’s this one.

An American icon for generations, G.I. Joe effectively coined the term ‘action figure’ – you don’t get much more toyetic than that – and its perennial battle between the Joes and the evil (and equally fictional) Cobra organisation seems ripe for serialising in LEGO sets.

3 – Monopoly

Image: William Warby, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Just as with Micro Machines, the LEGO Group is no stranger to board games, having produced a run of original tabletop adventures in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Those led to some inventive concepts, both in-house and under licensed themes like Star Wars, Batman and The Lord of the Rings, but we’d love to see the company tackle existing board games, too – of which Hasbro owns plenty.

The most iconic is of course Monopoly, which could provide the perfect basis for a brick-built, customisable board – imagine all those spin-offs collected in one big box, which you could also personalise with your own street names – but we’d also be keen to see how the LEGO Group might interpret the likes of Scrabble and Cluedo. A huge murder mystery mansion with minifigures of Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett, anyone?

2 – Power Rangers

Image: Hasbro

Look, there’s a reason Hasbro is up there with the LEGO Group as one of the toy industry’s biggest forces, and that’s because so many of its brands are so inherently toyetic, marketable and playable. Power Rangers must rank up there with the best of them, too, having generated over $6 billion in toy sales by the turn of the millennium.

Its colourful, Spandex-clad superheroes surely speak to the LEGO ethos like no other Hasbro brand (beyond Transformers, of course), while its unique blend of live-action stunts and practical effects – adopted (or sometimes directly lifted) from the Japanese series Super Sentai, on which Power Rangers is based – is a one-way ticket to nostalgia city for ‘90s kids.

1 – Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop game that takes place largely within the imaginations of its players, but for those days when you’re too mentally exhausted to picture a horde of goblins piling towards you from a rocky outcropping, why not let LEGO minifigures do the hard work for you? The concept of a dungeon-crawling LEGO board game is nothing new, and has even reached the LEGO Ideas review stage before, but that really just proves there’s demand out there for something like this.

The LEGO Group has already dabbled in this arena to an extent with NINJAGO’s Master of the Mountain sets in 2020, which could be combined to create a pseudo-dungeon crawler board game. But a true LEGO recreation of Dungeons & Dragons could be the perfect accessory for budding dungeon masters to enhance their sessions, and it’s theoretically on the table now thanks to 10302 Optimus Prime.

The first-ever LEGO Transformers set launches June 1 for £149.99 / $169.99 / €169.99. Check out our review here.

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Author Profile

Chris Wharfe
I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

One thought on “Five more Hasbro properties that need LEGO sets

  • 13/05/2022 at 22:40
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    Magic The Gathering-Planeswalkers Minifigures

    Reply

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