Pros : Excellent articulation. Most joints are nice and tight. The decal application is neat and adds some finer detail to the figure
Cons : The overall build is a bit too slim. There are spots of sloppy painting around the head and chest reactor
War Machine was a surprise inclusion in the first Avengers Age of Ultron wave, trumping key characters like Widow, Hawkeye and Quicksilver (who is still figureless to this day). He has made two appearances to date in the Legends series, both within a Hulkbuster BAF wave.
The first, back in 2015, saw him released with the Hulkbuster head. In this release he came with an alternative mask up Rhodey head option. He would then be repacked in 2016 with the Hulkbuster leg in a best of MCU wave made up purely of Age of Ultron / Avengers figures. In this release he lost the alternative head option.
Out of the pack and you can see the amount of detail that has gone into the figure in both the sculpt and the decor. This is the Mk2 War Machine armour, originally seen painted as Iron Patriot in Iron-Man 2 and then in this grey & silvery livery for Age of Ultron. The head sculpt captures that thicker set, wider eyes War Machine mask rather than look like an Iron-Man repaint. We also get clean lines and panel details cast in a metallic grey with silver detailing painted to break up the colour scheme.
We have some well positioned and applied decals such as the Lt.Col James Rhodes on the chest, the FF5445 on the shoulder armour and a circular icon on the right wrist with a 5 pointed star.
While these details are nice and precise, there are a couple of messier applications - in particular the chest reactor which looks to be painted and therefore looks dirty white with a less than neat red border. The same applies to the eyes on the fully helmeted head where the inner lenses are a plain white with dodgy red border.
The overall figure is also quite slim, not like the bulky War Machine we see in Age of Ultron and not really what you'd expect of a man in a mechanical suit.
Rhodey comes with the rear cannon, which is supplied as a separate piece in the packaging. This can be attached to a hole on the back of the figure - either aligned to the right or left shoulder.
While both orientation work, it is over the right shoulder that this looks best thanks to the way the shoulder cannon is cast and assembled.
The cannon will first rotate in the back socket allowing for some positioning over the shoulder. There is then a pivot on the first arm which allows the cannon to be raised or lowered. This is then followed by a pivot allowing the top part to rotate. That gives a full range of movement of the cannon - from firing positions to be folded back and in a stored position.
The cannon is cast in a grey plastic with some detailing, but nothing spectacular. There are no paint apps at all applied to the weapon. The main pivot is quite loose too and will have limited longevity and I think floppy cannons will be a problem in time.
If you bought the original version, you can swap out the head option on your War Machine. The operation is simple with the first head popping off with limited pressure, and the new one snapping on in its place.
This new head is sculpted with the likeness of James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) beneath a raised face plate. While the skin tone is one flat colour and the eyes are a touch cartoonish, the likeness is pretty good and recogniseable as Cheadle. Around the face there are some paint bleed issues where the grey of the suit comes back in. The face plate sits high enough to ensure the face is not obscured.
Articulation on War Machine is good, and the slim build of the armour does help this articulation deliver much more than a bulkier War Machine or Iron Man could ever do.
Excluding the cannon we have 18 standard points of articulation. There is then another two joints on the cannon, and two further on the shoulder armour. These shoulder pieces allow the ball jointed shoulder to raise up to 90 degrees on both sides, and then the arms can be turned using the bicep swivel and bent past 90 degrees at the elbow via the double jointed elbows. The wrists can rotate and also have a pivoted peg so they can bend to 90 degrees also.
There is no waist joint, instead the torso is articulated mid way with a ball joint and a similar ball joint for the head as we saw earlier. Legs then mirror the arms, with ball joint hips followed immediately by a thigh swivel. This then goes down into double jointed knees and finishes with ankle rockers. There are no issues in keeping Rhodey standing on display and most joints are ratcheted.
My only gripe with articulation is the inability to point the feet downward into what we would expect in a flying pose. While you can stick Rhodey on a flying stand, it looks a bit awkward with the feet presented flat.
The Age of Ultron War Machine is a very nice, well articulated figure that only suffers from a couple of areas of sloppy painting and being a touch too slim. The argument is of course that bulking out Rhodey would then have impacted articulation. The shoulder cannon works well, but may have longevity issues.
As a figure that can flesh out an Age of Ultron display or who can be lined up as part of the MCU New Avengers (as seen at the end of Age of Ultron) War Machine Mk2 is a fine addition to your collection and I score him a 4 out of 5.
