Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor

To be honest, I could care less about the Avengers movie; I dislike Loki being the villain again right after being the villain in Thor, I would really prefer Edward Norton as the Hulk (or Bruce Banner if you want to be snippy about it) and I would trade Hawkeye and Black Widow for Spider-Man being on the team in an instant. I have been looking at Hasbro's Avengers merchandise all the same however and two gems immediately caught my eye, the Stark Tech Assault Armor suits.



The basic premise is that to help combat Loki's army of aliens, Tony Stark Developed and constructed powerful armored mech suits for himself and Captain America. Just himself and Captain America, apparently the rest of the Avengers are designated cannon fodder. It would be really cool if further along we got mech suits for Thor, Hawkeye and Hulk (though he hardly needs one and wouldn't fit in one), but there's a reason why I don't think we will and I'll get into it in this review.



The Stark Tech Armor sets consist of the large suit or armor itself and a pack in figure of the appropriate pilot, in this case, Captain America. If this Cap figure looks familiar to you, it should, it's the exact same Cap figure used for Midnight Air Raid Captain America, whom I reviewed earlier. If the figure looks really familiar, that's because it is Midnight Air Raid Captain America, I can't seem to find the exact Cap that came with the mech. Since they're identical and it doesn't really matter, this Cap will be standing in.



Here's the basic suit with all the weaponry removed to give you a better idea of the sculpt and articulation. There is a lot of detail going on here. Armor plating, rivets, pistons, wires and more come together to make this hunk of plastic really look like the hunk of high-tech metal it's meant to be. Also, stripped down like this, you might notice similarities between this armor and a certain other armored hero of Marvel's who hangs out with Tony Stark. No? Nothing yet? We'll come back to it.



Standing a little over six inches tall and probably a good four and a half wide at the shoulders, this is a decently bulky toy. Articulation consists of ball jointed shoulders, hips, and ankles, hinge elbows and swivel wrists and neck. Those translucent red cylinders on silver robot arms beneath the suit's main arms are control yokes that the pilot's arms slip into, these are also on ball joints, allowing the pilot to mimic the movements of the larger mech's arms which is a cool touch.



Color scheme is nothing surprising since it's Cap, but there are a lot of painted details including a white "A" on the mech's forehead, "STARK" painted in white on the right shin, and a white star across the chest. There are also some small tampographed details like warning stripes on the forearms, an arrow indicating the cockpit release and "CAPT. ROGERS, AV 02" on the left side of the chest.

Here you can see how Cap pilots the suit; swing the chest plate out, fold the shins down, and he slips right in. The panels close snugly around Cap so despite there not being an actual peg or anything holding him in place, he doesn't rattle around. An issue I have with the Cap mech but not the Iron Man version is that this mech's chest plate is too wide and strikes the shoulder armor if you open it too far, resulting in it popping off.


The armor includes several weapons that can be placed in a variety of places thanks to a universal peg and hole system. These weapons consist of a red cannon, blue machine gun, large blue missile pod and two smaller blue missile pods. The missile pods are meant to worn on the shoulder and sides of the legs respectively while the guns can be swapped between points on the forearms, backs of the hands and shoulders, though the extended forearm armor on Cap's mech makes placing them on the hands difficult. Both the cannon and machine gun fire gray missiles like the one visible in the cannon in my pictures and the suit comes with two. I don't have one in the machine gun because it looks goofy protruding from the center of a ring of gun barrels.


"Well, one of us is going to have to change..."

By now, some of you may have noticed that elements of the armor and weapons seem familiar. Or you've been reading my not-so-subtle hints and want me to get to the point. Well, the point is this; I believe this toy and the complimenting Iron Man version were originally slated for release in the Iron Man 2 toy line and this particular suit was to be War Machine. Looking past the patriotic paint job and Steve Rogers specific lettering, there are many design details from the War Machine armor present here: The forearms are thicker and more heavily armored, the chest is sculpted to include the "shoulder strap" sections that War Machine has and the forehead features the horizontal slat details also present on War Machine's helmet. I'm guessing these sculpts were probably developed late in Iron Man 2's merchandise push and didn't make it to final product in time, so some smart exec pitched the idea of repainting and re-purposing them for the Avengers line. And it works, it works well. Unless you're aware of the War Machine connection, Cap's armor just looks like a slightly different version of Stark's own, built with heavier arms and armor in mind. It works in-universe as well since it would be just like the brilliant, yet somewhat lazy, Stark to have designed heavy armor suits for himself and Rhodes in his idle time, only to have a light bulb go in in his head when Cap later mentions in battle the need for heavier and more advanced weaponry to even the odds. Not that I expect anything as cool as giant mech armor in the actual movie, but a man can dream.


"I'll be taking this!"


"Get lost Rogers!"


"For America!"


"Oh God, there's something right behind me, isn't there?"

Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor is part of the brand spanking new Avengers toy line and can be had from just about any of the bigger stores for around twenty dollars. In my opinion, it's very much worth it. He's a fun, chunky mech suit with a lot of weapons and a decent if not thrilling pack in figure for one portrait of Andrew Jackson. If shows like Exosquad, Robotech or Gundam are your forte, you may very well enjoy this red, white and blue bruiser as well.

Midnight Air Raid Captain America

As I stated in my Dark Threat review, comic movie toy lines tend to go overboard with mission specific suits and wacky accessories. To make a few extra bucks, companies turn out figures like Arctic Armor Batman, Anti-Kryptonite Superman and Hydro-Disc Spider-Man. With characters like Batman and Iron Man, it makes sense to a degree, as the vast fortunes of their alter egos would allow them to waste millions on Neon Jungle Tracker Armor they would only use once. Captain America however is not one of those characters.

This figure depicts the thrilling scene in the movie where Cap flies a jet pack into Hydra headquarters and shoots up a ton of henchmen with giant machine guns. If you don't remember that scene, it's because it never happened. Midnight Air Raid Captain America is from the same Deluxe Mission sub line as Dark Threat, but because Cap isn't really known for costume variants, this one has a giant jet pack and rifles not present in the movie.



The Cap figure himself is pretty simple; As a pack-in, he loses a few points of articulation like ankles and waist, but can still get into a few poses. Articulation he does have includes hinge knees and elbows, swivel wrists, swivel thigh cuts, ball and hinge shoulders, elbows and hips and a head that might be on a ball joint but is placed so low you can't tell. Colors are red, white and blue as Cap insists on dressing like an American flag and sculpt detail isn't too bad, his armor especially has some nice scale-mail pattern to it.



Unfortunately, like Dark Threat, Cap has some paint issues. As you can see here, the paint on his arms is a bit sloppy, leading to the white paint of his sleeves not quite extending to the edges of the gloves like they should. Additionally, both the center stripe on his chest and the center stripe on his back have too much red slopped on, giving those stripes a thicker, darker appearance that stands out.



The jet pack, while silly in concept, is nicely detailed with large turbines and red and white striped missiles attached to the undersides of the wings. The backs of the wings also have peg holes to hold the twin rifles Cap also comes with. The "shield" on the jet pack is actually a launching disc that flies a decent distance when you push the tab below it.



Cap pegs into the jet pack via a hole in his back, the harness section slipping over his chest and snapping into the main piece via two clips on the shoulder straps. Midnight Raid Cap also comes with the two giant gray rifles seen here. These seem a bit out of character for Steve Rogers, even if he does use a pistol briefly in the movie. I kind of wish they had released him with his iconic shield instead.



At twelve to fourteen bucks when new, I could not really suggest this guy. Sloppy paint and limited articulation are two strikes against him and a cool (if silly) accessory doesn't really help in my opinion. Really, I bought this guy mainly because I wanted a more articulated Cap to pilot the Stark Tech Captain America Assault Armor and because I thought the second firing disc shown in the package was a shield accessory. I was to be disappointed on both accounts. Though basically free since when I bought him and Dark Threat, the cashier failed to ring one of them up, I'm still not sure if he was worth it at that price. This exact same figure with the exact same accessories and a slightly different paint job was released as Air Assault Glider Captain America in the Deluxe Missions line if you prefer slightly darker, dirtier colors on your Cap.

Marvel's Hydra Soldier Dark Threat

First off, if you haven't seen Captain America: The First Avenger yet, I recommend it. It's a really well done comic book movie and doesn't take itself so seriously that it looks goofy instead like some movies with the Marvel name on them (looking at you, X-Men.)

When the movie tie in merchandise from Hasbro first started hitting shelves, I scoffed at a Hydra soldier with giant arm guns in the Deluxe Mission Pack line and thought it a clear example of over the top toy designs that would never actually be in the movie itself (for examples, see any Batman movie toyline from Returns on.) Call me embarrassed when not only was that soldier in the movie, he was pretty bad-ass before being soundly beaten. Twelve bucks was a bit more than I wanted to pay for him when he was new at retail, but that's where patience and T.J. Maxx pay off...

I'm guessing there was some sort of legal issue with just calling this figure "Hydra Heavy Trooper" or something along those lines, but man is that an unwieldy name. From now on, I'm just going to refer to him as Dark Threat. Overall, I'm pretty impressed; He's G.I. Joe sized but slightly bulkier (intentionally, he's bulkier than Cap from the same line) and would look right at home among your Cobra soldiers. Actually, with the fairly generic, semi-futuristic uniform and armor, I could see him fitting into a few different universes, you could just as easily have this guy running alongside your Clone Troopers.

Dark Threat's helmet is nicely detailed with layers that look like overlapping armor and padding and visored goggles that look like they're hinged to flip up. The mouth plate resembles a rebreather or compact gas mask and has a series of smaller plates and vents that link it to the helmet. On the sides of the helmet are tiny red circles with even tinier black Hydra emblems printed on them. Unfortunately, due to their size and the somewhat uneven application of paint, you can barely tell what the symbols are.

The body armor is made of soft, rubbery plastic and can be removed after unsnapping the waist belt and contorting Dark Threat a bit. The armor is composed of shoulder pads, a chest plate and a back plate with a small turbine and canisters attached to it held together with web gear-like straps. There are wide, silver belts that resemble ammo belts sculpted into the armor, appearing to run from the turbine up through the shoulder pads then continuing down the actual arms of the figure. I assume these are power cables or literal ammo belts from the Cosmic Cube powered backpack to the giant arm cannons. I'm forced to mention sloppy paint work again though, as the left shoulder pad's silver spray for the ammo belt section is a bit off and covers a portion of the armor instead, leaving a piece of the belt plain green.

The majority of his uniform beneath the armor is a slightly blueish green with a lot of black straps cinching sections tight or appearing to hold pieces of his clothing in place. Interestingly, he has another, smaller sculpted back pack beneath his armor which looks like it could be a standard kit or perhaps an oddly placed parachute.

Here he is using his giant guns and their first projectile type; flame thrower! The guns fit snugly over his hands and probably won't fall off unless you enjoy literally throwing your toys around the room. The missiles fly a good distance and the triggers are tight so you won't have to worry about accidentally blinding yourself just moving Dark Threat around a shelf. The flame effect missiles are very nicely done; cast in translucent yellow plastic and given an orange spray at the ends, they start as thin jets that widen into rough crescents and have a lot of twisting flame detail molded into them.

The second type of missiles are translucent blue plastic and are meant to represent the Cosmic Cube powered weaponry Hydra uses in the movie. These missiles don't look as cool as the flames partially because they are a lot longer but only have detail sculpted about halfway down their lengths and partially because he just looks like he's firing high pressure bursts of mouth wash at foes.

Articulation is fairly decent, though you'll be disappointed if you're expecting him to be on par with recent Star Wars and G.I. Joe. figures. He has eleven points of articulation including those joints that aren't really ball joints but allow the same range of motion in his shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. His head feels like it's on a ball joint, but the range of motion is so limited, it might as well just be a cut joint and his upper thighs have that weird swivel cut Hasbro has been using on Cap/Iron Man/Avengers figures recently. No waist, wrists or ankles, which is somewhat disappointing but I suppose they have to cut corners somewhere. Due to him not having a bicep swivel, you won't get him holding a rifle with two hands anytime soon, but since his weapons don't require that, I'm fine with it.

You would think with those giant guns and even bigger missiles, he would have balance issues but surprisingly, this is not the case. The oversized weapons and his pretty wide feet allow him to stand unassisted in quite a few menacing poses and his feet have peg holes which are compatible with the stands from the current Marvel Universe 3.5 inch figures if you should have problems with him still.

In the end, I'm quite pleased with Dark Threat. Due to the few sloppy paint sections and somewhat limited articulation, I wouldn't have dropped twelve dollars on him when he was new, but for seven bucks (and getting Midnight Raid Cap for free due to cashier error!), he's definitely worth it. I would highly recommend him if you can grab one for a decent price and are a fan of Captain America, Marvel or just armored troopers in general.