Iron Man Model 72

The Mark 72 Iron Man armor, built out of near-indestructible mysterium, pilots Tony Stark's mammoth mech - the Sentinel Buster. No, it's not the Mark 72 armor, it's the Model 72 armor - movie armors get marks, comic armors get models. I don't know what the actual difference would be, but I know that calling things the right name matters. Mysterium, the stuff the armor is built out of, is Marvel's newest super-metal, full of anti-magic properties and stronger than adamantium. It was introduced during the X-Men's Krakoa era, and could only be mined from the White Hot Room (the place the Phoenix goes when it's waiting to be resurrected). Also it's super valuable and everybody wants it. And things made of it don't set off Spider-Man's spider-sense. ...is it possible for an inert metal to be a Mary Sue? Like the bio says, the Model 72 armor was designed for no purpose other than being what the Sentinel Buster armor was attached to, the way Hulkbuster was attached to the Model 13. Basically, an anti-mutant bigot took over Tony Stark's company, and used all its technology and research to build a new line of more powerful Sentinels. Pissed off at this, Tony needed a way to beat the Stark Sentinels, and you know him: his default solution is to make some kind of "-buster" armor. But the armor needed to be disguised as separate parts ("Iron Man" was the intellectual property of Stark Unlimited, so when Tony lost the company, he lost the right to operate as Iron Man), and those parts needed something to attach to. The armor does have a pretty cool design, admittedly, with a lot more black than you normally see on a regular Iron Man armor. It was designed by Pepe Larraz, despite him not being the regular artist on the book at the time - he was drawing an Avengers story where the armor would appear, but he was working so far ahead that the suit hadn't been created yet. The idea was to make the suit influenced by high-end sports cars more than body armor, explaining why it seems to have a few angled panels worn over the "base" suit beneath - those are fenders and bumpers! The sculpt of the abdomen feels really similar to some existing figure, but I can't figure out which one: it's smooth yet angular, but the inset lines do match the design art, so it seems this is new. The reason the armor has so much black is because Larraz couldn't figure out a way to not make Iron Man look like he was wearing metal underwaer, so he just left the entire middle section black so it could be colored flat and not stand out. Plus, mysterium is dark, so the implication is we're just seeing the bare metal. The red plastic has a nice color, but Hasbro didn't paint the rear of the figure, so we see way too much of that red. Look at the actual design, and you'll see a lot more black, gold, and even silver back here, but the toy doesn't live up to that. Articulation is mostly fine, with swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinge knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, a balljoint chest, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, a balljointed neck, and barbell head. The shoulder pads rotate with the arms, as you'd expect from a good toy. The upper edge of the boots raise all the way from the inside of the thighs to the side of the hips, which means if you want to raise the legs to the side, you'll need to carefully tuck the upper edge of said boots in between the leg and the pelvis. The way the forearm plates hang over the hands means the hands can't flex up, only down, which makes the alternate open hands funtionally useless. A swappable panel on each forearm allows you to choose between a smooth surface, or one that's popped up slightly to reveal a blaster. There's a hole in the barrel, though it's not sized for the standard Iron Man repulsor blasts - it's more for the "muzzle flare/gunsmoke" parts so many ML guns have. We do get repulsor blasts, in a very nice blue-and-white combo, but since he can't point his palms forwrd accurately, they look best coming out of his boots. Often in these Build-A-Figure series, Hasbro won't include a piece with the most popular character, trusting it will sell on its own. So quite rarely for an Iron Man, this one does include a BAF piece. Two, in fact! He's got Executioner's head and axe. Which shows us how weirdly large the finished figure is going to be. Like, you do understand that he's human-sized, right Hasbro? He's not a giant? He's human-sized the same way Thor is human-sized. So his head should not be twice the size of Iron Man's. Mysterium may be a silly idea, but Iron Man's Mysterium Armor will look good standing next to all the rest in the Hall of Armor. But you're going to have to paint it yourself if you want it to look finished. -- 03/23/26 What secondhand character is Marvel's best? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.