Iron Man: The Armored Avenger Hammer Drone

Though I've talked about the virtues of T.J. Maxx hunting before, it continues to pay off as yesterday's visit turned up yet another awesome Iron Man figure I'd never heard of before, the Hammer Drone. For those who have yet to see Iron Man 2 (and why haven't you by now?), there are mild spoilers ahead so look out.

A large part of the second film's plot involves Tony Stark's competitor, Justin Hammer, attempting to create his own version of personal mech armor. He gives up on that after a few less than successful prototypes and decides it would be much easier to simply steal the technology from Stark and with the help of Ivan Vanko (Whiplash), reverse engineer it into a series of variable attack drones to sell to the military. Clearly, nothing can go wrong with using a revenge-driven convict with his own agenda to design your automated military-class weapon platforms. Before Iron Man and War Machine destroy the majority of them however, we get to see three very cool armored drone designs, each adapted to a specific environment; land, sea or air.

This is not one of those models. In fact, I'm pretty certain this version isn't in the film at all, but there's nothing wrong with that because it is still outstanding. The Hammer Drone shares 99% of it's mold with the Weapon Assault Drone from the Iron Man 2 movie line, having only a new, skull-like head to differentiate the two on a sculpt level. Where the Hammer Drone blows the Weapon Assault Drone away however is paint scheme.



The Weapon Assault Drone is primarily a dark olive green with only a bit of silver in it's joints and weapons with white highlighting it's Arc Reactor, overall not a very exciting scheme. The Hammer Drone is far more visually interesting, using a lighter olive green than the Weapon Assault Drone on it's forearms, chest and lower legs, with silver making up the rest of the body color.



Like Stark Racing Armor Iron Man, the Hammer Drone benefits from quite a few tiny tampographed details, like this Hammer logo on it's right thigh...



And this one on it's left forearm, along with some of the warning stripes that are also present in a few other places on the Drone's body. There are also several small yellow triangles bordered in black and the black and yellow quartered circles you see on crash test dummies (I can't seem to find an official term for them.) The black and yellow detailing really pops against the silver and olive green and gives the impression that this is an early prototype, still being tested and recorded in one of Hammer's facilities before the design is given the go ahead for full production.



But just because it's a prototype, there's nothing saying it can't beat the snot out of you. Check out that whip action! The Hammer Drone includes the same serrated whips the Weapon Assault Drone sported, they're soft enough to get some whipping poses out of, but they won't hold any shape you try to curve them into and can't be used to strangle your Iron Men or anything (at least, not without some creativity.) The whips plug snugly into the inner forearms and can be switched out for the other weapons borrowed from the Weapon Assault Drone.



Big ol' chainsaws! While the whips look mean, these just look brutal. If supposedly emotionless robots can express sadistic glee, it would be on the face of this thing as it uses it's saws to slowly carve it's way into Tony's armor.



Unfortunately, the figure is packaged with the left saw in a section of the bubble tray that by very design, cannot help but bend the holy hell out of it. As the picture shows, you end up with a pretty warped saw on one hand. I'm trying to flatten mine out by leaving it pressed between heavy books and it could also be fixed via boiling water I'm sure, but really this sort of thing could easily be avoided. They managed to make packaging that didn't bend the Weapon Assault Drone's saws, why make a whole new tray layout that seems designed to damage an accessory?



The Hammer Drone features ball jointed shoulders, neck, hips, and ankles, though the hips are those weird ball-hinge joints Hasbro loves so much on their super hero toys these days. There is technically an ab ball joint, but it's far more restricted than the Weapon Assault Drone's so it's limited to mostly swivel movement. Rounding out the articulation are hinge elbows, double jointed knees and upper thigh swivels. I would have liked to see the Drone be a little more flexible (he sorely needs elbow swivels) but the clunky movement sells the walking tank aesthetic of the design. Just like the Weapon Assault Drone, panels on the Hammer Drone's forearms can flip up. I'm still not sure why, nothing is revealed beneath and I don't remember this feature coming up with any of the drones in the movie. Though as I've only seen the second movie once, eons ago, I'm hardly an expert on the subject.



Besides the paint scheme, the factor that turns a "meh" mold into an "OMG I NEED THIS" repaint is the new head. I can't put my finger on exactly what is so great about it, the four eyes? The skull-like shape? The fact it kind of looks like a Zaku from Mobile Suit Gundam? Most likely all these factors and more, but the bottom line is that it looks pretty damn sinister. Tilting the head down even slightly makes the Drone appear to be glowering at you, cocking the head to the side makes him look like he's scheming, it is a surprisingly emotive sculpt for being a largely faceless robot.



As is typical of these Marvel reviews however, after all the praise I heap, I have a bit of complaining to do as well. What you're looking at up there is the Hammer Drone's hip joint. That lighter band of gray in the center of the circular joint section should be the same metallic grayish silver as the rest of the joint. It isn't that color because fresh out of the package, the paint on his hip joints flaked off the first time I moved them. This isn't a huge negative, but it seems to me it would have been better to either leave the joints unpainted, or use the same method as the Weapon Assault Drone. That figure also has this problem, but the plastic of the hip joints are much closer in color to the metallic olive paint applied over them so it's far less noticeable.



My other issue comes from a couple of the tampographs. That isn't shoddy camera work in the picture above (well, not entirely at any rate), that triangle really does look that fuzzy and broken up on the actual figure and there is some yellow slopping into the black sections of this particular crash test dummy marking. Though these two are the only sloppy/blurry tampos out of seventeen or so on the figure so it's not that bad considering.



The Hammer Drone, if you can find it, will make a fantastic addition to your Iron Man or mecha collection. I really love the paint job and the idea of this being a "just off screen" character you could imagine being a step up from Hammer's earlier suits that tended to horribly malfunction (that poor guy who tried to turn at the waist...) and the polished final drones seen during the climactic battle. The Hammer Drone seems to be semi-rare and sells online for around twelve to twenty bucks depending on where you look, but if you have a T.J. Maxx or Marshall's nearby, I'd suggest searching there first as I only paid six bucks for my  Hammer Drone.


"Stop! ... Hammer Drone!"

Iron Man 2 Stark Racing Armor Iron Man

A large part of why I enjoy prowling the aisles of T.J. Maxx is that they sporadically get shipments of older stuff I never thought I'd see again. Or as in the case of today's review, something I had never seen ever.



This is Stark Racing Armor Iron Man, a figure in the 3 3/4 inch Iron Man 2 line that, while a repaint, is a fantastic repaint! Essentially copying the design of Stark's racing jumpsuit seen in the movie and applying it to a suit of Iron Man armor, the figure is a ridiculously ambitious and awesome paint scheme for such a small scale figure.



A lot of this review is going to be about the deco because it never ceases to amaze me. Tony has tons of tiny printed lettering all over his suit, including his last name no less than six times, either on it's own or part of "Stark Industries" graphics, three large S's and the number 11 on his left shoulder pad.



I am really so blown away by how tiny some of the lettering gets, such as this "Stark Industries" label on his right forearm. The main plastic color here is a beautiful metallic sparkle blue, offset of liberal paint applications of black and silver to mix it up.



The racing suit theme just tickles me for some reason, if I were Iron Man, I'd probably end up wearing this suit all the time just because. The backing card claims Stark wears this armor during an annual competition he holds where any company can attempt to challenge his designs and has apparently never lost. It doesn't mention the exact nature of this competition, but it amuses me to think of Stark completely smoking whatever vehicles or armor prototypes competitors might bring.


"Away!"

Articulation is pretty standard for the line; ball jointed neck, torso, shoulders, elbows, hips (sorta) and ankles with swivel wrists and hips and double jointed knees. The neck is really stiff and somewhat limited in range unfortunately and the hips are those incredibly awkward joints Hasbro has been using on their Marvel properties lately that always makes me afraid I'm going to break a figure's legs off when trying to pose them.



Stark Racing Iron Man's main accessory is a large launcher with a translucent pink rocket. The spring is tight and the missile fires pretty far, the launcher itself clips securely to either forearm and he can do some pretty cool firing poses with it, as seen above. Besides the launcher, Stark includes the standard gray display base and three "Armor Cards", clear plastic cards with sections of the armor printed on them that when layered together display the entire schematics of the suit. These cards were designed to be used in a mobile command center vehicle released in the line that I kick myself for not buying on clearance now.



As much as I love the figure's paint scheme, I have to point out issues in it's application. You can clearly see above that Stark has a large scrape in the silver of his faceplate, as well as chips missing from the silver inner arm sections, sloppy silver application to the vents on his chest armor and some silver missing from the panels on the front of his thighs. Even after noting all this however, I still grabbed him because I love the idea and paint scheme that much. It also helped that he was the only one on shelves and I didn't want to pass on an awesome figure I had never even seen before.



Overall, I would grab this figure if you're an Iron Man fan, he's too cool to pass up! I got lucky and found him at T.J. Maxx for six bucks, but he seems to be available online for around fifteen. Which is maybe a bit much, but that decision really depends on how much the figure impresses you personally. Me, I would buy this armor again if they repainted it in the six inch Iron Man scale in a heartbeat. My only advice is to take a good look at the quality of his paint applications if you can, or you might end up with a scuffed faceplate like me.

Kenner's Mantis Alien

In the same package as Lava Planet Predator came another gem from the past, one of the most beloved of my vast Kenner Aliens collection, 1993's mighty Mantis Alien! Before we dive right in though, there are a couple of things I need to clarify.

Some of you may remember me expressing my dislike for toy lines that give a hero different costumes and gear of an extremely limited scope just to sell more figures. I feel that this angle only works well for a couple of characters (Batman, Iron Man) while it is supremely bad for others (usually Superman.) Kenner is no stranger to this tactic and they applied it to many of the licenses they held, including Aliens. The thing is, it works beautifully with the Aliens property. If you can get around the fact that some of the host animals the Alien figures spawned from could in no way house chest bursters, any variation of the creature's life cycle can be hand waved. Face Hugger Queen? A mutation caused normal Face Huggers to simply mature into giant versions! Killer Crab Alien? Planet populated mainly by giant, carnivorous crustaceans! The individual Aliens represented in the line could just be from specific hives where all drones are of that type, as they all matured from the same dominant host species.



Once again, the nostalgia here is nearly choking, the Mantis was one of my absolute favorites of the Aliens line as a kid, which is saying a lot as I owned almost every Alien made. The backing card is sort of the inverse of the Predator line; Art of a classic "drone" Alien flanks the bubble on the left beneath a vertically inclined version of the iconic Aliens title, with art of the Mantis Alien itself on the right. Behind the bubble is art of an Alien egg, incorrectly illustrated with the flaps opening from the bottom. This figure is so old, when I took him out of the shipping box, his bubble fell clean off the backing card! Convenient as it did almost no damage to the card art and I had wanted to save it for display purposes anyway.



The card back shows off some of the aliens and pretty much all of the horribly bad Space Marine figures. The Mantis came out about midway through the series, so he is advertised alongside such staples as the exploding Scorpion Alien, strangling Snake Alien, amazing Flying Queen and classic Queenie herself. New comers beside the Mantis include the Queen Face Hugger and the Rhino Alien, who like the Mantis, is a heavy retool/repaint of an earlier figure in the series, the Bull Alien. The Marines line up features the only good one ever made, Atax! You better believe he'll show up at The Barracks sooner or later.



Also featured are some vehicles from the line, the only remotely movie related one being the Power Loader. The Evac Fighter doesn't look too bad considering, but there's no decent pilot for it. Though I do know where I can get a boxed one for cheap... No! Must resist collecting urge...



Out of the package, he is nothing short of fantastic. As mentioned, the Mantis is a remold/repaint of the Gorilla Alien released earlier, but Kenner went so above and beyond on mold and paint changes, you probably wouldn't notice without close inspection. I don't own the Gorilla as of this moment to compare, but the Mantis uses the same torso and gimmick while receiving all new parts in form of arms, legs, head and an abdomen replacing the Gorilla's more traditional tail.



The Mantis Alien is cast in translucent green plastic, a method Kenner started using a lot in the Aliens line which I absolutely loved as a kid. There are some light silver sprays across his arms, legs, chest and head that really bring out a lot of the sculpted detailing, which this line is famous for. Way before McFarlane and NECA were turning out super detailed Aliens merchandise, Kenner was cramming every inch of their takes on the creatures with all kinds of muscle texture, bone extrusions and looping cables. What's even more amazing is that the sculptors didn't just design one leg and arm and mirror them for the opposite limbs; Each arm and leg, while similar in overall shape, have multiple unique organic details that differentiate them.



Being a toy from the nineties, the Mantis Alien isn't just there to look pretty, he has an action feature as well! Squeezing the lighter green tubes on the back together causes the figure to spread its arms wide, releasing them brings the arms back together to trap enemies in the Mantis' spiky embrace. You can also see that where the Gorilla Alien had a tail, the Mantis sports a newly sculpted abdomen piece, complete with veined wings and a hooked stinger.



The head is a lot less smooth than the standard drone, featuring a lot of ridges, spikes and folds across the dome of the skull. The top of the head has the heaviest application of the silver sprays seen elsewhere on the figure and the snarled mass of teeth are painted a metallic gold. With six points of articulation, the Mantis Alien can't strike a whole lot of poses, but besides grabbing and crushing, there's not much else you need from him.



The translucent plastic is a real hook to me, just look at how beautiful he looks with a strong back light! Despite the very non-movie design, the Mantis looks like he could pose for the cover of an Aliens DVD and not look at all out of place.



The Mantis Alien is an excellent example of how to do a repaint/resculpt right as well as being just as excellent an example of how to create variations on your main characters and still have them be appealing. Twenty years later, he still looks amazing and is a real gem in the Aliens line. I paid about fourteen dollars for a carded sample, but loose ones will of course be much cheaper. Your mileage may vary, but if you can find a Mantis for a price you don't mind paying, he's certainly worth it.


"You got it, Sarge!"

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.