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Iron Man

Avengers: Endgame
by yo go re

One last time.

Tony Stark gears up in his highly advanced Mark LXXXV armor.

Every time these bios manage to say less and less. It's a good thing Tony's dead, or the Avengers 5 toy packaging would just say "Is IMan." These toys are coming out long enough after the movie that you're fine to actually talk about things that happen in it, so try this one for size: "Five years after returning to Earth, Tony Stark has tried to leave the life of a hero behind - but he's never stopped working. While the Mk.50 armor was destroyed, 34 generations of improvement have led to the highly advanced Mk.85 Iron Man armor." Or something like that. It uses more than a dozen words, sets the design in a specific point and time, and gives us at least a little bit of an idea of what's up with it.

For their final Iron Man armor, the MCU went deeply classic, basing the Mark LXXXV on the comics' Mark II - aka the "Classic" or "Ditko" armor. The central body, the forearms, and the shins are red, while the upper limbs are gold. The shapes of the armor are still in keeping with the movie styling, but the color layout is a definite homage to the comics. In fact, the golden parts even hint at musculature a little more than usual, really upping the parallels.

Even the mask is getting in on the fun. There hasn't really been a ton of variety in Iron Man's helmets throughout the various movies, so this one doesn't look substantially different from any of the others. But if you look at the upper edge of the gold faceplate, you'll see that it comes to two distinct points - you know, like the horned mask Ditko drew.

Iron Man has great articulation, moving at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, torso, wrists, elbows, biceps, shoulders, neck, and head. Hasbro's been making movie Iron Men toys for more than a decade now, so they've got the hang of it. The wrists don't have pods on the back of them anymore, so the wrists flex just fine. You even get your choice of fists or opens, and for the first time ever, the set includes enough repulsor blasts to put them in his palms and his feet at the same time. I guess if this is their last chance, they're going out big!

You know what else is big? The Nano Gauntlet. Presumably this is meant to be used either by Hulk or Thanos, judging by the size, but Thanos' bracer gets in the way, and Hulk only wore it when he was also wearing his hero suit, not his flashback clothes. The glove is done as two pieces: a fist with all the Infinity Stones on it, and a "sleeve" piece to fit over the wearer's forearm. So it's nice, but we need Hasbro to release a Hero Hulk now so it can actually be useful. And while we're at it, why doesn't this figure include a "gem hand" for Tony? Are they planning another exclusive like Captain America?

The set includes the left arm of this series' BAF, Thor. And also an alternate hand for that arm, meaning this release has one of the highest hands-to-figure ratios we've ever seen: one Iron Man, seven various hands for various characters.

This won't be the last movie Iron Man toy Hasbro ever makes - old things always have a way of coming back, and he's popular enough that even if he never appears in another movie (through flashback or dream or hoax or what have you), Hasbro will find an excuse to make new ones. But for what is ostensibly the end, the designers went out on a high note, finally bringing the best Iron Man armor from the comics into the movieverse, and making it an awesome toy.

-- 12/21/19


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