Iron Man 2 Figures (Part 3)

And here's where the toyline started to wind down!  This was around June 2010 up to October.  Everything was getting hard to find, and some of them had to be found for me by friends.  I'm not sure why, but standard procedure states that you MUST over saturate the market with the first and second waves of figures for any movie line.  If you get any other waves, make sure you only stock them once or twice, then go back to stocking the first wave.  Then, when nobody wants those AT ALL, put out all the brand new stuff straight to clearance.

So this was the only time I saw the Hulkbuster Armor.  It's a friggin' sweet toy!  I'd hunt 'em down.  Heck, you might even find him collecting dust in some store or another, you never know.  His wave actually started showing up in the dregs, which is strange, since it wasn't the last wave.  Last one never showed up, so far that I know.

Anyway, he's an awesome figure with a surprising amount of useful articulation.  I sadly did not have a Hulk for him to bust, however.

Now this here is a Vault Guardsman!  I always wanted one of these guys.  Partly because I could use them as Doombots, and partly because they were a 90's thing that I remember seeing a lot.  Especially in the Separation Anxiety SNES game with Spider-Man and Venom.  I think my little kid brain kinda made this guy more important than he really was - which can happen when you know next to nothing about a character.  I think this started off as a singular character, but eventually this armor was used for it's intended purpose of being a guard's armor in The Vault: the place where they keep all the supervillains.  How nice of Iron Man to share the armor for once!

Granted this isn't as powerful as an Iron Man suit, but it's still nice to have more than dudes in uniforms guarding the supervillains.

Now of course you noticed the musculature, but EYAGH what the heck is that on his back?  Did Tony Stark invent some new muscles there?  This was obviously a mold built to be reused just about anywhere, 'cause it's all just painted detail with an armored head.  Otherwise this is just a muscledude.  This might look good for some other characters, but I have no idea why Hasbro spends all this money on molds and just abandons them later.  Why not use all these Iron Man 2 molds in the Marvel Universe line?  There are a few cases, but not many.

Anyway, I like this guy a lot, and he's our first Vault Guardsman since the 90's so grab 'em if you have the chance.  He's all you got!

Next in line is this awesome pack at Toys R Us that was sitting around collecting dust in clearance for the longest time.  It had Sammy Jackson up there, another friggin' Iron Man, and two badass drones.

The one on the right is the one that came with the pack.  He left one is the single packed version of the MK VI.  The one in this pack is more accurate 'cause of the silver on the armor.  Doesn't matter much 'cause I hate this mold.  It's always looking down and hard to pose.

OOOOH sweet robot goodness.  Drone better indeed, Mr. Vanko!  This is the only place where you can get these desert drones, and they ROCK.  The machinegun and grenade launcher arms are only in this set.  The box said something about "interchangeable weapons" but it's only that the backpacks come off.  That's it.  But hey, who cares?  The stuff that's permanently attached rocks, so I'm good.

My only complaint is the standard thing throughout this line: The thighs run into the hip armor.  The legs don't go forward very much, and they could have been much more imposingly posed (huhuhuh) with more forward movement.

Now of course the only thing more exciting than some awesome robots is a BAD MOTHER---shut yo' mouth!  I'm just talkin' 'bout Sam Jackson.

This guy is using a G.I. Joe body, so that means I got a perfect Sam Jackson (with an eyepatch, anyway) head for Joes.

Pretty dang cool!  If this thing is still collecting dust at Toys R Us I'd say give it a shot. 

These next two are the same mold, but I never took pics of the right guy.  I just took him out to take pics of the Silver Centurion Armor in red.  It's cool, but the triangle needs to be a bit lower.

Pretty cool figure and I love the colors!  Just a little awkward looking in the chest for some reason.  Much better than the previous figure he's based on though, 'cause the shoulder armor doesn't get in the way as much.

Next!

I think they just called this one "advanced armor."  Clever.  Anyway, it's a good figure, but the shoulder armor is now totally clipped on there, so when you move the arms the right way they go ZING - right off into a corner somewhere.  Easy to loose!  Also he doesn't have a bicep swivel!  Strange thing to take out, but it doesn't hurt him too bad.  Still, not exactly the best of the best.  You can probably still see him hanging out at a Target or something if you look behind things.

There he is fighting Titanium Man, though I didn't take any more pics of him for some reason.

This one is Arctic Armor, though I dunno why that means his mask has to look so PISSED.  Maybe 'cause he's cold?

He's using the same mold as the Advanced Armor, so he has the same limitations but with a slick sliver and purplish-blue color scheme.  Also a fire blast colored like an ice blast!  IRONY BEAM!  Freezer burn?  Ice flare?  Eh, pick what you like.

Hey, it's comic Iron Monger!  He was much more blue.  Lookit how blue he is!  This body is based on the Hulkbuster Armor mold, believe it or not.  It carried over really well, and the figure is just as fun as the Hulkbuster.  As usual I highly suggest him, but I think this one is gona be real hard to find.  As it was I had to have a friend find him for me when he was supposed to be out in stores.  Very cool and worth it, though!  Certainly in my top favorites of robot figures.  He's so angry!

Here's another MK III repaint, and no it's not a stealth armor!  It's uh...lemmelookthisup - ah, it's Fusion Armor!  Ha, sure.  I guess it's powered by light and can fire lasers from anywhere on the suit sooo...laser-loty!  Kinda wish there was some way to SHOW that he fires laser all over the place, but *shrug* whatever.  Neat looking figure, and the MK III mold moves well and makes a great toy.

Now it's Drone time!  And no, I only bought one of each of these guys 'cause that's all I could find.  I might have had at least two of the flight ones, but oh well. 

This is the flight drone, by the way.  The best of the drones in terms of movement, though mine has some stuck joints I can't get unstuck 'cause I'm afraid of breaking them.  If they weren't stuck though, he would be pretty damned awesome!  Heck, he's awesome enough as is.

He flies with this jetpack that has some guns on the back so he can shoot whatever he's flying after.  Good things to have when you want kill what you're looking at. 

Next one is the ground drone.  He comes with saws.

Also whips, like his daddy!  They swap out easily, and those panels on his arms fold down to...I dunno, make a sort of shield.  I guess.  Very cool, but using the same mold as those desert ones from the TRU pack, so they're a bit limited.  Not so much that I couldn't get cool poses though!  And once again, I really must say: I LOVE ROBOTS, so I don't care as much.  Especially when they're all boxy like this - the heads are my favorite parts.  Wish I would have at least found one more of these.

Next one is a three pack of figures that came with a Navy drone, another MK V Iron Man, and Ivan Vanko.

Navy drone is using the same mold as the rest of the ground types, save for some new arms with missile pods.  The shoulder pods are falloffable - which is different from removable.  It means they don't really stay on there well all.

It's fine, 'cause he's still a cool robot, but he kinda loses everything that he is without the pods. 

They just kinda...push on there and hold with friction unless you move them.

Anyway, moving on.

One on the left is the new one and the one on the right is the single packed one.  As you can see, the new one makes it a bit more accurate to the movie, save for the hands.  Also has a new head to show the lines in the mask.

Switch in the hands from the single packed one and you've got a fairly accurate movie version!

And finally we have Mr. Vanko muddypooppants rather than orange (dunno why).  I like 'em!  Face could use some work, though.  But hey, that's just Mickey Rourke...kinda...can't do much with that one there.  Face was carved out of a ancient tree, I think.

Neat figure, but not one that you should run out and find.  Face looks like a baby. 

And that's about it!  I have more Iron Man 2 figures, but those were the only pics I bothered to take.  As you can see, they kinda tapered off at the end.  However, when it comes to the future, I think a lot of these figures will be sticking with me through whatever toy weedings I end up doing further on.  Lots of great figures, even if they have some quirks in the hips and sometimes shoulders.  More great ones than not, I'd say.  Some of the junk is still left behind in Targets 'n such, but you may find a good one hidden in there somewhere!  You never know.  K-Mart probably has some of their exclusives in their clearance section I bet...but they're like a bombed out building in a futuristic wasteland, so you're always going to find old things strewn about there.

So there we go!  Make sure you create a list of all the figures I've "highly suggested" because this is important.