Hot Toys Iron Man Mark 3

Heroes aren’t born, they are built. That thought always encourage me to take out my time and write a review about this amazing Hot Toys figure which been out for quite sometime. Dear readers, I like to introduce, the Hot Toys Iron man Mark 3. What I have with us tonight is the highly articulated and movie accurate Ironman Mark 3. Since I was a kid, I came across the Iron man animated series on the tube. Yes, I will agree a man hide behind a machine suit is very catchy and any kid or grown up will be amaze about the idea. However, what really caught my attention was infect the room where Tony Stark kept his entire Iron man suit….. I know who wouldn’t want to be in that room. So that’s how I fall in love with Iron man, and I manage to catch it on screen when I was in Australia. I felt Robert Downey Jr really nail the part of representing Tony Stark and Jon Favreau did an amazing job of bringing the movie to life. The good news doesn’t just end there, even Hot Toys able to nail their Iron man figure. The movie came out in the summer of 2008; I was in Australia for my studies at the time. When I found out there’s 12 inch Iron man figure, I was dying to get one and so I start my hunting around the place I stay. However at that time all I can find was Hasbro’s 12 inch Iron man, which did a very good paint job but I was looking for something more articulated, able to represent the character in the movie and most important, fun to play with…weeee!!! To cut things short, I did not get the Hot Toys Ironman figure when it was release by them. Well, opportunity at times comes knocking on our door twice and this time I know I must get it. It was 2009 and Hot Toys release their 3^rd and final batch, so my last chance to get a hold of this amazing figure and I bought it without hesitation. Now, I shall save my money for Mark 1 and wait for War machine….if only Terrence Howard still in it. Alright, not to be all weird for Terrence or anything, let’s start the review now.

Packaging:

This is by far one of the best, if not the best Hot Toys packaging. The box is actually the mark 3 chest art, when you open or flip the cover over, it show the interior of the mark 3 chest. To think that this is just for the box, Hot Toys already giving you your money’s worth by making a good design. Word that this box is sold in eBay, I can’t really remember the exact amount that people bid for it, but even the box is treated as a collectible and people willing to pay for it. So if you own one of these boxes, maybe you can hit eBay and earn some extra dough.

Sculpting:

Well, the sculpting is always accurate to the movie. The whole Iron man Mark 3 armour is just magnificent. It’s just so accurate that you can just treat it as a statue. With accuracy and likeness like that just makes you forfeit of having a statue and collecting this toy. I place it on my desk with an attack post, and when my friends came over they thought that it’s a statue. Until I show them how articulated this “statue” is. However the Robert Downey sculpt doesn’t really resemble much of the actor, I felt the likeness is not much there and I will give the sculpt a 7 in a scale of 10.

Paint:

There’s a lot of people been criticizing the paint of this Mark 3. They were saying that the colour will fade and specially the gold colour. For me, the gold has been a pretty good paint job, except for the red. It was suppose to be an apple red. If you can check out in youtube, there is a video about the making of iron man by Stan Winston studios. If I’m not mistaken, it was Jon favreau that chooses the suit to have an apple red colour. Somehow, this figure’s red is more to maroon red. With a metal like painting just at time makes me forget that it’s maroon red.

Articulation:

It’s very articulated, except for the waist, which I barely dare to twist it. Other than that, the Mark 3 able to move likes how he dances in the movie. Like I said, my friends thought that it was a statue, when I show them it’s articulated, they start to play with it and post it around. They kept asking me “can he do this? Can he do that”…. And end up with “Damn……..” I end up posing him back to my favourite post, which is the attack post. Not to forget, this Hot Toys Iron man mark 3 comes with two small rockets in both arms. Then there are flaps that can be open at the back of the armor and the legs. For the articulation, this figure really is fun to play with.

Accessories:

As we know, iron man doesn’t carry a gun around much because his entire weapon is hidden in his armour, maybe war machine might have a kick ass Gatling gun on his shoulder. But Hot Toys did provide three pairs of interchangeable hands and a Tony Stark head sculpt. Not to forget, Hot Toys always nice enough to provide a stand for your collection, so you don’t need to waste extra cash just to buy a stand for your toy.

LED feature:

The light up feature is just so movie like when you turn it up. There’s one on the chest which connected to the head to make the eyes shine and another pair of LED on both hands. I mean, the LED is so beautiful that it’s the main reason that I’m attracted into this figure, just like a siren calling out to me. I love to turn the lights on when my room is dark, out of nowhere my iron man turn into a night light. Together with great post and light feature, I really felt the presents of Iron Man.

Value:

I felt the value was again reasonable for around $160 with all the articulation, accuracy and light up feature, not to forget about the license. More over, this figure has a statue likeness, so to pay for a price like that is really cheaper than getting a statue.

Overall:

There are really quite a few of bad reviews out there regarding this figure, most of it is either the colour factor or some QC problem. For me, I was lucky to get mine in good condition and up until now I still really feel it’s an amazing figure to collect. I know some out there will think of getting it when the 2^nd movie come out on 2010, but my two cents tell me that the mark3 suit will not be the same in Iron man 2. They might alter the suit a little bit, if they don’t, I don’t think Hot Toys will re-release it again. The example given for the terminator t-800 endoskeleton which up till now they still haven’t re-release it. You never know, it might be like the t-800 endoskeleton, when terminator salvation movie came out, you can only get one nearly triple the original price. So if there’s a toy store around you that have it, try to grab it, otherwise eBay is all you have in the near future.

Thanks for reading and feel free to give any comment. I don’t bite at all…I Think.