Super Heroes Marvel

The Guardians' Ship

A near-UCS Marvel display ship at half the Star Wars price.

4.5/5

Set 76193 · 2021

Pieces1,901

Minifigs6

Year2021

Set number76193

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The verdict

If you love the Guardians and want a big display piece that actually looks like the real thing, this one's a genuinely easy yes.

The Benatar recreates the movie ship with the kind of accuracy you usually only get from pricey UCS Star Wars models, and the swooshy display stand seals the deal. The only real gripes are the missing Drax and Nebula figs and the sheer amount of shelf it eats. Grab it for the shelf, not the playroom floor.

Best for: Adult Marvel fans who want a showpiece spaceship on display

The full review

What it is

So here's the pitch: The Guardians' Ship is LEGO®'s big 1,901-piece love letter to the Benatar, the swooshy spaceship the crew flies in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. This is the grown-up version of the ship, a rebuild of the original Milano, and the whole design brief here was clearly accuracy. When you set it next to a movie still, the profile just lands. The nose taper, the swept wings, the little painted markings recreated in plates and tiles, it all reads as the real thing rather than a blocky approximation. This is one of those sets that quietly rivals the Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series ships, except it lands at a much friendlier price, which is a lovely surprise.

The catch

Now for the honest bit, because that's what mates are for. The original retail was 159.99 dollars, and while that's fair for the size, this thing is big, nearly 59cm wide, so you need to actually plan where it's going before you buy. The build itself can drag in the middle; there's a lot of fiddly layering and small panel work, and more than one reviewer admitted to zoning out halfway through. The bigger sore point for a lot of fans is the minifigure roster. You get Star-Lord, Rocket, teenage Groot, Mantis, Thor and a Chitauri soldier, which is six figs, but Drax and Nebula are nowhere to be found. Swapping Thor and the alien grunt for the two missing Guardians would have made this feel complete, and their absence is the one thing people keep circling back to. There's also no deployable auxiliary pod from the films, though tucking that in would have messed with the clean exterior lines, so that trade-off is at least understandable.

Who it's for

Who's this for? If you're an adult Marvel fan who wants a proper centerpiece, something to swoosh once and then display forever, this is an easy recommendation and the 4.5 community rating backs that up. It's a display model first, a play set a distant second. If you mainly want the full Guardians lineup in minifig form, or you're tight on shelf space, you might feel a bit short-changed. And heads up: this one retired at the end of 2023, so it's aftermarket only now and prices have been bouncing around its old retail. But if you can grab it near that number, you're getting one of the best-looking non-Star-Wars ships LEGO has put out.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building the Benatar is a slow, layered affair rather than a fast swooshy one. You start with the internal skeleton and the interior, which is genuinely one of the highlights: there's room for four figures seated and a couple more standing, with three seats dotted through the ship and enough little touches that it feels like the crew actually lives there. From there it becomes a study in shaping. The wings and hull are built up with stacks of wedge plates, curved slopes and tiles, and the detailed panelling is exactly what makes the middle stretch feel slow. It's rewarding when a section clicks into that recognizable curve, but if you like brisk builds, know that this one asks for patience.

On the parts front, the value story is strong for a licensed set: 1,901 pieces for 159.99 dollars retail is solid, and a big chunk of that count goes into the wedge plates and curved slopes that do the heavy lifting on the ship's organic profile. Those large sloped and wedge elements are the useful haul here for MOC builders who want smooth aircraft or spaceship surfaces. The six minifigs punch above their weight too, with Star-Lord, Rocket, teen Groot and Mantis all being exclusive to this set at release, so the printed detail on those is part of what you're paying for. Top it off with the tilting display stand, and you've got a set that spends its piece budget where it counts: shape and presentation.

Fun facts

01The ship in this set is the Benatar, the upgraded craft the Guardians fly in Infinity War and Endgame, which is itself a rebuild of the original Milano from the first film.
02In the MCU, the Milano and the Benatar are named after Alyssa Milano and Pat Benatar, a running gag about Peter Quill's 1980s pop-culture obsessions.
03The finished model spans nearly 59cm (about 23 inches) wide, putting it in the same size league as Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series ships but at roughly half the price.
04The set retired at the end of 2023, and Star-Lord, Rocket, teenage Groot and Mantis were all exclusive to it when it launched.