Comicave Studios has been a company that continues to impress me with its offerings. They sent along one of my favorite Iron Man armors – The Mark 43 — which Iron Man sported for most of Avengers: Age of Ultron. This is a tremendous-looking figure. Out the box it was an early candidate for one of my favorite figures of the year, but a few flaws held it back from capturing the gold.
The packaging is really top-notch here. The box is a lot smaller than the Igor figure, naturally, but it’s also smaller than the Shades figure. Once you open the seal, though, the presentation is pretty stunning for a 6-inch figure. The box expands in a gatefold manner showing off the figure on one side and the accessories on the other. The white packaging makes it look especially classy.
After I freed Iron Man from his casing, I continued to be impressed. Comicave used a terrific metallic paint job on the figure. The candy-apple red and gold sheen looks fantastic. The paint job is flawless. I couldn’t find a smear, paint bleed, or any other problem you find in this scale in mass market figures.
Like most of their 6-inch offerings, the figure is about 75% die-cast metal, giving it a nice heft. You won’t bruise your toe if you drop it, but it definitely has more weight than the standard plastic figures.
The scale is great for Marvel Legends collectors. The figure is a bit more solid and thick than Shades and looks more like a guy in a suit of armor than an armored sentry.
Articulation is pretty good. You’re not going to be able to do the head raised version or twist the waist much due to the light-up feature. That’s so well-executed I found it a fair trade-off. The articulation is about what you’d see from a Marvel Legends figure with a few minor exceptions.
My biggest complaint with the figure was the tiny post used to attach the shoulder pads. The right pad kept popping off my figure, and getting it back on proved to be a major challenge — I sense some super glue is in its future. Comicave needs to ditch that feature or at least affix the pad permanently so it can’t come off. It’s not like they detached in the movies. There’s a cool hinge at the hips that you can pull down to maneuver the hips easier. 
The arms are on a ball-joint, and you can swivel them around as needed. While he’s packed with alternate hands — three additional pairs (grabbing, repulsor wide, repulsor to hold blast effects) — my favorite were the fists. Comicave went with a ball joint in the wrists, which made swapping the hands a bit of a nightmare. That piece needs to be stable. It’s tricky enough with a 12-inch Hot Toys figure, but the hand swaps at this scale are more trouble then they’re worth. The arm mount laser ray swaps out just fine with the regular armor paneling.
The light-up feature continues to be exceptional. It’s a strong powerful light that shows up pretty well even in regular daytime light. Both the eyes and the chest piece show up very well.
If you haven’t picked up the AOU Marvel Legends Iron Man from Hasbro, don’t bother. Even with its problems, this is the version of that look in this scale you have to add to your collection. For $100 it’s not cheap, but given the quality of the materials, paint job, level of unique sculpting and a strong LED, the figure is worth it, provided the shoulder pads isn’t a common issue.
Thanks to Comicave for providing the figure for review.
