[TAO's Note: Ewan steps back in time a little bit for today's review. The figure might be brand new, but the armor is an antique. Does the classic Iron Man armor stand up to all the spiffy new movie armors Ewan has already reviewed? Keep reading to find out!]
Name: Iron Man (Classic)
Line: Iron Man 2: Comic Series
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Released: March 2010
Price: Online: $9.99-$12.99, Retail: $7.99-$8.99
Scale: 3.75 in.
Accessories: Red Repulsor Ray blast, Blast Off figure stand, 3 x Armor Cards, Base (1 peg) with Armor Card stand.
The simple and elegant design of the sculpt is what attracted me to take a second look at this figure. It's also the very thing that'll keep it on the shelf. Already, you'll see this guy (and Stealth Armor, but mainly this guy) warming the pegs of your local toy store. But I tell you, this figure is a perfect likeness for what eventually became the base of all Iron Man armors that followed it.
Before there was this armor, Iron Man was completely gold. Before that, he was silver. Both thsose armors were exactly the same except for color--basically walking cans of tuna. Big, clunky, and as inhuman and as robot-like as possible. Heck, the guy even had an antenna on his shoulder for radio communications. Then enter the first incarnation of red and gold—and the classic armor was born. I think its fair to say that this armor doesn't represent a single suit of the Stark Armory but rather a fair number of them since he upgraded his armor lots at the time without changing its look. And well, this sculpt of classic Iron Man doesn't disappoint.
We've got sculpted arm, leg and torso muscles, the nice banded gauntlets, boots, and undies, as well as the widow's peak (also sculpted), slit eyes, and round “robot” ears. Even his chest power source is a larger (than current) round circle. He's also got his two round discs on his hip at the sides of his belt. These should hang a little lower, but the designers probably thought it would hinder articulation too much. Fair enough. Such simple, beautiful detail.
Yet because it's simple compared to any of the modern armors, especially the movie ones, kids/collectors/everyone will tend to overlook this figure in favor of something with loads of tooling and detail, meaning everything else in this line save perhaps the Stealth Armor and the First Appearance Armor (Even that's got a nice metal wear/rust effect.) But bypass Classic Armor at your own peril because he comes with two really nicely sculpted accessories, namely his repulsor ray blast and his blast off stand! Both are made of solid translucent red plastic. The repulsor blast looks like a repulsor blast and not Mountain Dew (or other more sinister liquids) compared to the Marvel Universe effects, while the blast off stand is something new. That's also molded in translucent red.
It's also worth mentioning that this figure has two (gigantic) open hands, meaning that he can do double repulsor ray blast poses. No other Iron Man figure so far, except the Stealth Ops Armor repaint of this one, has both palms open.
Sculpt Score: 8 / 10
Surprise, surprise! What's this? A red and gold Iron Man with great paint applications? The best part? Only his eyes, circular chest piece, hip, knee, shoulder and elbow joints ar not painted. Everything else is. He's been molded in white, covered in bright metallic red, and had his arms, legs, and face picked out in light yellow-gold. Both these colours have a nice metallic sheen and are really smoothly and cleanly painted on. It's a pity that they're not the same shade of red or gold as the modern movie armors, otherwise we wouldn't have so much trouble with the paint on those figures.
There's really no spills nor bleeding—only very. very minor yellow overlaps at the gauntlet tops and perhaps the frame of the face. That's it. But still, this is only for the figure I picked out. I had to go through most of the Classic Armors on display to find one with a well-painted face frame/widow's peak. I think that's the area you need to watch out for the most when you get this guy.
His eyes and chest power source are of course stickers like the rest of this line. But so far these have proven to be excellent so there's no complaints there.
Paint Score: 8 / 10
All of fandom knows the older suits of Iron Men armor are not as technologically sophisticatd as the modern ones, and some would say they're also less flexible. Well if this was what Hasbro was aiming for, they succeeded. The Classic Armor has your standard 22 points of articulation but has a ball head limited to a swivel, largely due to the huge ball joint set deep into his head. Why do a ball joint at all of you're going to limit its motion? Perhaps Hasbro had kids in mind when they deisgned his head and wanted to make sure it pop off too easily. Boooo.
His shoulders can rotate 360 degrees, but are limited out front due to the rims of his torso armor around the shoulders. So his hands can't come straight together in front of him His hips joints are also limited to about a 30 degrees angle out front but are more or less fully blocked by his butt sculpt out back. He does, though, have a great chest pivot, along with unrestricted double-jointed knees. Not the greatest of articulation, but not too bad at all.
Articulation Score: 7.5 / 10
Classic Iron Man is just fun to look at. I mean seriously, the character design is just helmet, torso armor, gauntlets and boots. The rest is bare-muscled arms and legs. The great Stan Lee decided that Iron Man's armor would be red and the muscles yellow and then made up a story of how the yellow parts are some sort of skin-tight fine cloth iron mesh. If that's the case, why didn't Tony Stark just make the entire suit that way? All right, maybe he's got some buttons and switches hiding in that helmet and he put them there so that he can use his tongue to push 'em. Anyhow, visually he's really pleasing. And when you put him together with the rest of the Avengers, it really becomes a visual feast!
For a figure like this, which is not heavy on the mechanical detail, it's also fun that they added accessories to make him really playable. You'll have a great time trying to balance Iron Man on his blast off pedestal and tons more deciding if he should be firing from his right or left hand repulsor ray.
What makes this guy really great is that he shows up the Marvel Universe version in spades by being a lot more buff and comic book accurate. The MU version looks like he's ben on hunger strike compared to this buff specimen. It's a wonder how they managed to get this version's Classic armor proportions perfect. Ok, maybe he does have slightly largish hands, but they're both open, and can “fire” their repulsor rays at the same time. All you have to do is find a way to get another ray effect, which both Stealth Operations and First Appearance Armor have. Or better yet, if you want another red repulsor effect, then you can get another Classic Iron Man and steal the guy's blast effect. You can then donate the extra figure to charity. And hey, you'll also nab yourself another blast off figure stand! What's more fun than one blasting-off Iron Man? TWO-blasting off Iron Men!
Fun Score: 8 / 10
Let's take away the regular figure stand and armor cards for a moment because those are now standard issue (Bravo, Hasbro.) With two accessories, what we are getting is more plastic value for money. And they're not small lumps of pretend missiles or frozen molten butter. (I apologoze in advance to all offended Comic Series War Machine fans!, of which I'm actually one. :P)
This is my sixth 3.75-inch figure review for this line and I'm finding it hard to diss the value score because of the solid plastic and great amount of extras they give the figure, be it in the form of accessories or stands or cards. The one thing we've learnt about Hasbro is that they not only listen to their fan base, they also react quickly and efficiently to implement imprevements. This sort of service really gives you warm happy feelings when you see and hold any of the 'Bro's products in your hands.
So the effort to give Classic Iron Man something extra in the figure stand is much appreciated and, though only a small difference, it still goes a long way towards value added.
Value Score: 7.5 / 10
8 / 10 - Simple but great. Smooth but detailed. Very easy to pass up on, only a closer look would reveal that this is the most iconic Classic figure yet.
8 / 10 - They've gotten the paint right on the money for this one. The red is shiny without looking plastic, while the yelloe is all shimmery. But then again, it's hard to screw up large areas of the same color. I guess some forgot to tell that to the modern red and gold armors from the line. Heh.
7.5 / 10 - Not the best, but not too bad either. And when you factor in the “old” suit are supposed to be less flexible, perhaps this becomes a lot more acceptable.
8 / 10 - He looks awesome next to classic Thor, classic Hulk, and classic Captain America (which I have but haven't gotten aroudn to opening.) In fact if you collect the Secret Wars MU line he'll fit right in and look good doing it. Forget the skinny dude from MU they tried to pass off as Classic Armor Iron Man. This guys is the real Classic Iron Man.
7.5 / 10 - Extra effort to to make this figure unique by adding a blast off stand is much appreciated. Strangely, the minute I knew he was the only figure in Wave 1 with the special stand I just had to get him (much to the Rangerlord's initial chagrin. It's all good. He likes the figure now.Har.)
80 / 100 - This is a Great Toy
Compared to the Marvel Universe incarnation, this figure is a legend, nay, a Classic. Even if you put him beside the rest of the figures of this line, he stands out. Every character has his/her classic version that fans will always be able to identify with. Well, this guy is it for Iron Man.
-Ewan
This could be the figure given away in this month's Review Commentator Contest. Join the discussion by leaving a comment on this review for a chance to win!
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