Series 27 of the LEGO Collectible Minifigure (CMF) line has delivered some very cool new prints and molds that will most assuredly appear in future sets and other products down the line. Included in this series is a redesign of a minifigure familiar to AFOLs who grew up with the Classic Castle theme in the late 80s and early 90s: The Wolfpack Beastmaster. The Wolfpack Beastmaster is just one of many minifigures in the last several years to revive classic themes and designs of what many consider to be the golden age of LEGO—and as such it is already demanding top prices on the secondary market.

The M-Tron powerloader is definitely a contender for one of the best minifigure remakes

This trend of revamps and redesigns is not reserved for just the CMF line. While Basil the Batlord, the Falconer, and M-Tron spaceman are just a few examples of classic minifigures receiving new designs in the last few CMF series, recent Icon sets like the Medieval Town Square and Eldorado Fortress provide contemporary variants of familiar figures, including one of my favorites: the Black Falcon Knight.

With all of these remakes of recognizable minifigures, I’d like to propose a fan-draft for a CMF series dedicated to reimaginings of LEGO mascots and icons from all across The LEGO Group’s history. Today, we’ll be counting down 12 classic LEGO mascots that need a CMF-remake treatment.

Ground Rules

In an effort to provide a diverse list of entries, certain rules and restrictions need to be put in place. In speaking to both patrons and fellow contributors on BrickNerd about who should be on this list, I got some really cool (and often very obscure) potential entries. However, not all of them will make it here.

Minifigures who’ve received a redesign sometime in the last decade years will not be on this list. For example, themes like Adventurers are very much in the minds of the designers currently at LEGO. Johnny Thunder has received two major redesigns recently. The same goes for his fellow explorers, Dr. Kilroy and Pippin Reed. If a specific character has received a remake recently, don’t expect to see them here.
Given the recent resurgence of the Castle theme through Icons, this list will not include any remakes of Castle factions from 1980-1997, as the process of remaking select figures from this era is most likely well underway. Will we see every faction represented in the next few years? Probably not. But this rule helps to ensure a diverse list of entries.
Similarly, Classix Space minifigures from between 1979-1993 that have yet to receive a redesign will not be included. Arguably, the major factions from this era have all been given a contemporary rework (M-Tron, Ice Planet, Space Police I, and Blacktron I and II). Sorry, Futuron, you’ve received remakes scattered throughout other themes and sets.

All minifigures on this list will be major representatives for the themes or other IPs they are a part of. If we’re paying tribute to a retired theme, then the character in mind has to be closely tied to said theme.

With these guidelines out of the way, let’s get started. In no particular order, given this is a series and not a ranking, these are the twelve LEGO icons that need to be in the Classic LEGO Characters CMF Series 1.

1. Ogel - Alpha Team

You might be asking, why is Doctor Ogel here and not Agent Dash? For starters, Dash already received a great update in CMF Series 16 that I don’t think can be topped. Doctor Ogel was the villain of Alpha Team during the entirety of the theme’s run. Not to mention, he was a recurring antagonist and character in the pages of LEGO Magazine in the 2000s!

In the November-December 2002 issue in a crossover comic between Alpha Team, Island Xtreme Stunts and the Soccer subtheme, Doctor Ogel attempts to capture two soccer teams for an underwater match. Scattered throughout the rest of the magazine is Ogel and his negative, villainous attitude. He even got on the Amazing Redini’s bad side, giving the mail mascot a haddock—or headache, I guess.

Part of the charm of The LEGO Group all the way into the 2010s was the company’s encouragement of cross-theme play and interactivity. Ogel is a villain that can go toe-to-toe (Well, I guess minifigs don’t have toes, come to think of it) with any other of LEGO’s greatest heroes. Would Ogel really square up against Pepper-Roni of all people? Yes, he would. And he did.

Could he bring trouble to the Ninja of Ninjago in the present era or infect the dream world with his Ogel Minions? If he dared take on Pepper-Roni then anything is possible. And given Basil the Batlord’s glorious return (a personal favorite of mine), it’s high time he received an updated design and finally got some torso and leg printing.

2. Duke Exeter - LEGO Universe

He was the face of LEGO Universe, one of the original explorers who discovered the spark of creation, and the representative of the Sentinel faction. Duke Exeter was a cool character (though I was partial to the Assembly leader Albert Overbuild).

If you played LEGO Universe like I did, chances are you wanted minifigures of the faction leaders (among many, many other minifigures in the game). Duke was, I’m sure, on the top of many people’s lists for physical figures from the game. At one point or another, developers and members of the LEGO Universe project had aspirations to see the world of LEGO Universe reach shelves in some sort of way.

LEGO Universe was rather short-lived, but its influence on me and other members of the community today can still be seen, especially through the Darkflame Universe project that has revived the game in the current day. And what better way to honor LEGO Universe than to see its leading man and face of the game immortalized in plastic, complete with all of those cool, unique pieces exclusive to him?

3. Takeshi - Exo-Force

Exo-Force crawled so that modern LEGO mechs could run (and occasionally bend their knees). I thought it appropriate to include a character from Exo-Force in this series, given the theme’s importance to the evolution of mechs of the modern day. We wouldn’t have Cole’s Dragon Mech without the Grand Titan or Stealth Hunter.

Exo-Force has recently received a tribute in the City line. The Stealth Hunter appeared in 60421 Robot World Roller Coaster Park in 2024 as a prop mech. Why shouldn’t the anime-inspired mech pilots receive recognition, too?

Takeshi specifically gets the honor of representing the Exo-Force theme because he was found on the back page of many instruction booklets alongside minifigure greats like the Mars Mission spaceman. With the production of new hairpieces in ABS, we can also forget the rubber material Takeshi’s (and the other pilots’) hair pieces were made of, but who knows? The next modular could always use a head of cabbage!

Whether you're a fan of mechs, anime, or LEGO mechs, Takeshi is a surefire contender for this CMF line.

4. Nick Bluetooth - Galidor

Galidor has received a lot of attention with designers like Nic Vas sprinkling references to the line in many products he’s played a part in designing.

The original Ninjago City is the standout, as the comic book guy and a movie poster in the city sport the logo and/or characters of the theme. The Galidor poster gave us a glimpse at what a Nick Bluetooth minifigure could (sort of) look like.

And you know, I think it’s about time we see Nick truly return—just maybe with less glinching.

5. Pepper Roni - LEGO Island

That’s right, it’s the dude with the food! It would be remiss of me to not include Pepper in this list given his legacy. LEGO Island—Pepper’s debut—is a cult classic to say the least, being the first LEGO game on PC. (Check out this amazing documentary about LEGO Island that BrickNerd contributed to!)

This pizza delivery kid also went on to star in LEGO Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge, and Island Xtreme Stunts. Pepper also had a place in the LEGO Club magazines. As already mentioned, he’s gone toe-to-toe against Ogel, and if you can do that, well, you can probably do just about anything.

Pepper has been referenced indirectly in recent years with Ronny from Hidden Side sporting a very similar looking pizza shirt to that of the hero of LEGO Island. But I wouldn’t say that Ronny counts as a remake of Pepper.

Current efforts are being made by the Project Island team to remake the original LEGO Island game and their efforts have turned out a great revamp of Pepper that pulls key design elements from each of his video game appearances which highlight the greater need (okay, greater want) for Pepper to return in a CMF line.

6. Timmy - Time Cruisers

I could not resist selecting a representative from Time Cruisers to be on this list, and Timmy, though he shares many similar design choices to Pepper Roni, deserves a spot. For starters, Timmy is one of the very few minifigures with a printed nose. It’s a weird choice, yet it somehow works for Timmy and wouldn’t work for any other minifigure…

Time Cruisers was a product line designed to promote play across multiple themes with the inclusion of accessories from the likes of Castle and Ice Planet to serve as disguises for Timmy and Dr. Cyber. Timmy, like Pepper and, ultimately, Max, served to promote the blending of LEGO worlds for young audiences.

Theme-agnostic characters matter for young builders to ensure their ability to blend the worlds of their favorite LEGO lines is encouraged. Maybe Pepper and Timmy can team up to defeat Ogel or work alongside our next entry to defeat Basil the Batlord or Cedric the Bull. Whatever the situation may be, having Timmy in this CMF line-up was a must.

7. Princess Storm - Knights Kingdom I

One of the chief struggles of designing this list was finding female minifigures who stood out as notable representatives of the themes they come from. Unfortunately, for the majority of themes of the 90s and into the 00s, female minifigures are included for the sake of, dare I say, token diversity. There needs to be a girl on the action team.

In the first year of Bionicle, it was Gali; in Agents, it was Agent Trace; for the longest time in Ninjago, the only girl on the team was Nya. Recent efforts have helped to better diversify the main roster of any given action and adventure theme. DREAMZzz for example, has two very cool lead female minifigures in Izzie and Zoey.

Suffice it to say, the choices for a female representative of a LEGO theme of the 90s and 00s with a name and real prominence were slim.

Princess Storm is a lesser-known minifigure from a rather overlooked subtheme of Castle: Knights Kingdom I. Sandwiched between the Fright Knights led by Basil the Batlord and aided by Willa the Witch, and Knights Kingdom II with its jelly bean knights emblematic of the action themes soon to come, it’s hard not to see why Knights Kingdom I may be neglected. I think it’s cool. Princess Storm is, by my account, the first female knight in the LEGO world. She’s also the first princess knight, a title held only by one other minifigure: Macy from Nexo Knights. Princess Storm also made an appearance in LEGO Island 2, meaning she, like Ogel, is another minifigure who has interacted with our resident pizza delivery boy Pepper.

For her pioneering the princess knight archetype in the LEGO world, and her representation of the overlooked Knights Kingdom I earns her a spot in this CMF series.

8. Tahu - Bionicle

I don’t think there’s much that can be said about Tahu that hasn’t been said before by the Bionicle community for years. He’s the Bionicle. He’s just as iconic as the Brick itself, at least in the eyes of die-hard Bionicle fans and casual Bionicle enjoyers like myself.

The chances that we will ever receive a third generation of Bionicle are very, very slim: but that shouldn’t stop LEGO from continuing to pay tribute to it. 40581 Bionicle Tahu and Takua is easily one of my favorite sets of all time—let alone GWP—with its revamp of construction-based characters into system-built icons. Tribute was also paid to Tahu in the 90 Years of Play brick box. This brick-built Tahu became a meme in the Bionicle community on arrival. So why shouldn’t there be a minifigure version of Tahu to make a very, very strange trifecta?

9. Chief - Rock Raiders

Chief is very expensive. And that is why he is on this list.

In all seriousness, Rock Raiders is a theme that has yet to receive the same level of attention that the likes of M-Tron, Blacktron, and Ice Planet 2002 have received through the Space CMF, GWPs, or revival sets. The works of creators like R.R. Slugger on YouTube and the Rock Raiders video game remake Manic Miners have certainly helped to bring them back into the limelight and receive a revival like that of M-Tron and its other Space contemporaries.

Given that Chief is the leader of the Rock Raiders, and again, his original minifigure is so hard to acquire today, and the fact that the color teal is back and stronger than ever, it felt necessary that he be included in this CMF fantasy series.

10. Edward the Elephant - Fabuland

Fabuland has a strong following in the broader AFOL community, and with a ten-year original run, it’s only right to see its legacy honored in this CMF series.

Selecting which of the many denizens of Fabuland was initially a challenge. Which character from Fabuland best represents the theme as a whole? I settled on Edward the Elephant, given that he’s the titular character of the 1987 series Edward and Friends which aired for two years on Canadian, British and New Zealand television.

With the advent of Animal Crossing in The LEGO Group’s product line and the benefit of new molds for a CMF line, Edward the Elephant, sporting a new head mold and printing, would be a great addition to the series and representative of Fabuland.

11. Willa the Witch - Fright Knights

She’s LEGO’s first witch, and according to LEGO Mania Magazine. She is responsible for turning Basil the Batlord into the fearsome ruler he is today. And her favorite show on Nick at Nite is Bewitched: it’s Willa the Witch!

The Fright Knights faction was strange. It was a far departure from the classic knights and castles that LEGO had produced up to that point as it leaned into the very fantastical with flying machines and lots of dragons, all presented with blacks, reds and (old) dark greys.

As someone who did not grow up on this theme, I can’t say I’m a fan of any of the builds, but I appreciate the aesthetic the Fright Knights were going for, and Basil the Batlord—both in 1997 and 2024—is a minifigure I really dig. The same goes for Willa.

In a time where minifigures like Timmy had a printed nose, Willa has a very, very expressive face with a large, open-mouthed smile highlighting the only tooth she seems to have in her mouth. Her witchy regalia looks very nice as well, and it’d be very, very easy to give her a modern LEGO design. Willa’s companion and pet project, Basil the Batlord, received an excellent redesign in CMF Series 25 so it would be only fair to give her a shot too. Basil, in his current form, is without an army—surely he can at least have this kooky witch to help him cook up some frights for unsuspecting knights.

12. Baron Von Barron - Adventurers

Johnny Thunder, Pippin Reed, and Dr. Kilroy have all received new and updated minifigures in the last few years. They are scattered about City sets and, in the case of Dr. Kilroy, play a key role in maintaining the modular Natural History Museum. But where’s Baron Von Barron?

Baron Von Barron (not to be confused with his counterpart Sam Sinister) was a curator of rare treasures at the command of Sam Sinister in the first year of Johnny Thunder’s adventures in Egypt. He also seems to have been the owner of the Manor Von Barron, which is now a Haunted House and drop-tower ride.

What sort of fate did Baron Von Barron have? Did his time racing through dangerous landscapes prove too much for him? Who knows….

Baron Von Barron’s portrait in the Haunted House

Action and Adventure themes, as exciting and cool as their heroes are, definitely need cool antagonists, and the Adventurers theme wasn’t missing that element by any stretch. In a time where LEGO is paying tribute to themes like Adventurers, I’d argue that to omit its villains is a missed opportunity to provide builders both familiar with these characters and new to them an opportunity to create new stories and conflicts with their bricks. And so, Baron Von Barron, in all his mystery as to his fate, makes it as our final entry in this CMF fantasy series.

Classic LEGO Characters CMF Series 1

And there we have it, those are just 12 of many LEGO icons and characters that I’d like to see remade in a CMF. Paying tribute to the themes and properties of LEGO’s history, I think, is very important and this fantasy draft of figures hopefully does that.

The joy of LEGO has always been its ability to combine nostalgia with innovation. As we see beloved characters from the past return, it’s a reminder that LEGO’s rich history is a treasure trove of creativity waiting to be rediscovered. The figures on this list represent just a fraction of the classic characters that deserve a second chance to inspire builders old and new.

While remakes of sets like the Galaxy Explorer need not be the norm, tributes to past themes in the form of sets and the odd minifigure in a series once and a while go a long way to ensure the continuity of the LEGO’s product lines is preserved and presented to those familiar to, and coming into LEGO as a hobby or form of play.

But who did we miss that should be included in Series 2?

Who would you like to see remade in a CMF? Let us know in the comments below!

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