"Modular Armor" Iron Man (Marvel Universe)

AKA Bleeding Edge/Heroic Age Armor

Height: 11cm to top of head.

Articulation: 27 points total- universal-joint neck; 6 points each arm: universal joint shoulder, bicep swivel, hinge elbow, swivel wrist; mid-torso ball joint; 6 points each leg: ball-joint hip, thigh swivel, double-joint knee, double-joint ankle.

Colors: Molded red, clear blue, and black. Painted metallic red, gold, white and blue.

Accessories: Energy Blast, Stand.

Release Data: Released Late 2010/early 2011 at an MSRP of $7.99.

Author: RAC

(more...)


This is the sleekest, most lightweight armor ever designed by Tony Stark. Built to meet the parameters of any possible challenge, it is covered in ports that can house any of hundreds of mission-specific modules. In the space of moments, this armor can swap out a suite of research scanners for a weapons package that would put most battleships to shame.

The packaging is totally wrong, of course- this isn't the Modular Armor of the 1990s but the current "Bleeding Edge" armor that Iron Man wears in the comics. Tony Stark made a big comeback when Marvel announced their Heroic Age, conveniently recovering his deleted brain (which he erased to keep the superhero registration rolls and his technology from falling into Norman Osborn's hands) from a pre-Civil War backup. So Fascist Strawman Tony is in the recycle bin and we'll pretend it never happened! Yay!

This suit's lineage is interesting: comic artist Adi Granov was recruited for the Iron Man movies, and the movie designs took his Extremis armor as inspiration, as I've mentioned before. Movie armor designer Ryan Meinerding was then invited to create the latest Iron Man comic armor, and the resulting Bleeding Edge armor is clearly an extension of the Granov/movie aesthetic while doing its own thing pretty nicely.


The Figure

The place where it most radically departs from that aesthetic is that the gold parts of the suit are very much like the comic Iron Man armors of old: smooth and form-fitting to give a muscular look to the armor. Then the red parts are more structured and thus mechanical looking in general... though the red backside is oddly organic. The faceplate is an even narrower, more severe version of the movie helmet, and there are what seem to be Repulsor Tech generators all over the suit. (Though there's a lot of movie stuff spilling over into the comics, which is entirely normal, I don't think the ARC reactor has been ported yet.) The fact that they're blue is definitely a movie addition though, as those were nearly always yellow in the comics. The paint is reasonably clean, with only a few areas where the red is sloppy. Most importantly the face is painted cleanly with the eyes on straight, and the RT reactors are all white and blue and not pink in the least. This isn't universally true- I have seen some samples in person that had pink RT/Unibeam ports in the center of the chest. I got this mail order, and I'm glad I lucked out!

His articulation is almost up to the level of Dr. Strange, but not quite there yet. The neck has decent tilt and no problems with swivel, but doesn't quite have a range as broad as Strange. Looks a bit more natural though, so a fair tradeoff. The shoulders are deep-set in the torso, so the arms can never hang straight down. Swivel however is fine and you can draw the arms up level with the shoulders. Oddly the left arm can be raised further than the right. The bicep swivel works correctly, and the elbow is a single joint that gets slightly better than 90 degrees. The wrists are simple swivel, since once again the shape of the gauntlet would stop any and all attempts to put in a hinge like the ones on Dr. Strange. And as always, we get one open hand and one fist.

The torso joint is as effective as they ever are- it holds positions well but doesn't have the range to be as expressive as I might like. The hips get good side-to-side range, especially for the ball-joint style that Marvel Universe favors, but does occasionally clash with the shape of the lower torso when you're trying to pose. There's a thigh swivel that is unrestricted, a double-hinged knee that folds to a tight V, and he does have the new rocker-ankles that Dr. Strange had! Just no calf-swivel. And the ankles are just weak enough to impede posing. Drat. I understand the lack of swivel, because the lines of the lower leg preclude them unless you're willing to interrupt the design the way that the thigh swivels do. I would've gone for it, but it still allows for better posing than the old MU ankles even after having to compensate for the weakness.


Accessories

-Energy Blast

It's the same one that came with Norman Osborn and every single-packed Iron Man in the MU line, except now it's blue. Yay? It clips to the wrist very securely, but sadly it's still stupid-looking and could still easily scratch the paint on the metallic-finish figures it ships with. That would be all of the figures it has shipped with, in case you're keeping count at home. ExVee reports having had paint rubs with the vastly-superior Iron Man 2 over-the-hand energy pieces, so damned if you do and damned if you don't, I guess. But there's not even a good alternative here, as the only blue blast I know of came with Arctic Iron Man and has snowy white overspray.

-Stand

Standard plate-stand with two pegs, and his assortment number and name on it. It does come in handy when you're using some of the more extreme poses the ankles are capable of.


Closing Remarks

I'd been on the fence about this one, but Dr. Strange (and the fact that it put me over the Super Saver threshold on an Amazon order) convinced me, and I'm plenty satisfied. This is a near-Excellent figure, but the damaging accessory and weak ankles I think drag it down to a high Very Good. If you like this armor design, and/or you're not completely sick of Iron Man yet, you'll like it.

-RAC