Marvel Legends Iron Man Series 1 & Iron Monger BAF...

Comic Iron Monger BAF

 For the record, the Marvel Legends Iron Man Series 1 action figures has got to be one of the most 'annoying' ML wave ever for most collectors to complete. I'd say Hasbro has really outdone themselves this time around by testing our patience and perseverance to the max by making us wait over 3 months to complete the Build-A-Figure (BAF) 'Comic' Iron Monger. As usual, being a South Asian collector, I had prepared myself for the worse to see whether there'd be any hiccups for us to get the second half of the figures needed to complete the BAF and man I was right! Turns out retail stores in Malaysia did NOT carry any of the Mark 42s/Rhodey Iron Patriots/Ultrons needed to complete Obadiah's figure....and as of writing this, I still haven't found any on retail pegs anywhere. Thank God for specialty toy stores. So without further ado, let's see if the whole wave and the BAF were truly worth all the trouble....

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Packaging

Here are your standard bubble packaging on cardback that eveybody has seen before on ALL of Hasbro's single carded Marvel Legends action figures. They come with a 'super-brief' bio of each characters on the back of the card (I didn't feel the need to show the back of the cards here but if you're interested you can always go to my flickr page if you wanna see those).

Iron PatriotHeroic Age Iron Man



Classic Iron Man





Mark 42





















Movie Iron PatriotUltron


















The figures

Right, you've seen the packaging, now let's rip them out of their plastic cells and get on with the BAF assembly shall we? Come on, to be honest, everybody's really forward to see the BAF Iron Monger ain't it? But first, let's take a quick look at all 6 figures that came in the wave:

Bleeding Edge Armor Iron Man

Good God. I don't even know who in heaven gave the name to the armor. All I know (and remember) from reading past Iron Man story arcs (Extremis among others) was that the armor was part of Tony Stark's body and he can mentally summon the armor as a second skin etc. Let's just keep the historical facts out of this review shall we? Anyway, if you're interested to read more, then wikipedia is definitely the best source for you to delve yourself into.

Bleeding Edge Armor Iron Man


This is one of the most anticipated Iron Man figure from Series 1 for me as I look forward to assemble my modern Avengers line-up for my display. I completely missed the Marvel Universe version so I was quite hyped up about the 6" version.

Bleeding Edge Armor Iron Man

The paint's pretty good on this one with no obvious or unintentional slop. Articulation is good too. You've seen how past incarnations of Iron Man (men) were....nothing new here.

Bleeding Edge Armor Iron Man


Iron Patriot

You know many fans got pissed off when Rhodey was given a new armour in Iron Man 3 but was given a name which completely belonged to a different character altogether in the comics. I am one of those people. Having read the Avengers saga from the 'Disassembled' story arc, I was actually looking forward to see a certain Norman Osborn donning the armour on the silver screen but I guess Marvel Studios had different ideas.

Iron Patriot


Iron Patriot here is a repaint of the Extremis Iron Man figure from 2012's Wave 1 (aka Terrax wave). I've used that figure for a photo shoot with the BAF figure towards the end of this post so you can compare that with this one if you wish to do so. They share the exact same mold.

Iron Patriot

Honestly if ya ask me, Iron Patriot here (same goes for the Wave 1 Iron Man) is too skinny of an armour and it's almost impossible for us to even think that there's an actual human being inside.

Iron Patriot


Classic Iron Man

Next up is the 'classic' Iron Man that comes with two inter-changeable heads.  This figure has been issued before in the TRU exclusive 2-pack together with Maria Hill/Sharon Carter figure. I'm kinda annoyed that Hasbro didn't bother to include the Tony Stark head this time around. What a bummer.

Classic Iron Man

Classic Iron Man

I love the simplistic design of the armour. It reminds me of the golden/silver age Avengers comic books. I also remember Tony reverting back to this armour during the finale of Secret Invasion (I think it was this suit!).

Classic Iron Man

Classic Iron Man


Mark 42

I love how Marvel Studios gave Iron Man's armour a make over in the 3rd movie. However I'm not too sure whether the gold-inclined armour strikes a special place in most Iron Man fans' hearts or otherwise.

Mark 42

As much as I love the new colour scheme, I do hope Marvel Studios revert back to the old colour scheme with less gold in it for Avengers 2.

Mark 42

I love this figure as it feels bulky in my hand. More plastic used for the figure means more value for your money! Right?

Mark 42


Movie Iron Patriot

As I've mentioned earlier, may fans were left speechless as Rhodey was given the so-called 'Iron Patriot' moniker in the Iron Man 3 flick. With this we can more or less gauge that Marvel Studios is never gonna introduce the 'Dark Avengers' story arc into their movie-verse.

Movie Iron Patriot

Nevertheless, all our grouses aside, this is truly a wonderful action figure and an excellent representation of how Rhodey's armour. He's bulky and colorful....and you can never go wrong with those two excellent attributes in any action figure!

Movie Iron Patriot

Again, articulation is pretty good and the paint on mine is rather neat. I have no complains on these two department. It's just that you can only display him with the Mark 42 if you're really fussy about the armour being only 'screen accurate' and stuff. I'm not too concerned on that though, he's going straight into my ensemble of 6" iron men!

Movie Iron Patriot


Ultron

Frankly, I didn't get the previous Toybiz version of Ultron nor the Marvel Select version. While I love the character and its constant threat to my beloved Avengers in the comics, I didn't seem to have much motivation when it comes to getting his action figure to stand among my growing Avenger figures. It's good that Hasbro finally gave us a new Ultron, although this one utilises the Titanium Man body from yesteryear.

Ultron

Ok, I gave Ultron a bit of touch-up. His 'plasticky' shoulder pads were too obvious for my liking and I just had to give him that bit of make-over. Ahhh....doesn't he look a tad bit better now that his shoulder pads look 'metallic' too with the rest of his body? I love the slight blue-ish paint wash over him too.

Ultron

I find myself liking this Ultron figure a lot! I wanted to get the Marvel Select version some time back just for that sweet diorama base of his but now I'm pretty content to have this 'Legends version. At least for the time being until I find the need to have more Ultrons to battle my Avengers that is!

Ultron


BAF Iron Monger

Okay folks, here's the moment you've been waiting for.....*drumroll*.....I present you...the Build-A-Figure Iron Monger figure!

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Technically, he's just a blown up version of the Marvel Universe figure we've seen some time ago...but that figure itself was very cool indeed! So that means we're now getting an action figure of equal cool-ness to say the least...in 6" scale at that!

Comic Iron Monger BAF

He's one big hunk of plastic (well, not Marvel Select-esque big but you get what I mean!) so if you love bulky action figures then this is a no-brainer must-buy for you!

Comic Iron Monger BAF

The articulation is very good for such a bulky action figure and I had a blast posing him alongside a rather unlucky Iron Man for this photo shoot!

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Comic Iron Monger BAF

And here's Iron Monger up against the Invincible Iron Man himself! As mentioned much earlier, I've taken the liberty to choose the Extremis Iron Man from Hasbro's ML Legends 1 as his sparring partner.

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Perhaps one point to note is that the BAF are smaller in size nowadays. Gone are the days where you could assemble real behemoths like Galactus, Sentinel and Giant Man when you collect BAF parts during the Toybiz era. 'Rising cost of plastic' and 'keeping retail prices down for the customers' are among Hasbro's favourite response to this issue. Personally, I'd rather have the 'giant' BAFs back and let Hasbro hike the individual figures up a bit than having these current BAFs scaled down smaller and smaller. Have you even seen the new Hit Monkey/Rocket Raccoon 'BAFs'??? Can we even call those BAFs?

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Anyway, back to the figure. I love it that Iron Monger here towers over most of the ML figures I have in my collection. Ok, at least he's still bigger than most ML figures but that still doesn't sway me from wanting the big BAFs of yesteryear to come back.

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Consolation here is that Iron Monger is not as disappointingly small as the Arnim Zola BAF. Ain't it?

Comic Iron Monger BAF

I love the armour design and the fact that he's cast in blue-coloured plastic mold. It seems to work for armour designs as we've seen in various Iron Man figures. The blue colour is evenly distributed and I don't think Hasbro could've achieved this effect had they went to the paint route instead.

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Comic Iron Monger BAF


THE REBEL'S VERDICT: Despite most of complains and grouses received from most collectors (yours truly included!) I think overall the Iron Man Series 1 and the Iron Monger BAF have been solid entries for our Marvel Legends collection. I personally look forward to the upcoming Wolverine Series 1 figures aka the 'Puck' wave. As a Marvel Legends fan I look forward to the resurgence of the line and I think the Iron Monger wave (or series...whichever you want to call it) has just whetted our appettite for more. It's just sad that Malaysian collectors will not see these at retail shelves but I guess there's a blessing to it all as they're still widely available through specialty toy stores albeit limited quantities. Now bring me the Puck wave next Hasbro! Excelsior

Comic Iron Monger BAF

Comments

Combo said…
I love the photos, and i love the props that you've placed together with the figures.
The Rebel said…
Combollector >>> Thks dude. Props were from various action figures i.e. ML, McFarlane etc. I use whatever's available and within reach!