Iron Man Movie

Iron Patriot (Variant, Marvel Universe)

Height: Approx. 11cm to top of head.

Articulation: 25 points total- universal-joint neck; 5 points each arm: universal joint shoulder, upper-arm swivel, hinge elbow, swivel wrist; mid-torso ball joint; 6 points each leg: ball-joint hip, thigh swivel, double-joint knee, universal joint ankle.

Colors: Molded red, transparent yellow, and black. Painted metallic red, metallic blue, silver, fleshtone, brown and black.

Accessories: Energy Blast, Top Secret folder, Stand.

Release Data: Released Summer 2010 with an SRP of $7.99.

Author: RAC

Unless you're dictator-for-life you should always consider that the extraordinary power and authority you acquire for yourself could well end up in the hands of your worst enemy. Or in Tony Stark's case, it may end up in the hands of Spider-Man's worst enemy. Through machination and sheer (editorially-mandated) luck, Norman Osborn ends up with Tony Stark's post-Civil War position as head of Superhuman Affairs. (There's a lot of Tony Stark jokes that could be made at this juncture.) Naturally Osborn's not going to want to be the most visible "superhero" in the world in his old Green Goblin togs, so he throws together a suit of old Iron Man armor in Captain America colors and leads the Avengers as the Iron Patriot. Yeah.

From what I've read it's an older pre-Extremis suit, and it lacks any kind of Repulsor Tech as Stark was able to destroy most of that before escaping. And, in what strikes me as a good example of the kind of person Osborn is, the star-shaped Unibeam projector lacks the power of the diamond-shaped projector the suit presumably used to have- so Norman has sacrificed power for vanity and branding.

There are two versions of the figure, incidentally. I'm reviewing the variant unmasked version of the figure, found for me by Awesome Toy Blog's Matt Guzy, all-around great guy and friend of the site. Thanks, Matt!


The Figure

This figure is identical to the earlier Marvel Universe Extremis Iron Man with three exceptions: The new paint job, the Unibeam projector and, since it's the variant, Norman Osborn's head. It makes sense they'd use that figure as a base: now that Adi Granov's style has pretty much become the default for Iron Man, even the pre-Extremis versions of the "Modern Armor" suit tend to look the same way, and naturally Iron Patriot's comic look is pretty similar as well. While the suit's red sometimes looks kind of purplish to me, it's actually a pretty pure red. I think the culprits are the proximity to the blue of the armor and the fact that Iron Man's armor tends to skew towards a darker shade of red.

Norman's face is a pretty good likeness to the most current version I've seen in Marvel comics. Just as Ultimate Nick Fury (and thus Movie Nick Fury) is undeniably Samuel L. Jackson, Norman Osborn is Tommy Lee Jones with weird stripey hair. Well, in this case he's a slightly slimmer Tommy Lee Jones, as I tend to think of Jones' face as a bit fuller. But I think he's quite recognizeable. The traditional striped Osborn hair- a nigh-on fifty-year oldover from Steve Ditko's rendition of Norman -looks about as good as it's ever going to at this scale. It doesn't look like real hair, but it never did in the comics either.

The joints were sticky on this figure- much like the Iron Man 2 line but to a lesser degree except for one knee that was really a hassle. I've heard that it's not paint that causes these sticking problems, but at the same time they're most common on metallic-finish figures, which seem to be done with clear-color overspray on silver paint. I have to assume it's the overspray that causes the problem. Unfortunately once the joints on this figure were freed they were almost universally loose as well. Since this figure will likely also serve as the base for the upcoming Comic War Machine, this bodes ill. I don't want a Terminator Rhodey with floppy arms. The paint is almost universally good however, with the exception being some fading of the skintone where it meets Norman's hair. Meanwhile, all the stripes of the armor are very clean indeed.

The head is on a universal joint, and while it looks unnatural in some poses it's also far, far more effective than Iron Man 2's ball-joints. Looking up for flight poses? It, well, poses no problems for Norman, though I'm sure the bugs in his teeth will. The shoulder joint is a standard universal joint and the shoulder armor is of what I think of, post-Iron Man 2, as the "old" style, a swiveling piece pegged into the shoulder. They're well-shaped and well-mounted though, as the arm can get 90 degrees out from the side of the figure without trouble, and they've yet to pop off even once- Nice! The arms also swivel a full 360 degrees, but the left arm is rather loose. The bicep swivel gets 360 without a problem, and the elbow gets a 90-degree bend, which is the most you could get out of a hinge of this shape. Wrists swivel fine, and we've got the standard Marvel Hands, with the open hand on Norman's left and the fist on his right.

The torso joint rocks a respectable distance front to back, and turns in a full circle. This figure still has the hip-disc parts that bugged me about Secret Wars Iron Rhodey, and although they're better aligned they're actually less flexible, so they sit out to the sides all the time at an awkward angle. The hips are ball-joints that are very deep-set and though they've given me no trouble, they just feel fragile; that concerns me. Their range wouldn't be so hot on their own, because they turn at such an angle that past a certain point the leg's mostly out to the side. The good news is that this figure has a thigh swivel between the silver and blue parts of the leg, so you can still achieve useful and not-awkward posing with this hip joint. The shape of the armor means that there's a point where the swivel sticks, but it doesn't take much pressure to get it past that point. Not that you need it to, since that'd look like Norman twisted his knee severely, but it can do it. The knee is double-hinged and makes a moderately-tight V- enough for the figure to kneel reasonably well. As is often the case with Iron Man armors, the ankle is somewhat restricted by the shapes of the armor. It can lean forward a little bit without centering itself, but back is pretty much out. The shape also makes swiveling the foot to either side very awkward-looking, though it is at least possible.


Accessories

-Energy Blast

This conical piece seems to come with a lot of Marvel Universe figures from what I've seen. Rather than fitting over a hand like the bulk of the Iron Man 2 pieces, this snaps around the wrist at an angle that, as usual, would be absolutely impossible for the emitters in the palm. (Granted, since this suit has no Repulsors, it doesn't matter very much. Wikipedia claims it has "Magnetic Impact Blasts," which I personally will take to mean Repellers, the purely magnetic predecessor of the Repulsor Ray.) The piece is also very heavy, which presents a serious problem. The left arm's loose shoulder is completely incapable of bearing the weight, and that's the one with the open hand. Not, again, that you can get it to mount the beam in any serious, believable way. The right arm will bear the weight, but to add insult to injury, it scraped the finish! I hope Hasbro replaces this piece with some of the superior blasts from Iron Man 2- I have problems with some of those too, but they don't damage the toy.


-Stand

You know that stand all the GI Joes have that I got so bored with? This is the Marvel version: it's broader since MU figures can be quite large, and of course has the Marvel logo, but it's otherwise functionally identical. He's got his name tampoed on the front, and his feet peg into the stand securely, which is pretty much all you need.

-"Top Secret" Folder

The folder contains a HAMMER ID Card (HAMMER being Osborn's version of SHIELD, FYI), a threat assessment on Iron Patriot from AIM, and a Fury Files code that, for me at least, did nothing and will not let me re-enter it.


Closing Remarks

It's better than the MU Iron Man I replaced almost immediately: better proportions, better articulation, better deco, and a pretty spiffy Tommy Lee Jones head. But it has a few missteps of its own, like loose joints and a functional but potentially harmful accessory. I like it enough that I'm going to go hunting for the masked version, but I hope other versions of this mold have better accessories and less rigid hip discs. It's a Good toy, but tighter joints alone would move it up a notch on the scale.

-RAC