A couple weeks ago Toys R Us had a sale on their Iron Man 2 figures. I had been eye balling them ever since they hit the stores, but I just didn’t want to spend the money. Well, they finally got me with that sale.
Ironically, it wasn’t Toys R Us who got my money though. By the time I made it there, the aisle had been pretty well cleaned out. A few Mark Vs and badly painted comic Mark IIIs were all that was left. So, I went to Wal-Mart and took advantage of their price matching on advertised sales. They had a much better selection, too much so. Instead of ending up with just the two versions of War Machine that I had originally gone there for, I also found Iron Monger and a movie Mark I that I couldn’t pass up..
The first thing that struck me about these figures is how much more detailed they are than the Marvel Universe line. Sure, they are still the same scale, and they will still fit in just fine, but if you compare them you’ll see a noticeable difference.
Let’s start with Mark I from the first movie. I have a love/hate relationship with this guy. I hadn’t been planning on getting him, but in package his details impressed me so much that I caved. And I wasn’t disappointed, at least in the detail department. He’s got this great looking tarnished metal look to him. There’s even letters stamped on the random pieces, giving the feel that Tony really did just build this toy out of junk in a cave. They also have the details of the “motor” on his back, the treads on his thighs, and you can even see Tony’s pants underneath the armor plates on his legs. He also has a ball jointed head, which none of the others I bought really have. Pretty impressive.
I did have a couple problems with him though. One of his mouth holes didn’t get painted, so it gives mine this strange facial expression. Then, there are the leg joints. I’m not a big fan of how they did the thigh joints in this line, it makes posing these guys a little more work than should be needed. But beyond that, Mark I has nearly impossible knee and ankle joints to move. Every time I was going to pose him for a picture, I felt like I might snap one of the joints. So watch out for that. Continue to Page 2…
I have about 11 of these so far and I really do like them. The details on the movie line is insane for the scale. Yeah gotta work the joints on the hips slowly sometimes. It’s the place you gotta be careful of snapping.
Yeah, I cringed every time I got one to finally move.
I have this sudden image of 4-6 armored up Tony Starks working their way through my toy shelves on a drunken rampage. “Giddy-Up Kitty”
You’ll have to get some bottles from some dollhouse accessories.
Still hate this scale for comic figures, but movie WM is awesome. Hope the WalMart 6″ exclusives come out sooner than later.
yeah, I’ll probably end up buying those six inchers also.
Comic War Machine is a neat little figure, but I hate the way they did his shoulder pads. I think it’s that the hinge sits too high up on the shoulder and that the pad itself has too sharp an edge, so when you lift his arm forwards or backwards, it looks really bad. Also, on my figure the wash they used was too heavy (it kept coming off on my hands when I posed him), so I ended up taking a pocketknife and scratching off a lot of the paint. The metallic blue underneath is really nice, and cleaning up the large areas on the shoulder pads, gauntlets and legs really made the paint in all the little nooks and crannies stand out more.
I love his shoulder weapons, however. I’m tempted to buy a second Comic WM to use the missile pod on Movie War Machine.
Speaking of Movie WM, I too had to sort through about twenty figures across three different Walmarts before finding one that had straight eyes. He’s still not entirely clean–there are black marks across the face–but they’re light enough to look more like gunpowder residue than paint errors. A total opposite of his Comic counterpart, Movie WM’s shoulder pads are wonderful.
Overall, great figures. I can’t wait to find the 6″ ones!
I think you’re right, the shoulder pads are too deep or something. The movie one makes up for it though.
OH MY GOD WHERE DID YOU GET THAT CASTLE GREYSKULL!!!!????
It’s the Castle Grayskull from the 200X He-Man line.
I’ve been really impressed with this toyline, but you are right about watching for sloppy paint. I’ve found that any of the figures that are gold/red or silver/red have the most problems. The Mk II and Mk III that I picked up both have insanely tight hip joints, but other than that I have not had any major issues.
actually… I think the original 6″ scale iron monger is more to scale with the 3 3/4″ line… just remembering tony riding on his back, and the size of Stane once the armor was ripped off… I’m pretty sure he was that big.
all in all though, I really love these suckers.. they did such a nice job on the details its almost ridiculous
Great to see you got some figures from the line, and some of the better ones too. I actually like that Iron Monger’s paint is a more subtle than on the back of the card. Also, I think I’d rather have tight joints and work’em to be more loose than have limbs and heads swinging and bobbing ard. Heh. Agree that they’re way beter deatiled than MU figs. I wish the MU ones were like this as well!