Whose house? Chuck’s house! We review the Lego X-mansion.

When I became a man, I put away childish things.

Except my Lego. I kept all of those.

I have probably hundreds of thousands of interlocking bricks, dating to a police van I received as a gift in 1985 when I was in kindergarten. All of my G.I. Joes, my Transformers, my He-Man and Thundercats — those gender-essentialist essentials of the 1980s — went to yard sales, donation drives and younger cousins, but the Lego stayed in the picture.

Eventually, the two plastic totes of them that survived my childhood made their way into my current home, where having children made the collection grow exponentially, and Lego’s various licensing deals made it grow even more. Star Wars Lego. DC Lego. Minecraft Lego. Super Mario Lego.

And, of course, Marvel.

I was never a buy-the-expensive-sets guy. Anything over $60 and I start getting hives. I once stared at the Daily Bugle set in a Lego Store in Goshen, New York, for a half hour while I allowed the meat sweats to soak me back to reason. 

Just say no, Dan. Just say no.

But Lego had my number. And that number was 76294.

Lego announced the X-mansion set in October. A display under glass was part of the Marvel booth at last year’s New York Comic Con. 10 minifigs. 3,093 pieces. $329.99.

The set comes with Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Iceman and Bishop, for an even distribution between the early 1990s Blue and Gold teams, all in their classic Jim Lee (or, in Bishop’s case, Whilce Portacio) designs.

Asking for the set for Christmas felt like a bit of a longshot (heh, Longshot), but it ended up being my last present under the Christmas tree. My wife is good’un, y’all.

The set comes broken down into 24 individual plastic bags with three instruction booklets and three separate base plates, as the mansion is broken down into three distinct chunks. A note at the front of the first booklet says Lego is transitioning from single-use plastic to paper packaging for its bags. This is admirable, as I’d always found the individual bags — and the smaller baggies often found within those bags for smaller pieces — a bit wasteful. That said, dumping all of the pieces in a set like this in the box without any sort of grouping would force you to spend time sorting through all 3,000+ pieces at once to make sure you had what you needed. Paper bags are probably a happy medium, plus, as Lego points out on its website, it adds an extra unboxing effect.

You could make the argument that if Lego wanted to take its sustainability efforts further, it wouldn’t include so many extra pieces in its sets nor would it include one of those orange pull-apart tools in every one, but builders likely appreciate having the extra pieces for customization and, to paraphrase Jim Shooter, every Lego set is someone’s first.

I documented the build initially on Instagram, starting Christmas Day and finishing Jan. 10, taking it one to three bags at a time. But here are my thoughts now that I’ve had a little more time to sit and stare at it on my desk at home.

The quick-and-dirty version is that it’s a gorgeous set with lots of opportunities for story and play, built in such a way that you can pull pieces of it out and rearrange things without compromising the build. But let’s go bag by bag, shall we?

Bag 1

We start off with Wolverine on a motorcycle and the torso of a Sentinel. Extra pieces include a claw and Logan’s hair. And of course, the all-important orange pull-apart piece I have dozens of.

Bag 2

We get the rest of Sentinel, including feet, arms, head and shoulder pauldrons. This bag came with some extra clear bits for as yet unclear reasons. The instructions remind me how hard it is to tell light gray/dark gray and dark gray/black Lego apart, but my wife says I’m colorblind. Anyway, I built a hate robot!

The funny thing is, I have one of those mech-sized Lego sets of Wolverine, the shortest X-man, and he’s taller than the Sentinel, who comes up to about where the roof of the mansion meets the walls.

Bag 3

Our second minifig is Xavier, complete with hoverchair (no Cerebro helmet, sorry) and our first chunk of house. Note the claw marks on the pavement. Wolvie must’ve tripped and fell.

You might be asking, based on the photo, “What’s up with that golden pyramid in the middle? It will turn out to be something to hold up the plate atop it, but if you need a story reason, let’s say it’s a tiny replica of Apocalypse’s pyramid base hidden beneath the floorboards.

Bag 4

Behold the X-foyer! That X-shaped rug really ties the room together, man.

Bag 5

Our third minifig is JEEEEEEAAAAN, with bright orange hair and translucent fuchsia energy bits. Characters who can fly, float or levitate get a clear one-by-two brick to create the illusion of there being nothing under them. You don’t see it here, but there’s a “Days of Future Past” wall around the back, with none other than Papa Chris himself in the bottom right.

Bag 6

Here we have lots of little accents: an elevator, chairs, a bust (or motorcycle helmet rest), a gutter pipe and a pic of Charles and Max in happier times. Lots of extra pieces in this batch. Also the mansion has a widow’s walk, so Charles can sit and wonder whether his beloved is well at sea.

Bag 7

Here we have the man with more than 26 plans. Cyclops makes eye lasers by holding up a red paddle with a projectile shooting off it. It’s a choice. I like that you can take his hair off and it’s effectively his Neal Adams costume. Otherwise, it’s an empty room with an … ice floor?

Bag 8

The room has walls now. 1 extra piece, a clear doorknob. No minifigs.

Bag 9

It’s the medlab! And not a doctor in sight! Hank must be off doing war crimes. One set of drawers has a syringe and a cookie. Another has a stack of VHS tapes, maybe those old episodes of X-Men ‘92 that came two to a tape? Why is Wolverine’s X-ray on the floor? Pick up your stuff, Beast! Lot of extra pieces. Also shout out to Cerebro on the wall (not shown)!

Bag 10

Our fifth minifig is Storm! (Alison Sealy-Smith demanding you meet her at the monorail not included, but little plastic lightning bolts are.) This is the first part of a roof build. There’s a lever device in the middle. Nine extra pieces.

Bag 11

The dome atop the roof breaks away via the lever on the back, for when Magneto or the Sidri or Sinister or Bastion attacks. It’s pretty neat! Like the Est. 1963 sticker on the front. This ends the first instruction booklet.

Bag 12

“The name’s Gambit. Remember it!” (Oh man, now I’m thinking about that time he died again.) His card-charging effect gets a custom piece that looks like magenta goo, like something you’d get with a symbiote minifig. The cards are stickers on one-by-two tiles. I think in this case I’d prefer the design on the tile itself over a sticker. The tiny stickers make it easier to mess up placement. The spikes on the floor lead me to believe this is the beginning of some kind of dangerous room.

Bag 13

The Danger Room continues to come together. Lots of red lights and clear bits. Also lots of building walls in chunks and attaching them to the whole, which I like. The cardboard box visible in the upper right corner is labeled “Trask.” Wonder why.

Bag 14

Lots of detail in this one. One side of the building is supposed to look blown out, with debris flying everywhere. The Danger Room has lots of fun slide-y bits. There’s a basketball hoop outside for X-Men Vol. 2 #4-ing, which explains the orange orb. The media room shows the media dithering in favor of the oppressors. Don’t do that, the media! It’s part of why our country’s in its current predicament!

Bag 15

Howdy, Sugah! Rogue is our seventh minifig. This bag is the beginning of the top floor of the Danger Room. It includes the little control room where many an X-man has been all, “The controls are locked! I can’t turn it off!” till Kitty phases through the computer and shorts it. But Kitty’s not here right now, is she? IS SHE? Never forget that the Danger Room was once a sentient robot Xavier enslaved.

Bag 16

The Danger Room has four breakaway walls with various bombs and lasers and rockets on them. Makes me wish this set had Angel so he could flap around and dodge them. As if 10 minifigs weren’t enough, lol. (Actually, I have others; more on that later.) There’s a chessboard on the floor like the newspaper and Wolvie’s X-ray. Messy, messy mutants, just leaving piles of things on jump plates!

Bag 17

We’re at the 2/3 mark now, and the build is looking really good. That said, it’s weird that the roof accents on the wings are gray hot dogs. Can’t unsee that.

Bag 18

We’re in the endgame now, building the last third of the house. And Iceman is here! Hi, Bobby! Also it looks like Charles left his stationery on the floor, because again, these mutants be messy like that. Maybe’s it’s his will!

Bag 19

Here we have a classroom, complete with Beast Zooming in from the lab. Lots of stickers and another sliding element, plus another thing on the floor! Graffiti on the exterior wall mentions Pixie, who is not in this set. Come to think of it, the 2000s-era X-students would make great minifigs: Pixie, Quentin Quire, the Cuckoos, Glob Herman, Rockslide, Anole, Prodigy, Laura Kinney, Dust, Surge. Just don’t put them on a bus.

Bag 20

The classroom and library are complete. From the bookcase, it’s clear the students are studying important things like medical science and Creole. These little lawn pop-outs are either sprinklers or gun turrets. Or both. Most binaries are false.

Bag 21

This appears to be a bedroom for Wolverine and Nightcrawler, judging by the sword on the wall. Wonder how often they push the beds together. More importantly, check out the textured hair on Bishop! Good job, Lego! This may be my favorite minifig of the set, though I feel like it could have benefited from an actual bandana piece rather than the painted-on bandana.

Bag 22

Man, if you like the stickers that come with Lego sets, this bag’s for you! LOTS of detail on this one. An X-Men #1 (1963) comic on the floor, a photo of Scott and Jean for Logan to stroke wistfully, a pack of Guble Bubble gum(?), spilled coffee, a computer showing Legacy Virus data, a dumpster with a hat and a sword in it, Dazzler and Nightcrawler posters. Great bag, great bag.

Bag 23

Once we attach the East Wing roof, we get to mash the whole thing together. Both wings are attached via Technic pieces at the bottom that can easily be pulled apart if you want that Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, cross-section of the mansion look. The build looks pretty complete, but we still have one more bag.

Bag 24

And now we have the final product. This bag comes with lots of clear pieces to create the illusion of jumping, flying, etc., all of which help customize the action. There also are a bunch of extra stickers you can use to create more damage effects around the mansion. Our 10th and final minifig is Magneto, who comes with helmet or hair. Unfortunately, I missed a sticker somewhere in the build, a picture of the original five X-Men with Xavier, who now that I’m thinking about it, shouldn’t be in his hoverchair there, as that’s pre-the mansion’s Shi’ar glow-up. Anyway, I stuck it in a chimney out of laziness.

So that’s the whole build, and I gotta say, it was extremely satisfying and a lot of fun. As I mentioned, it sits on the hutch of my desk at home, displayed prominently next to a couple cookbooks and my Jack Kirby’s Fourth World omnibus.

But we’re not done yet.

A couple years ago, my ride-or-die and CXF Interview Podcast co-host Matt Lazorwitz got me a bunch of those bootleg X-Men minifigs you see at cons, so I added Mystique, Emma Frost, Cable and Magik to the set. There are more MIA, including Black Tom Cassidy and Warpath, but the fun thing is the next time I’m at a show and see that table, I can buy some more and add to the tableau. Bootleg Lego Pete Wisdom, here I come!