War Machine (Iron Man 2 Movie Series)

Height: Approx. 11cm to top of head.

Articulation: 24 points total- ball-jointed neck; 5 points each arm: universal joint shoulder, universal-joint elbow, swivel wrist; mid-torso ball joint; 6 points each leg: universal-joint hip, double-joint knee, universal joint ankle.

Colors: Molded dark gunmetal gray, silver, gray, and transparent red(missile). Painted silver, white, and red.

Accessories: Minigun, Missile-launching Minigun with missiles x2, Ammo feed, Stand, Armor Card x3.

Release Data: Released on March 1st 2010 with an SRP of $7.99.

Author: RAC

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"Next time, baby!" Isn't it nice when sequels deliver on the promises made by the original film? Especially in this case where the promise was a literal statement and not just something implied that's open to fan interpretation? Plus, it's War Machine. Everybody likes War Machine.


The Figure

I like the bulk of the design- it looks exactly like what I expect it to be, which is the Mark II suit reinforced and rearmed by a third party. If so, it's slightly ironic that the deco reminds me of another stolen Mark II- the Gundam Mk. II in its original Titans color scheme. it's not the colors that do it so much as the markings. It's definitely working in a similar "futuristic military prototype" style.

The paint's cleaner here than on Iron Man, I guess because gunmetal and silver are easier to pull off than metallic red. There's a little bit of unevenness on the face, still- I guess that may be a continuing problem with these tiny heads. And joint-lock looks as though it will be line-standard as well- I thought his head was never going to loosen up. There is a variant to watch out for as well: as with the first Iron Monger in the original line, this figure has a running change on the color of its Arc Reactor and eyes. Except this time, it's the other way around, from Iron Man blue to the red seen in the trailer.

The head has the same no-tilt problem as Mark VI, but the bulky torso also limits the swivel to a small front arc- which would be about natural if you were in that armor, I suspect, but it's still a limitation. The shoulder armor is done in the same way as Comic War Machine's, with all the advantages and disadvantages therein. (With one exception: the shape of the pieces hide the hinges just a bit better.) The shoulders can swing out to the sides very high when you move the armor out of the way, though of course they're limited to the lower 180 degrees of swivel by the shoulder armor. Despite the bulk, the shape of War Machine's elbows mean that he actually does a bit better than Iron Man, getting pretty close to a good 90-degree bend. The mid-torso ball joint has a pretty good front-to-back range, though not as much as Iron Man Mk. VI side-to-side. No restriction on swivel, though.

The hips have a more definite shape here- it's easier to tell which side is supposed to face outwards when in a neutral position. They also turn a bit easier, though they still suffer from the rotate-then-bend problem seen on all the large Iron Man figures and carried over to the Mark VI. The knees don't get quite as tight a bend as Mark VI's do, but considering the bulk of the suit they're more than acceptible. The joint itself is soft, even compared to the softness of other recent knees- you may want to make sure the leg looks straight in-package, because I wouldn't be shocked to hear tell of warped knees. The ankles are also great and especially so for this design. War Machine can point his toes, for crying out loud! Overall, the articulation is really good.


Accessories

-Miniguns

Interesting choices here! As far as I can tell from the new trailer, the movie version of War Machine only has one shoulder-mounted weapon: a minigun over the right shoulder. (Though the armature on the Hot Toys version looks as though it could fire over either shoulder.) The toy features two versions of this- a smaller one which is proportionate to the movie version, and a large, missile-firing version. Interestingly, you get two ball-joints on tracks, so you can mount a gun on either side, or both at once if you like! Of course, if you're interested in total movie fidelity this may be a problem, since you'll always have one bare ball-joint sticking up on Rhodey's back, but I like having the option. Also odd is the addition of two entirely different missiles for the larger gun, one that's clearly solid and one "energy" piece with a metal "base" that seems as it's in the process of exploding. The mid-kaboom missile is a completely different design from the solid one, though- not sure why.

Whichever configuration you choose, you have an ammo feed belt which connects between a gun and the center of the back. It's not quite thick enough to really connect firmly- it likes to pop loose when you move the gun. I'd thicken the tabs with nail polish or superglue, but I suspect that'd melt the soft plastic pretty quickly. While the big gun has a socket on either side, the smaller gun only has one for use when mounted on the right-hand shoulder. Which, fortunately, is the movie-accurate version. (Though you can always loop it over the top when connected to the other side, if you like.)

-Stand

With my GI Joe: Rise of Cobra reviews, I got into the habit of saying "Yup! Same Stand!" a lot. Well, this is the same stand that came with the Comic War Machine and the Mark VI, so what ExVee and I said there still, um, stands. No pun intended, really.


Closing Remarks

With slightly cleaner paint and slightly better articulation than the Mark VI, Movie War Machine is already, well, slightly ahead of that figure. But the choice between movie-accurate and missile firing accessories- or both -is enough to push the figure up to Excellent even despite the frustrations of the ammo feed. Three figures into the new scale and no outright duds yet- I hope this keeps up.

-RAC