LEGO Hero Factory "4.0" pictures have been released...

The preliminary photos of the upcoming 4th series of Hero Factory heroes (they're not called 4.0!) and villains have been illegally leaked and are spreading around the blogosphere and YouTube like wildfire, with copyright & intellectual property enforcement staff at TLG rightfully following closely and taking down the stolen content wherever they can.  I use strong words like "illegally" and "stolen" to underscore the fact that whoever is leaking these photos is committing a crime and also doing LEGO itself a great disservice by giving competitors previews of products that won't be released for months.  This is bad, very bad, and that's why you won't see me posting the pics nor linking to them.

However, thanks to the many folks who simultaneously linked me to various sources today, I've seen 'em, and I can't unsee 'em, so I'll go ahead and give a very casual written overview of what I saw.  I will not cover every detail as I'm sure everyone reading this either has seen or will see the illegal photos somewhere...

The theme is a jailbreak. Instead of going out & catching criminals & villains this time, our LEGO Hero Factory heroes will be re-capturing at least one main dude and his henchmen.  There was clearly a mandate & memo at TLG to reduce complexity of the Hero Factory series this time around and reuse more molds.  One especially notable exception is a new armor piece that is very round and uses the two-peg attachment system to add on to other armor, creating large knee or shoulder guards.

Heroes

• There are only five heroes in this series, Breez, Furno, Rocka, Surge, and Evo, the latter two having fewer parts and coming in a smaller canister.
• All heroes now use white hero cores, with yet another new mold (and possible 2-peg attachment?).
• Body armor has been reduced to one single piece with abdominal muscle detail and a rounded upper section with a unique print for each hero.  The mold is the same one being used for the Super Heroes line.
• All heroes now finally have handcuffs (I've been waiting for these!).
• Each hero has a sphere launcher consisting of one half of an old thornax launcher plus one new piece that looks somewhat like a thinned down version of the large top plate from Mistika Toa Onua's weapon.
• Breez, Furno, and Surge all use their original 1.0 helmets, which means...
• Return of Agori/Glatorian heads!  At last, the circle is complete.
• Rocka remains the front-runner of the series.  His helmet looked like a Star Wars Imperial Darktrooper (SW Galaxy edition) but with an eyepiece.  He bites off Furno 3.0's style with a bow weapon.  He has extra arrows on an ammo belt sort of thing -- same piece that's hooked up to Super Heroes Iron Man's gun.
• Evo's helmet integrates his 2.0 visor side pieces into a single mold that made him look like a high-ranking samurai commander.  He looked to be the least intricate of the two smaller characters.
• Surge looked like he gets his 1.0 weapon back and some Breez Green versions of his 2.0 forearms.
• Furno had all sorts of stuff going on.  Big turbines coming off his shoulders, two large hoses wrapping vertically around him from mid-torso up to the level of his head, spike weapon on his launcher.  Kinda looked like he had some combiner style going on.
• Breez is back, with 1.0 feet!  I think she actually had three of 'em -- one used on her back, I just saw a hint.  She had ironically bulky shoulders, a nice tall double-bladed weapon and a small flat shield made of random hex shapes.  Oh, and rockets.  On her lower legs.  Tiny ones.

Villains

• Five Hero Factory heroes now match up against five villains.  Lego has evened the odds, sort of? Kind of?  Heheh.
• Black Phantom is the new leader.  He is essentially Fire Lord (twin horns & all, though corrupted Quaza spikes this time) with even less armor.  Yes, less, or so it appeared to my eyes. Chew on that, with molar grinds of anger and disappointment.
• Thornraxx didn't look like a Thornax at all. Heh. His face looked like Stringer 1.0's helmet merged with a Toa Inika foot. With a sphere launcher sticking out. He has a pair of Gorast wings.  Coolest thing about this guy?  He had some turquoise ball & socket pieces!  Also, like Waspix, there are lots of Thornraxxes.  Thornraxxi?
• Splitface is the new Thunder.  'Nuff said, I think.  He's just gunmetal on one side, red on the other.  Could be inspired by an old Nigerian folk tale about a Loki-like "trickster" deity.
• Jawblade is JawS inspired, name-wise at least.  He's a shark, with a tail, and a Skirmix-style lower jaw, and a frickin' laser beam on his... back.  Well maybe it's not a laser, but some sort of red (spike) shooter thingy.  Oh, and though he's a shark, he has human-style arms & hands, and uses Furno 1.0 weapons.  So weird.
• Toxic Reapa looked like a neon green & black merger between Toa Mata Kopaka and Corroder.  I think that pretty much covers it.  He got I think four 3L translucent neon green armor pieces and a pair of green & yellow flame accessories that attach with the 2-peg system.

That's it for the series 4 LEGO Hero Factory dudes.

PS:  Furno (jet turbines work underwater?) vs. Jawblade, Breez vs. Thornraxx, Evo vs. Splitface, Surge vs. Toxic Reapa, Rocka vs. Black Phantom?  Did I get that right?

PPS:  And I cannot and will not publish any links to any copies of the illegal, stolen photos as they are illegal and stolen and LEGO will rightfully take legal action.