Yes, the dreaded 'enemy' of Lego.

I recently bought a small Dragon 'set', the Vile Wind Sprinter. Whoa, whoa! Hold the tar and feathers!

The thing is, the Dragons line is very different from their more Lego-like creations (minifigs and studded bricks). More rubber than plastic, hardly any room for making your own creations. An arm's an arm, wings are wings. Sure, you can switch them with those parts of another dragon of that size, but it's still a lot more limited than what one can do with Lego pieces. You can't really MOC with Megabloks.

What they do have is an amazing amount of detail, which is possible because the pieces aren't meant to be multi-functional. They're detailed both in colour and shape. I can see how they could lure kids away from the Lego products. Then again, only the most recent dragons look good, the older ones are remarkably laughable.

But as I said, they follow the same construction theme as the old Lego line Galidor, which was short-lived.

Megabloks has managed to score a Marvel contract as well, which I would regret, were it not that the Megabloks Spiderman and Wolverine look horrible. The Pirates of the Carribean and Pyrates sets rankle a bit, but Lego produces equally interesting pirate sets. Or at least, they used to when I was a kid. (Yawn, ancient history...)

What hurts the most is their Ninja Turtle line... Man, I was a major fan back in the day, and now I see MB producing sets that take me back to those days. Then again, I haven't bought a Turtles toy in over 10 years, so it's not like it matters. But if these had existed in the early nineties, you can bet your bottom dollar I would've bought them.

But despite pros and cons, I'm still an AFOL, not an AFOMB, and am likely to stay one. So rest assured, the Captain is not joining the other fleet.