That Figures: REVIEW: Marvel Universe's Iron Man Mk III

Iron Man Mk III Classic Red and Gold Armor
Produced by Hasbro | Released April 2009

Today our week-long tribute to the Armoured Avenger comes to what is considered by most to be the ''Classic'' Iron Man look: the Red and Gold Mk III Armor.

Last Issue...

Yesterday we looked at the Mk III Armor ''Horned Mask'' variant, the precursor to this classic design. Introduced with little fanfare in Tales of Suspense #54 (Tony Stark merely comments that the new mask is an improvement over the previous one, despite the cover's suggestion that the Mandarin blasts the original mask off), this new Mk III Red and Gold Armor would remain relatively unchanged for a number of years.

Mk III Classic Red and Gold Armor

This figure was released as part of Wave 3 of the 2009 Marvel Universe line-up. It's also included in one of the Secret Wars double-packs (along with the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman.) And That Figures Trivia fans (if such a thing exists) may be interested to hear this was also the first Marvel Universe figure I ever purchased.

The sculpt is a pretty good likeness of the original armour, although the waist is a little thin (especially as it's supposed to be an armoured costume.) But everything you'd expect to see of the Classic Iron Man look is here: repulsors, waist discs, fold-topped boots and so on. The head sculpt is pretty tight, too.

Sadly his legs are a little bent, thanks to the packaging. Hasbro sometimes does this with the Marvel Universe figures and in some cases it can be very bad.

Articulation isn't the best. He lacks any kind of waist articulation and - although this could be my Iron Man alone - his hip joints have a slight springiness to them, making it sometimes difficult to pose him without him pulling-back into the original, neutral pose. The rest of his joints work fine and I remember when first posing him being quite pleased with the tilt-able head joint.

Paint is nicely applied, with dark detailing in the ''rings'' of his gauntlets and boots adding a little extra depth. The metallic red of the boots, head, hands and torso are particularly nice. Everything's cleanly applied and there are no errant splodges of colour.

Extras

The first Series of Marvel Universe figures did not include figure stands and this is no exception. It does, however, include the SHIELD File and a clip-on repulsor blast (although it frankly isn't very good, connecting at the wrist rather than appearing to emanate from the palm-mounted projector.)

Final Thoughts

The Mk III Red and Gold Armor is a design classic, without a doubt. It's just too bad that Hasbro released their take on it when the line was still so young and their design kinks hadn't been ironed (heh) out. (The Iron Man 2 line features a take on the armour with a new sculpt that is supposedly better.)

It's not a bad figure and I'm sure kids would enjoy playing with it. It looks fine on the shelf in any Hall of Armor display and there's not really much wrong with it. It's just also not very interesting, really. There's no extra detail or cool stuff to make you want to spend any more time looking at it beyond simply registering that it's a Classic Iron Man figure.

Iron Man fans will be pleased to have him in their collection in this guise, as the look of the character is captured well. But beyond that, it's really just a figure to make-up the numbers.

Scores