Review : Iron-Man Mk46
Diamond Select Marvel Cinematic Universe
Wave/Series : Civil War
Released : August (US) / September (UK) 2016
Price : £19.99
Diamond Select's output for 2016's Captain America Civil War consisted of three figures - The Winter Soldier, Captain America and the figure we looking at here Iron-Man.
Iron-Man arrives in the usual oversized Select packaging, with a blue theme that is consistent across all three Civil War figures. Down the left hand side of the large blister is the character name, specified as Iron Man Mark 46. Under this, in the flash triangle is a head and torso shot of the Mark 46 armour - this doesn't look to be from the film, but rather an artist's interpretation. Round the left hand side is the gorgeous art panels that Select figures are famous for - and here too the image feels more like a piece of artwork and not an image from the film and to be honest it works better and sits perfectly alongside the images on the Bucky and Cap packaging.
Round the back the card is identical across all three releases in terms of the wording in the large text panel that talks about the premise on which the Civil War movie is based. To the side of this is an image of the figure itself, and underneath a checklist of "also available" and here you get images of Bucky and Cap.
Out of the box and Iron-Man sits in the huge inner tray and looks a little lost with only a single pair of hands as accessories. Behind him sits the base piece, which we will get too shortly.
Iron-Man stands dead on 7 inches high, and as we will see later on this is a tad short for my liking. I must admit at this point I am not a huge fan of the Mark 46 design. I think the Iron-Man armours hit their high point around Mark 6, and these more modern "Apple-esque" designs are not to my taste. That being said this is not the figures fault, and the figure faithfully represents the armour as seen on screen. It starts with that more streamlined head which retains the usual faceplate. Down to the chest is the arc reactor, around this are a number of panels and joints all of which are crisp and angular. The arms are quite chunky around the biceps and again are made up of various sculpted and interlocking panes. The forearms thin out a little and end in the open paled hands, compete with repulsors.
The waist and hips are quite slim, and you this is where the figure starts to look more like a robot than a man in a suit. The legs continue that panel detail down through some wide calves and into the feet - again with repulsors built in.
While I have some concerns with the proportions I can have no fault with the paint applications which are high gloss across the red and gold and with trimmed silver and elements of blue. The paint is crisp and with no bleed, but where I can find a fault is around the joints where the paint is already flaking and I do wonder what the longeivity of this high gloss paint will look like?
The elephant in the room, which I have skirted round a couple of times now, is Iron-Man's height. He is tiny and is the smallest Iron-Man figure to date - even against the very early Mark 4/6 sculpt. He also looks bizarre stood directly next to The Winter Soldier or Captain America who both tower over him by a good quarter of an inch. I do not understand the decision to make this figure so small. Even if you look at the actors height, Robert Downey Junior stands 1.74m compared to Chris Evans at 1.83m and Sebastian Stan at 1.83m. It is as though Diamond have forgotten to factor in the suit and have proportioned the figure directly to the actor. Iron-Man should stand closer to 2m (7 1/2 inch at least) for me in the armour and be taller or at least on par with Cap when face to face. There is a fix if you want and that is to heat the hips and pull out the hip joints and then plug those with some tissue - this will gain you a bit, but not enough.
Articulation is also quite poor on the figure, especially compared to the movement we can get on Bucky and Cap. The head rotates fully and can look down, at least when it is positioned forward. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, and these can get out to almost 90 degrees. They also rotate but watch as this is one of those weak spots for paint rub and flaking. The elbows bend partially, but not to 90 degrees as the armour prevents this. This wasn't an issue on early Iron-Man figures like the Mk42. Here again the paint will start to flake as the elbows are moved. The hands are on pegs but will only rotate, and this is a shame as you can't bend the open palm back on itself to get that iconic firing position. The hands are swapable with open handed and closed fist options. These swap out easily enough and, unlike the fists on Cap and Bucky, are well proportioned.
The legs start with a ball jointed hip, and not the usual T-joint that Diamond like to use. This swings fully out to the side if you wish - although why would Iron-Man be doing the splits? It can't however do the same in front and stops at about half way to the right angle - this means Iron-Man won't sit, and more importantly has zero chance of that fist down Iron-Man Super Hero landing pose. There is also a feeling that these hips are also going to suffer from getting very loose very quickly. Even in the short time I've had and been posing this figure for the review the hips are already swinging quite freely. The knees are better being a double joint, neatly hidden behind the knee armour. This double joint allows the knee to bend past 90 degrees and this does at least allow Iron-Man to kneel on both knees. And finally into the feet and these are on a rocker to aid stability. And the good thing for anyone wanting a flying pose that the feet can be pointed down slightly, just not as much as you may like.
Iron-Man of course comes with no other accessories aside from those spare hands. Purists would have wanted to see a swap-out Robert Downey Jr head, but this is not forthcoming - not even as a Disney Store Exclusive. The other thing that might have been nice was a flying stand, as this would have gone some way to mitigate the height issue.
He does however come with part of that nice Avengers Facility display as well as the connecting pieces that you will find in a baggie attached to the Diamond advertising booklet. The sections do marry up neatly with plenty of connectors to square the whole thing up across the base and across the back of the section. The Iron-Man section also includes the hole for the Avengers Logo that you will need to buy Captain America to obtain.
Iron-Man Mark 46 has some positives, but also plenty of negatives. The height is the biggest and a poor decision by Diamond. The paint flaking may be a bigger issue going forward, we will have to see - but I do get the fact that high gloss metallic paint is difficult to apply on a figure costing £20. Articulation has gone backwards from the Mk42, although the joints on the 46 are better looking. It's difficult to score a figure that on its own would be pretty well received, but once included in a display with it's peers it looks undersized and wrongly scaled. To that end I am going to go with a score of 3 out of 5.
