The LEGO Marvel S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, inspired by the 2012 Avengers film, is an elaborate centerpiece – the perfect, extravagant gift for a dedicated MCU fan. I say "dedicated," because the Helicarrier is not on the level of cultural saturation, as, say, the Batwing or a TIE Fighter, for which the audience is broad and diverse. This is not an impulse purchase; anyone devoted enough to want an intricately detailed, microscaled model of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier will rationalize the $400 expense to purchase it. And for that select, niche audience, this set is everything it needs to be.

Divided into 27 bags with two instruction booklets and one sticker sheet, the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier is a formidable undertaking. It has a high piece variance; I've used all these build elements in prior sets, but rarely have they all been present in a single set and brought to bear on a single result.

You start by building the bowls of the ship, which includes the control room, where the majority of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents carry out their classified duties; the holding area where the Avengers hold Loki prisoner; and Bruce Banner's lab, where Banner and Tony Stark analyze Loki's scepter. There is also the basement area where Banner gets trapped under rubble and goes into a Hulk rage.

The designers represent the humans in these scenes not through minifigures, but through miniature stacks of LEGO studs. Two black studs with a brown stud on top is Nick Fury. A purple stud sandwiched between two olive-green studs is Hulk. A peach stud stacked on a purple stud stacked on a dark gray stud is Hawkeye. It is deeply amusing to recognize these characters via their most minimalist depictions.

After building the ship's underbelly, you build the ship's propulsion engines, which attach to the back of the ship, Then you build the ship's runway, a long element. which 'slides' over the living areas, concealing them. At around the same time, you decorate the top of the Helicarrier to look like an airbase, with supply containers, and fighter jets waiting to dispatch. You can even build a minimalist version of the Quinjet, which you suspend mid-air with a clear peace.

Then, you build the four rotors that keep the ship in the air, and you attach them to the sides of the build via Technic pins.

Next, you build an extendable part of the runway, which contains a mechanism that allows it to rotate. You build the control tower, and add it onto the right side. And then finally, you build black display base upon which it sits, giving the impression that it's actually floating mid-air. The set includes full-sized minifigures for Winter Soldier, Captain America, Phil Coulson, Maria Hill, Hawkeye, and Nick Fury, but they are not proportionally scaled to the Helicarrier; instead, you use clear pieces to anchor the minifigures, mid-air, around the display stand.

When evaluating a LEGO set, most people care most about the end result. How does this look on my shelf? Do its play elements work the way they should? What Easter eggs are buried out of sight? What ancillary visual details enhance the overall presentation?

But the more I build LEGO sets, the more I've come to realize that focusing exclusively on a set's end result does its designers a disservice. One should also judge the build process – of layering bricks, fitting pins in holes, plating Technic elements with smooth surfaces, and reappropriating odd pieces into different contexts – on its entertainment value . Because there are some builds that look phenomenal, but are a chore to get through; the decision to purchase comes down to whether it's worth the aggravation.

The LEGO S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier is a surprisingly fun build; don't let the monotonous gray color scheme fool you. This is not like any other LEGO vehicle, in which the underlying build is essentially the same, and the colorful, outer plating contains the only significant difference. There's lots of sharp curves and angles – lots of unconventional contouring – that forced the designers to get creative.

To create the ship's nose, the designers used clamps to "lock" the plated bricks into an acute angle. But to accomplish that effect, they needed to allow these pieces some mobility and give. And that means they had to plan, from the outset of the build, how the bricks in Bag 2 would eventually connect to the bricks in Bag 25. It's an art, in and of itself, to keep this all straight – to tell a coherent 'story,' of sorts – and take the builder on an epic journey with unexpected twists.