War Machine (Marvel Legends Galactus Series)

Height: 16 cm to top of helmet

Articulation: 40 total points of articulation: 9 each arm - pectoral ball joint, double jointed shoulder, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, forearm swivel, hinged wrist, hinged fingers; Double jointed neck; hinged shoulder mounted missile launcher; ball joint waist; 9 points each leg - double jointed hip, mid-thigh swivel, double jointed knee, mid-calf swivel, double jointed ankle, mid-boot hinge.

Accessories: Clear display stand; discharge/exhaust pieces x6; 47 bullet ammo belt; Leg Of Galactus; Reprint of Iron Man V.1 #281

Colors: War Machine: Metalflake gunmetal, silver, clear yellow, orange, white, grey, metallic blue, fleshtone, brown (Rhodey's eyes), gold; Galactus's Leg: Metallic blue, purple, dark purple, dark grey.

Release Data: Released in late February 2005 as part of the Marvel Legends "Galactus Series" at an average price of US$8.

Gallery: 16 images.

Author: ExVee

The Figure

For some time in the Iron Man book, Jim Rhodes had been a regular alternate Iron Man, using a previous armor to assist or sometimes just plain replace Tony Stark as Iron Man. Then in 1992, the Variable Threat Response Battle Suit was built for use by the near-death Tony Stark to wrap up his affairs. A slightly reworked model was built on the side specifically for use by Jim Rhodes, which would be the unit finally known as War Machine.

At least, that was the original origin of War Machine. Years later, Marvel launches a line of more "mature" books featuring established Marvel Universe characters, one of which was War Machine. Or rather, "US War Machine".

"While working with Stark Industries, Jim Rhodes helped create War Machine, a technological marvel combining armor, weaponry, and ease of mobility. After being terminated from Stark Industries, Rhodes attracted the attention of Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. who were impressed by War Machine's capabilities, and recruited Rhodes to assemble a strike force of similarly armored War Machine operatives. The War Machine suit has armor-enhanced strength, speed and durability. It is also able to fly via jet-boots and has a state-of-the-art weapons system, which is constantly modified and upgraded."

Such is the background information provided on the packaging, which will have to do since I'm not at all familiar with the US War Machine series. Anyway, War Machine, and Rhodey himself hold certain importance to me, since the first run of Iron Man back issues I bought was from the 280's through the "Hands of The Mandarin" crossover "event", which was pretty much all of War Machine's appearances in that title. I also have some issues of War Machine's series, but let's not talk about that...

Even when I first saw the pictures of this figure, I knew that it was the US War Machine armor design. But that didn't have to matter! Either way it was Rhodey under the mask, and otherwise it's just differences of some minor surface details, so who cares? I could finally have an awesome toy of a character that I really liked! ...in theory, anyway.

War Machine is a remold of Silver Centurion Iron Man, from Marvel Legends series VII, who in turn was a remold of Classic Iron Man from way back in Series I. Remember this, it'll be important throughout the review.

The Head

Two big things made me hesitant to buy the first two Iron Man figures, which was the way Stark's face was sculpted into the helmet, and the unreasonably long neck. Both were side-effects of the figures being designed to have their faceplates removed. But all you get for the trouble is two versions of Tony Stark that look like Robocop with a giraffe neck. Sadly, War Machine does not improve on this, so now you can also have a black Robocop with a giraffe neck.

The articulation section notes a double jointed neck, but the second joint is mostly theoretical. The swivel at the base of the helmet works fine, but the poorly defined joint at the collar is very resistant to moving. it's unclear whether this is another swivel, or is supposed to be a ball joint, but either way it's very well useless. The faceplate is easily removeable, but stays on the head securely, thanks to having to tuck it under some of the techy bits on the left side of the head. If you don;t get it tucked under there, it won't rest6 flush against the face, and will also be crooked, so it's easy to tell when you've done it right.

The Torso

War Machine has always been distinguished by the weapons mounted over the shoulders. One side having a gatling gun, and the other usually having some kind of micro missile launcher. A third trademark is the distinctive chestplate design, which I'll talk about in a moment. The shoulder weapons are reproduced in nice detail here; an eight tube micro missile launcher on the right shoulder, glued very firmly into place, but hinged so it can point anywhere from straight up to nearly straight down.

The left shoulder has a large gatling gun, which can be removed from the shoulder, but not taken off entirely, as it's attached to a flexible cable glued onto the back. This at least allows it to turn a little to the side. A second peg hole on the back might have been nice, in order to be able to get the thing out of the way. As it is, there's basically no point in turning his head to the left, since he'll just be staring at his gun, and that'd get old after a while.

So, because War Machine is meant to have a layered armor appearance, and probably to save on tooling costs, War Machine's chest plate is made from a single piece of soft plastic, which is glued to the front of the torso. War machine's shoulder armor is part of this solid piece, but the pointed shoulder armor from Silver Centurion Iron Man is still in place underneath that. The result, largely from the chest armor, mind, is that the arms simply can't raise above level, at best. The hands can reach up a little farther thanks to the elbows, but the restriction is really glaring. The hands can't even really reach the head.

Anyway, the chest armor wraps around to the back, where it ends in some kind of bizarre turbine or propellor or something that sticks out a good half inch from the back. Being that this piece is only glued from the front, there is an annoying tendancy for it to ride up. If they could put glue in one spot, why not a second?

There's a mid-torso joint here, seemingly. To clarify, the torso is clearly two pieces here, and there is separation that would imply intended articulation. However, this spot is completely immobile. Entirely 100% fixed in position. Oh well, there's the ball joint waist, at least, though that seems to want to turn to one side slightly all the time.

The Arms

The shoulder issues mentioned above are not the extent of the disappointment, sadly. While the pre-elbow swivel and the elbow joints themselves are fine, the wrist hinge is hampered by the small guns mounted to the wrists. This might not be a problem, as this version of the suit is not technically meant to have repulsor beams. However, as a seeming compromise, the figure appears to have them as there are holes in the palms sized to fit the discharge effect pieces. So while you could have this War Machine with repulsors, you can't have them aimed at all adequately, plus the left wrist isn't strong enough to support the weight of the pieces, and the right barely manages at all.

While the thumbs are fixed, the four fingers on each hand are hinged at the base, but this isn't necessarily good. The hands are sculpted in such a way as they only look natural when in the "default" open position, so this ends up being pretty much useless. And as for the wrist guns, count another victim of the chest armor. The arms can't pose correctly to aim them with any effect, and even if they could, without the ability to make fists, it just looks really bad having the open hands hanging down in front of them.

The Legs

There's less technically wrong here, which just makes it sadder how poorly they came out. The hip joints are very tight and want to stay in one position, and actually feel like they'll snap if you try to move them too far out of that position. Needless to say, without workable hip joints, the rest doesn't do much good. The swivels and knee joints work okay, as do the ankle joints. The feet seem a touch on the small side, which is reinforced by some balance issues, though it's not entirely clear if that's actually a flaw with the ankles. Not that it matters much, since poor balance is poor balance and the cause couldn't be helped either way.

Paint and Decoration

Deatiling is superb, right down to Rhodey's wonderfully painted eyes, and the general paint work is smooth and even - there's nothing I can even come close to calling a flaw or defect. Essentially, everything should be painted so well.

Accessories

-Display Stand

The disappointment continues! War Machine comes with a clear, articulated display stand. There is a problem with the clear and articulated combination, though. If it were just articulated, or just clear, things would probably be fine. But rigid clear plastic tends to have a quality entirely different from rigid opaque plastic, which leads to joints wearing out very quickly. Though to be fair I'd never seen it progress as fast as I did in this example. There even seems to have been intent for adjustment to be possible, with clear plastic screws in the two joints. But this just makes it worse, and apparently accelerates the joints wearing out. The end result, sadly, is a completely useless piece of clear plastic incapable of supporting the weight of the figure it was meant to display. All things considered, I'd probably have been happier with some kind of reuse of Nick Fury's rocket-exhaust styled display base.

-Discharge/Exhaust

There's six of these pieces altogether, four of which are interchangeable. The two uniques are meant for the shoulder weapons. One is an excellently molded piece protraying three of the four missiles on one row of the launcher firing. It's molded in clear orange plastic, but this is only visible for a scarce few centimeters behind the metallic blue missiles before airbrushed on grey and white cover it up. The exhaust clouds are molded in amazing detail - there's no stretch of imagination required to see them as exactly what they're intended to be. The piece depicts three missiles firing in sequence. The piece can be attached so as to have the missiles either launching sequentially from right to left or left to right. Theoretically it can fit over either row of missiles, but I haven't had luck other than with the bottom row.

The other unique piece is a large flame effect that pegs into the gatling, to simulate the heavy firepower. Though there's no shortage of detail in this piece, as it's pretty much the same all the way through, it's not nearly so remarkable as the launching missiles. it does have one up on the other piece, though. It's much easier to work out a pose where this should stay attached than to figure out a pose where it should always look like some missiles have just launched. I guess it's a dynamics thing.

Next is the first pair of the interchangable pieces. Both pieces are shaped different, but follow the same theme of narrow, curved(?) columns of flame. These seem to be meant to be attached to the boots. Thing is, the really irregular design just does not seem to fit what you'd expect from rocket exhaust, which generally takes the form of a more uniform column or vague cone.

Finally, the second pair. These are either identical, or are extremely similar. best way I can describe them is as "bursts", like fireballs at the base which taper out into thin points. The packaging shows these pegged into the palms, presumably as repulsor discharge (except this model of War Machine has no such weapon), but I find them to work much better for the boot rockets. Either pair can peg into the holes in the palms, or either of two sets of holes in the boots, but both types fit much more snugly in the pegholes toward the heels. Granted, because of the inadequate stand, this is largely academic, but for as long as you feel like holding the figure in the air, it can look decently cool with the flame "bursts" attached.

-Ammo belt

Yes, I did count the number of tiny bullets, and there are 47. This fits into a slot on the side of the gatling gun (one end of the belt has two bullets without the black strips, that's the end that fits in), and curves down slightly. I'm certain the intent is for it to fall almost straight down the side, but the soft plastic is just too stiff to do anything but sag slightly. It stays snugly in the gun, at least.

-Leg Of Galactus

This is called the "Galactus Series" because each figure comes with one of seven parts to build a 16 inch (40cm) tall Galactus, with articulation comparable to a normal sized Marvel Legends figure. War Machine comes with the right leg, which is articulated with a mid-foot hinge, double jointed ankle, and double jointed knee. The leg is 17.5 cm tall, and feels like it could weigh up to two pounds. It's unquestionably the heavier of the two items in the package by far.

-Iron Man 281 reprint

I guess you could argue that this issue is the start of the War Machine "saga", but the suit doesn't appear in full until the final page, it's not shown in action at all, and it's being worn by Tony Stark, not Rhodey. Also, it seems to actually have the cover from issue 282, this first to feature the name "War Machine" written in bright red over the regular Iron Man logo. Start of the story or not, they seriously could have chosen any other issue from the next ten to make a better demonstration of the suit, to say nothing of using War Machine's own book. I understand not using US War Machine on the possible grounds that it was a heavily violent "mature" title, but this just seems useless.

Accessories get 6/10

Closing Remarks

Y'know, usually when I buy a toy of a character that's made a strong impression on me, I expect that toy to heighten my appreciation of the character. I expected that of War Machine, too. But this figure has just dropped the ball at so many points, if it does anything, it actually reduces my enjoyment of the character. Maybe it's just what happens when you remold a remold. Maybe it's that shortcuts were taken to accomodate the cost of the Galactus part. Maybe it's all of it. But no matter how you add it up, this figure is simply a masterpiece of screw ups. The perfect example of how badly one can do something that should be really good.

I never thought I'd do it, I never thought I'd give a rating so low. But this figure has nearly ruined my fond memories of a great character. It is an affront to the good name of War Machine! Do not spend money on this, do not accept it as a gift. Marvel Legends War Machine regretably earns the lowest possible rating we have - Shoot Yourself. It's a crime.

If this is the revenge of the 90's, the 90's bites, man.

-ExVeeBrawn, Revenge of The 90's Week