Review: Hasbro Iron Man Legends Wave 1

Posted by plannedbanter on February 15, 2013 · 3 Comments 

Iron Man 3 is less than 3 months away and Hasbro’s trying a different tactic for tie-in product than they did the previous movies: a sub-wave of Marvel Legends entirely themed around Iron Man and his villains. While we used to get this sort of thing with Toybiz, in the form of Hulk Classics and other assortments, this is both a first for Hasbro as well as the first time Shellhead has received an actual wave with a Build-A-Figure.

The first wave of figures consists of Classic Iron Man, Heroic Age Iron Man and the comic version of Iron Patriot. Their release has strangely coincided with the arrival of new G.I. Joe: Retaliation assortments so if you get multiple lines, you may be in a for a windfall. I found these three figures in a Wal-Mart outside my normal hunting grounds, but they’ve since appeared in both Target and Toys ‘R’ Us.

You can spot these figures pretty easily as they have packaging that’s pretty similar to the current assortments of Marvel Legends. There’s a small portrait of the Mark 42 armor from the movie, up where you’re probably used to seeing Constrictor and Drax, though each figure does have a personalized cardback.

First off, we have “Classic” Iron Man. This is the original red and gold armor as first drawn by Steve Ditko, though some  still debate Jack Kirby designed it since he drew the cover of the issue it first appeared in. All I know for sure is that Stan Goldberg picked red and gold as colors for the armor.

For anyone who collected the Toys R Us exclusive two-packs, this mold will be familiar. It comes directly from the Iron Man/Female SHIELD Agent set, only lacking that figure’s extra unmasked Tony Stark head and alternate splayed palms. While interchangeable hands are a huge bonus with Iron Man armors, as almost every one of them has one hand in a fist and another holding a repulsor out (every figure in this wave does this) Hasbro still included the original non-pointy mask head from that figure to make up for it.

Whether you prefer gold or yellow is the real question here

Of course, this guy also inherits that previous mold’s issues. Namely that his arms can’t rest completely at his sides and he has those strange ball-jointed hips that require a ton of work to move around properly. Besides those points, he’s sporting the normal articulation you’d expect from Hasbro’s Marvel Legends, with cuts at the waist, abs, wrists and ankles, and double-cuts at the knees and elbows. There’s also ball-joints at the head and shoulders to go with those hips.

Sometimes I do wonder if the Extremis look was just carried over to Iron Patriot because Marvel didn’t want to make waves in the licensing department.

Speaking of familiar molds, Iron Patriot is a straight repaint of the Extremis Iron Man from Hasbro’s Terrax wave with only a new chest plate to differentiate him from his immediate predecessors. You can still find that figure on the shelf in some places, though I don’t own it myself due to generous donations of Terrax parts from Fakeeyes22. Counting the Extremis Stealth armor variant this is the third go-round for the mold, though it’s appropriate here; when Norman Osborn took Iron Man’s armor, it was exactly this model though any Extremis abilities were done away with after Secret Invasion. Heck, Hasbro could have cheaped out and just painted the star on the chest plate, as it’s a non-raised detail in some artistic interpretations, so I applaud them for taking the high road. Interesting note: his hands are mirrored from the other figure, which makes me wonder if the sculpt originally included alternate hands…

Q: How many Doctor Doom’s do you have? A: ALL OF THEM

Like the Classic figure, this guy carries over the foibles of his source material. His hips have a terrible time moving forward which restrains a lot of his leg articulation and makes him essentially impossible to pose in crouching positions. He makes up for it slightly with the best ankle articulation Hasbro could make around the design of the shin armor, but it’s not enough to compensate for how his legs have, at most, 45 degrees of movement even with the movable discs on his hips. You can fix the problem by trimming away a little of the plastic around his hip/waist area but I’ve only heard of this solution and never tried it. Iron Patriot does have excellent range in his ball-jointed neck and shoulders, with additional cuts in his wrists allowing for any number of maniacal gestures. He’s also got double-cuts in his elbows and knees, with the topper being the movable shoulder plates that allow him to spread his arms fully out.

The last figure in this assortment, and the most dedicated from a production standpoint, is what the packaging calls the “Heroic Age” Iron Man. This is commonly known as the Bleeding Edge armor, and it made its debut in Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man run.

First though, I have to be honest: I don’t really like this look at all. Salvador Larocca’s design is impossibly busy with its abundance of symmetrical gold breaking up the red, something that just makes it seem like there’s way too much going on. For example, just look at the waist; the two gold bands there are probably meant to suggest a belt underneath the red chestplate, but it doesn’t really ever come together. On top of all that, the major element of this armor is something I utterly despise. It’s made up of nanomachines that reside inside of Tony’s skeleton which can basically do anything; besides emerging to form his armor, they can mimic clothing, create energy weapons, and even enhance his intelligence. All of that’s explained to you in the comics with about 300 buzzwords pulled from Popular Mechanics, but to break it down simply, this armor lets Tony be both Green Lantern and Silver Age Superman. So, yeah, I’m not a fan of this armor, and the idea behind it, because it basically gives Iron Man superpowers, something they were coming dangerously close to with the Extremis armor already. I’m probably alone in that, but I can only imagine the freak out that’d happen if something similar happened with Batman.

This would never happen in a comic today because the first rule of drama is that none of the heroes are friends anymore. Except when they are.

Anyway, with the mini-rant about the concepts of this armor over, I can now analyze it as a figure. Heroic Age Iron Man is a completely original sculpt, with every secondary repulsor present, including the ones both on the inside and outside of the hands. Remember what I said about it being too busy? OK, I’ll stop.

Articulation is outstanding on this armor, even if some of it is a little restrained by the design. That mostly plays into the ball-jointed wrists, which are handily blocked by the chunky gauntlets, but the figure makes up for it by having those awesome new ball-joint ankles that Hasbro’s been using. Other than those notable points, he’s sporting ball-joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips. As much as I goof on the design, this is the one figure in the wave with ideal hip articulation, as there’s no discs restraining motion or those weird rotating joints that are leftover from the two-pack era.

The paint on all these figures is pretty incredible. In fact, I’m not sure a lot of it is paint; some parts seem like they’re colored plastic on top of colored plastic, particularly with Iron Patriot and the Heroic Age armor. The effect is pretty spectacular, as it creates a great metallic sheen without the tackiness that some metallic paints have. My Heroic Age armor has a small amount of red peeking out the gold on one of the legs, but otherwise these look incredible. Areas to watch out for in the different samples I’ve seen are the helmets on all three figures, the chest on Iron Patriot, and the hip area of Heroic Age. The chest plate on Classic Iron Man also had some slop but it leapt out me almost immediately when looking through them.

For a straight-up rehash with a new head, I really like Classic Iron Man a lot. I thought the original version was one of the best figures in the Toys ‘R’ Us two-packs and I don’t mind seeing it again since the pointed face plate is a signature look. Maybe not as defining as the recycled smooth face plate head, but this is an accessible figure of one of the longest-lasting looks the character ever had.

Iron Patriot is a solid figure, and I’ll never complain about getting new bad guys. Norman may look a little tall and thin in the suit, but this look appeared in a lot of comics. Either way it definitely stands out and he can go with both your Iron Man or Spider-Man figures, depending on how much you want to imitate Marvel’s writers by having Tony bogart other character’s villains.

While I’m not the biggest fan of the Bleeding Edge armor, it does make for a pretty nice toy. He may be a little bit over-sized but that’s up to interpretation. I don’t mind because Hasbro’s various Iron Men have sometimes skewed a little on the small side, either in dimension or height, so one that definitely feels like a guy in a suit of armor is nice. The completely original sculpt probably makes him the best value of the entire wave, though I really did only buy him to get the Iron Monger part.

While it’s probably a little early to judge how Iron Monger’s going to turn out, I can say from just having his torso and legs that he’s pretty great so far.

Way to not place Iron Patriot’s shoulder pad back down, me

I’m really impressed with what Hasbro’s done here: a wave of three figures at a slightly lower price point than we’ve been seeing, well-distributed before the release of their tie-in, and with better-than-average quality control. There might be a small stray paint fleck here and there, but the sloppy emblems and bent joints of a few recent Marvel Legends releases aren’t present here. The kicker is the Iron Monger BAF which, only half-assembled, seems like it could steamroll right into the claim of best Iron Man villain ML on its path to potential best Hasbro BAF. Admittedly one of those titles isn’t too impressive considering how Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and Madame Masque are all only good to OK figures, but Hasbro’s build-a-figures have always been pretty good after Annihilus (even if some of them really needed more paint).

You can see how much bigger Heroic Age Iron Man is next to other armors

On top of all that, these guys actually feel like a pretty good value considering their recycled nature. Wal-Mart has them for $14.98 a piece, which is a dollar less than I’m used to paying for Legends these days, and notably less than the CIE Infinite Earths and Unlimited DC figures. Since this isn’t the seventeenth time we’ve seen any of these sculpts they just feel better to me, though it probably doesn’t hurt that I don’t have any previous version of the figure Iron Patriot’s based on.

These are just starting to hit right now, so there aren’t many reviews outside of video ones on YouTube. Still, provided that something drastic doesn’t happen with the second wave’s distribution, I expect these to be a big hit. I can’t wait until the fall when Iron Monger can finally be completed, though this first set of releases is stronger than what I’ve already found in Hasbro’s third wave of regular Legends.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the Neo-Classic Iron Man I have pictured above, I’ll be reviewing it on the Action Figure Blues podcast (plug plug) to help celebrate their 52nd episode! It’s coming soon, and hopefully none of the pictures will turn out looking like he’s grabbing Iron Patriot’s butt the way Classic Iron Man and his open palm do up there.

Filed under Action Figures, Hasbro, Iron Man, Marvel, Marvel Legends, Reviews, Richard · Tagged with Action Figure review, Iron Man, Marvel Legends