Iron Man 2 Figures Unboxing: Classic Red and Gold, Mark IV, Mark II

This is a continuation of yesterday’s unboxing post. Too much awesomeness contained in a single entry might damage your retina and cause your brain to ooze out from  your sweat glands. You guys can thank me later.

So, like I mentioned last time, these items were acquired over at Megamall during the Iron Man 2 action figure toy launch, courtesty of Cybertron PH. I should seriously feature those guys here. They’re awesome and they deserve the props. I got 11 figures, 10 of which were already opened and displayed in my mini-armory. I really have to find a way to fix that thing up. It looks uninspired right now.

Anyway, I am posting the unboxing pics and mini-reviews in the order in which I opened them up. In this post, we’ll be looking at the Classic red and gold armor, the Mark IV, which was the replacement armor for the battered Mark III, and the fan favorite Mark II.

Classic Red and Gold Armor

This is probably the image of Iron Man most old comic book fans get in their brains when they of him.If I’m not mistaken, this is the armor he wears in the 60’s cartoon. “Tony Stark makes you feel, he’s a cool exec with a heart of steel.” Appearances of this armor in the comics here and there are always welcome, even if they are just in the covers.

Everyone’s pretty much packaged the same way, so this image doesn’t really change across the board. It doesn’t look like much in the box, but when I took it out, I can’t believe it would be legal to make something so gorgeous.

It looks great, it’s shiny, it’s poseable and it comes with more accessories than the others. It has a red dildo repulsor blast, a blast off stand, a regular stand and the armor cards.

The sculpt looks absolutely fantastic. There was an MU version of this armor that came out in the 2nd or 3rd waves, but this one clearly dominates that in every aspect. The MU one looks so thin that if someone stepped out of it, he’d be a lanky 14 year old girl with an eating disorder. The classic armor from the Iron Man 2 movie line is buff enough for it to look like Tony Stark could fit inside. The sulpt of the whole body looks like it jumped out of a comic book page.

Besides it being built like a god, it is shiny where it needs to be shiny. The paint is so simple on this thing that it will take actual conscious effort to mess it up. “Oh woops. My clumsy fingers dropped four pints of paint on it. Sorry.”

I’ll show how posable this thing is in the next images. It seems to have more poseability than the other movie version sets of armor. It has ball joint neck, shoulder, wrist twist, single joint elbow, chest, ball joint hips, double jointed knees and swivel ankles.

It looks utterly ridiculous with the red “repulsor blast,” so I decided to pose it without that damn thing. I am a big fan of sculpted hands, and this figure proved how awesome those are. Those hands show so much more than they let on. Simply moving them around changes the emotion the figure expresses.

“I AM IRON MAN!”

The blast off platform is quite useless or maybe I haven’t figured it out yet. It only has one peg so you can only secure one foot at a time. Because of that, the figure becomes quite unstable. To shoot this pic, I had to be really quick.

The Mark IV may seem insignificant because it is just a tweener from the Mark III to the ever awesome Mark V and VI, but the figure will make you think otherwise. At first glance, it seems like a smaller Mark III, but after going over it very well, I can say that it is in a class of its own.

The packaging doesn’t really do it any justice. From the box, it looks quite horrible. I have never been so glad to be super wrong.

The figure is exactly like the Mark VI, except for the circular arc reactor and its left hand is a fist, instead of the Mark VI’s right. What’s so cool about that, though, is that their hands are interchangable. Amazingly enough, Hasbro packed them different launchers. Yeah, like that would make a lot of difference.

The paint is sloppy, but considering it is a tiny figure and the level of detail is quite extensive, it’s not half bad. Still, it could be a bit cleaner. When I was shopping around for a Mark IV, I had to hoard a bunch and pick one out from the group. I saw one Mark IV with a slash of red paint across the abdominal section.

Articulation is exactly the same as the Mark VI, but I found that this particular figure had an almost impossible to turn ball hip joint. I had to force it to turn. It felt like a little more force would’ve broken it. Eventually, though, I got it in some pretty good poses.

“They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I prefer the weapon you need to fire only once. That’s how dad did it. That’s how America does it. And it’s worked out pretty well so far.”

Yeah, I kept the launcher in my toy box thing.

UNIBEAM!

This is how this guy’s posed in the armory and I can just imagine it doing a unibeam that blows through all the other pieces of armor in front of it. Yeah, I’m a nerd like that.

Mark II

The Mark II has always had a special place in my heart. I don’t know why! Maybe it’s because it looks so raw and so mechanical and unpolished and industrial. It honestly makes the Mark III, IV, V and VI look pansy-ass souped up 2001 Civics, while it is a Jeep Cherokee that just went through mud, the desert and forty virgins.

Sure, it’s simple, but I think that’s where the badassery of this armor lies. Even straight out of the box, I could easily tell this is going to be one of my favorite figures.

The only thing different between the Mark III and the Mark II is the paintjob. Everything, down to the hands, is the same. As expected, the Mark II comes out a little better than the Mark III. I always thought so, even in the first movie. I like how strong and how unrefined it looks.

The paint is magnificent on my particular figure. You might be thinking “but it’s all just silver, how can you go wrong with that?” Look closer, my friends. Do you see those rivets? Those are painted on. Those tiny, fraction of a centimeter rivets are painted on. Does that not BLOW YOUR MIND? Other than that, yeah, the whole thing is silver with blue eyes. Not only is it painted extremely well, it is built amazingly, too.

The way it looks just makes it beefier than the Mark IV or VI. Like I said, it’s a chunky set of armor - a tank. That’s what I love about it. In the same vein, the Mark III still looks stronger than the Mark IV or VI.

Articulation for the Mark II is practically the same with the Mark IV and VI. It has a ball joint head, which pops off annoyingly, a chest joint, shoulder joints that pop off the shoulder pads, the single joint elbows, swivel wrist, ball jointed hips, double jointed knees and a very limited foot tilt. Even with those complaints, it still comes out as one of the better figures from the line, but mainly due to personal preference.

It has the same exact gun as the Mark VI, just painted differently. Or not painted. They’re fun to play with anyway.

Does that not look fiercer and more intimidating than any pansy ass red and gold armor?