When Bandai initially announced that they were making an S.H. Figuarts version of Iron Man 2 MkVI, I was soo freaking excited. Then the prototype pictures came out, and this prompted me to go out and buy some Kamen Riders to figure out if these were figures that I wanted. The Kamen Rider figures had me worried about scale since they were a small 6-inch figure, not a 5-inch figure, but closer to 6 inch. And I thought, oh noes — Iron Man gonna be small.
Which would kill me since the Iron Man 2 figures from Hasbro were already kinda small, in that they were at 6 inches and not bigger as expected. When the Bandai figures were finally released, the pictures were confirming that the figures were, in fact, on the small side. And this killed me. Mainly since I wanted a larger Iron Man figure that was on par with the Hot Toys figures in a 6-inch scale and partly because I couldn’t get rid of my preorder with grace. After siting in my pile of loot for months at BigBadToyStore, the figures finally arrived this month.
And they are marvels. Bandai really hit the homerun with the design on these figures. With an insane amount of articulation and some of the best paint apps I’ve ever seen, these figures are true marvels. But there are some glaring faults, ones that I hope Bandai plans on correcting in future versions of the mk’s from the movie lines. And I’d love for them to tackle Iron Man 1 and 3 armors as well.
The first glaring fault is the size. It’s just too small. I tried to figure out where, but I can’t, compared to Black Panther ,the legs seem long enough. But the shoulders are lower, leaving me to think that the chest isn’t long enough, and if you look at Hasbro’s version of the same armor, the chest is longer. The feet to the top of the hips seem to match, but that’s where it stops. If I lift the jointed crotch, I can get the figure to the same height as Hasbro’s, but then I am left with a goofy-looking crotch. Something is off. It might be an overall scale issue or it might be that there is too much of an anime/manga design creeping it, with the longer legs and shorter trunk. I’m not certain, but something isn’t right.
The other issue is the flat mask. From the front the mask looks OK, but from the side the helmet is really flat, not squished, but flat as though there is no depth. The other flat part is the back of the chest armor — it’s flat. Even Hasbro got the “round” part to this armor right. I’m not certain what happened with Bandai.
I love how they did the armor on the abs, there is a piece that sits loosely above the waist around the ab and gives an extra feel to the ab movement. It doesn’t do anything, but it sits in a way that makes it look like the ab is doing more than it is.
The articulation is amazing on this figure. It is some of the best articulation that I’ve played with in a while. It’s not that there is anything groundbreaking or new, but it’s just well done. Bandai really knocked this one out of the park. And my kids love playing with these figures. I haven’t been able to achieve the Iron Man kneeling fist in the ground pose, but I can get pretty close. Tons of hand candy in this figure. The articulation breakdown is:
hinged toes
rocker ankle
swivel ankle
double knee
thigh swivel
ball hips
hinged balls
ball waist
ball ab
ball rocker shoulders
ball shoulders
bicep swivel
double elbow
swivel hand
ball wrist
swivel hand
ball neck
ball head
The paint is lovely on this figure. I mean lovely. Lovely in ways that I haven’t seen in a while. They really captured the gloss candy-apple look. The red is a deep red and the gold pops. There are very few parts on this figure without paint. I think only the double-jointed elbows and knees are missing the paint. Otherwise, paint, paint, paint. And so smooth — no globs or running, dried paint. Just smooth silky paint.
And along with the nice paint apps are some cool accessories. Really cool accessories: hands and jets and the firing jet thingies that aren’t pictured because I threw them in the War Machine pics. There are also panels for breaking or extra thrust or something on the back, and the panels on the legs for the flares.
I love the jet attachments; they have a great color, pop, and are fun add-ons. As I mentioned in the D-Arts thread, the Bandai stands work well with these figures. It takes a bit of work, but eventually you can get them to sit on the stands.
One of the big surprises that I had with this figure was the die-cast feet. How awesome was this? The die-cast feet give the figure some good weight and allow for some sturdy poses, preventing unnecessary tilting over. And that’s just the mechanics that went into the feet. Yeah, we’ve seen this type of articulation before, it’s nothing new in Marvel Legends, but it was missing on Hasbro’s figures, not here. Really beautifully engineered feet.
Despite the scale issues, this is a good figure. I can make the excuse that Robert Downey Jr. is 5 feet and half and the Iron Man Armor isn’t really that tall. Yeah, that’s lame, and I know it since in the movie the armor towers over people. I really hope that Bandai works out the scale issue and the flat issue in future figures. And as a word to Max Factory, don’t repeat this same mistake.
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