Retro fever runs rampant with the latest edition of the Marvel Legends 20th Anniversary Figures. The Golden Avenger himself, Iron Man is the newest figure we'll be taking a look at today in Dan's ToyBox.
Tony Stark, the cool exec with a heart of steel. Injured by shrapnel from an exploded booby trap, while testing new technology in Vietnam and captured by enemy forces, Tony finds himself racing against time to not only escape but protect his damaged heart and survive. Using every ounce of his genius, aided by fellow prisoner, Professor Ho Yinsen, Tony crafted an amazing suit of armor which while allowing him to escape, led to Yinsen sacrificing himself. Tony returned to America and using his new armored technology, joined the Avengers and became... The Invincible IRON MAN!!!
As a proud owner of the original 2002 ToyBiz Marvel Legends Iron Man, I was actually debating picking this figure up. After getting the Captain America, though, I have decided to not only get this one, but to order the Hulk as well. Keep your eyes peeled for a future review on that figure. For newer readers, Dan's ToyBox bases our reviews on four categories: Accessories, Appearance, Articulation and Affordability. After discussing each of these, we give the figure an overall rating of one to five toyboxes, with five being the best. Let's power up our boot jets and rocket into this review, shall we?
As you all know, I'm a stickler for accessories, so how does the 20th Anniversary Marvel Legends Iron Man rate? Well, he comes with the following: one pair of fists, one pair of (non- hinging) repulsor blasting hands, one masked head sculpt, one unmasked head sculpt, two smoke tendril effects, two light blue repulsor blast effects, a black display stand and a cardboard rendering of the original display stand, with a comic cover printed on the alternate side. Overall, the accessories are nice. We've seen the repulsor blasts before and I do like these quite a bit. They are rendered in an electric blue, translucent plastic and port nicely into both the hands and his boots. I also like the smoke tendrils, in their translucent black plastic. My only question though is... why? To properly apply them on the figure, they'll be curling around his wrists and forearms, or up around his ankles to simulate flight... the last I checked, his repulsors don't emit smoke and to put them around his ankles just looks... awkward. While this might have been a good idea, conceptually, it wasn't thought through very well. Once again, we get the terrible fixed position repulsor blast hands. Hasbro... please... just toss this mold. You've shown you can make articulated blasting hands, just use those from now on, thank you. The highlight of the accessories though are the head sculpts, which I will discuss further in the appearance section. Overall, while I question the inclusion of some of the accessories, there is enough here to merit an A for accessories.
Overall, this is a good-looking Iron Man figure. When we get into the details though, I do have some complaints. The biggest thing I like about this figure is the fact that the armor design is based on the Iron Man Model 2 armor, which first appeared in Tales of Suspense #48, in September 1963. The armor was designed by Steve Ditko to be a sleeker, more lightweight armor than the gold Model 1 predecessor. The faceplate design is outstanding, with the "horned" look and the mouth and eye slits laid out to match their comic counterpart exactingly. This model also lacked the shoulder pieces and hip pods that would characterize Iron Man's later armor designs. This body design has come to be the standard for Marvel Legend Iron Man figures now and it just works so nicely for these designs. I am a big fan of the candy apple red and bright yellows on the figure. I was also very happy to not have some of the paint flaws that I saw in other reviews of this figure. For me, though, the best part of this figure is the unmasked head sculpt. The blue highlights in the hair are so 60's/70's comic accurate and the face is very definitely Tony Stark... as played by either Burt Reynolds or Charles Bronson! The only real problem I have with this sculpt is the paint application of his eyes. Mine appear to be looking somewhat upward... and it could just be from the lighting when I took pix, but... to me they look just a bit above center. Other than that though, I'm very impressed with the unmasked sculpt and paint application. My biggest problem with the figure though is the excessive amount of black wash on the hands. Looking at the fists, they are far too dark and that gorgeous red is muted significantly. The same goes for the blasting hands. Just kind of disappointed that more care wasn't taken on those pieces. To be fair, unlike other reviews where the black wash was very bad around the neck, trunks and boots, mine wasn't nearly as heavily applied. I've already discussed the accessories and how they look, so coupled with that, I'll give him an A for overall appearance.
How well does this Iron Man pose? As mentioned earlier, we have seen variations of this body mold used on other Iron Man figures and it has the standard Marvel Legend articulation. However, I do have some problems with this figure, which I'll highlight in the discussion below. The head is on a ball/hinge and should be able to look up and down quite well, however, the design of both head sculpts does lead to some head tilting restriction. Both heads will turn nicely, but I did notice that my unmasked sculpt seems to sit higher on the ball, thus giving Tony a somewhat elongated neck. kinda disappointing. Both shoulders will rotate 360 degrees, but oddly, I cannot get them to fully lift outward to a nice T pose. The plastic around the shoulder hinge actually gets in the way. The upper biceps cut on both arms is very loose on my figure, so I will need to apply some polish to those and try to tighten them up somewhat. The double-jointed elbows bend in relatively nice, but for the gloves, they might bend in deeper. The fisted hands rotate and hinge up and down easily enough. However, my other area of complaint are the repulsor blast hands. Both of mine are loose when plugged into the wrists and will rotate awkwardly with the slightest touch. I'm not a big fan of the arms on this figure. He has the upper diaphragm cut which allows him to crunch forward and back quite well. There is a waist swivel, which looks good and is hidden nicely. Both legs will split fairly well and can kick forward reasonably high. The upper thigh cuts are tight on my figure, but in a good way. They rotate and hold position nicely. The double-jointed knees bend in just past 90 degrees, thanks to the boot design and musculature. There is a hidden boot swivel and both ankles hinge up and down very well and have that wonderful ankle pivot. Even though we are very familiar with the articulation of this body style, the problems I have with the loose arms and head restrictions are a big deduction in points, so to speak. Sorry Hasbro, I'm not giving you an A for articulation this time. Too many issues to enjoy posing him around.
Because this is considered a "Deluxe" figure, he will automatically retail higher than regular Marvel Legends. I paid $32.99 for mine and have come to accept that as pretty much the standard price for these deluxe versions. Is it worth it though? There are some great accessories and some questionable as well. He does look fantastic, but the issues with articulation and some of the excessive wash applied really detract from the figure. I honestly don't feel this figure is worth the deluxe price. If I'm going to spend more than the regular $23-$25 that Legends are going for, I'd really like the figure to live up to that pricing standard. Though this is a decent figure, I cannot honestly say it's worth the price. No A for affordability here.
Overall, how does the Marvel Legends 20th Anniversary Iron Man Action Figure rate? Based on the categories above, I will give more weight to the design of the figure because I do like this armor a lot, but in terms of adding this figure to your collection, I'm going to give him an average rating of 2.5 toyboxes out of 5.
There's just enough to like, but there's just enough to dislike. As always, thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to dig into Dan's ToyBox for another action figure review. Until next time... GEEK OUT!!!