This is a spoiler-free post. There are no spoilers. Everyone knows that Iron Man is in Captain America: Civil War. And that is all I will say. Because I don’t want to accidentally spoil anything.
Captain America: Civil War is the latest Marvel movie, it is the 3rd and maybe final Captain America movie, or at least it closes out the originally planned trilogy. What comes next is anyone’s guess. The movie features Captain America and Iron Man at odds over some varying issues. The result is they fight and disagree a lot. Then they gather some friends to fight with them against each other. Iron Man dons a new suit of armor, as he does at least once in every movie he’s been in. He’d like to personally thank Marvel for giving him a reason to make another suit of armor for each movie as it means tons of money in merchandising.
And Bandai is jumping all over that merchandising bandwagon. They’ve released almost all the armors or are in the process of doing so. They definitely covered the Mark VI in Iron Man 2, the Mark 42 in Iron Man 3, the Mark 43 in Avengers Age of Ultron, the Mark 44 and 45 in that same movie, and now the Mark 46, and, of course, they are making Tony Stark himself. Bandai loves Iron Man so much they are going back and doing the Mark 3 from Iron Man. They just need to hit us up with the Mark 1, The Mark 2, the Mark 4, the Mark 5, the Mark 7 and we should be gold with all the core movie armors.
Digging into the new Mark 46 armor over the last few hours, I’ve found this figure to be just as fun as the previous versions. I’m not certain it is a huge improvement as a toy over the Mark 45, but there are some pluses. The figure is slightly taller, in fact, I think it is the tallest S.H. Figuarts Iron Man to date. It’s definitely taller than the 45 which held that position (and no I am not counting War Machines, Patriots or Veronicas), which is great to see, Iron Man should definitely be taller than the rest of the Marvel Cinematic characters. However this figure is still in the actual 6-inch scale and not the Marvel Legends 6-inch scale. As you can see, shorter than Daredevil. I think if Bandai made the feet bigger (look at them smaller than Cap’s and he is wearing combat boots) and his head slightly larger then Iron Man figures would be kicking it.
The head on this figure is small. Whether you use the blank head or Cap’s head, it is obvious to see that the head in the helmet is tiny. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming Tony Stark figure’s head matches. And, yes, movie magic has made the Iron Man helmet skin tight, but there has to be a little realism in the scaling.
The feet and head. Those are the two core faults that I could find in this otherwise perfect figure. The sculpt on this figure is absolutely amazeballs. Yes, amazeballs. It’s so freaking good. There is so much detail packed into this monster that it’s hours of endless fun trying to find and identify all the sculpt stuff going on.
And to match the beautiful sculpt, Bandai slapped an amazing paint job on there. In fact, the paint job is so amazing that Bandai included a warning that you could chip the paint with excessive play. OH MY GOD! Really? Yes I even snapped a pic of it on the inside of the box. They are so proud of this paint job they don’t want you to move it. And I get why. It’s awesome. So awesome that you might want to put it back in the box and never take it out again. Sure no one would see the awesome paint job, but then no damage would ever come to it.
But you will want to take this figure out of the box and play with him. For starters, you need to recreate every movie moment. Then you need to just have posing him. Did I mention the articulated crotch? You see the hinged joint holding the balls for the hip? No? Well, I should since the Mark 46 has it. No Clone Trooper pulling down the thigh, just a straight-up hinged crotch allowing for all your great posing needs. The figure is simply amazing to pose. RoboKillah mentions the feet are a bit wonky and the joints are tight in his video review.
I’d be careful posing them as it feel like they are wired so tight they could snap. The chest joint has some hindrance in bowing and the hands are just balls — no hinge, which is a let down. I’d have loved to see some more movement. Otherwise, perfect match of amazing sculpt and amazing articulation.
As usual, there are multiple hands, repulsor-shot parts, and repulsor-fly parts. There are hands for the repulsor blasts and the large fly parts fit into the bottom of the feet. Great accessories, standard kit by now. But we should have gotten a maskless battle damaged Tony Stark head.
Without a doubt, this one of the better S.H. Figuarts Iron Man figures to date. While I like the streamlined look of the Mark 45, the heavier look of the Mark 46 is growing on me. I guess I am sucker for clunky-looking armor. This is a great toy, great sculpt, great paint job and worth every penny.
You can pick this up today at:
