Crimson Dynamo

So I guess my thing now is "buying Marvel Select only when it's a big Russian armor guy," huh? Though many have donned the iconic armor of the Crimson Dynamo, no man has borne the mantle longer than Dmitri Bukharin. Originally suiting up during the Soviet era at the behest of the KGB, Bukharin's allegiances and affiliations have changed numerous times. Having acted as both enemy and ally to his longtime American counterpart Iron Man, the Crimson Dynamo has most recently served his motherland as a member of the heroic Winter Guard. Like Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo is a figure we've wanted for a while, but Hasbro seems pathologically allergic to releasing the right one; we can have two versions in designs nobody knows or cares about, but here's Marvel Select getting it right on their first try. This Красное Динамо is the Mark IV, though that was itself a minor upgrade of the Mark III design: the original Dynamo was puffy like the Michelin Man (and the Mark II was a retconned creation that looked like a furnace), but the III shrunk that down to be smaller and more angular, and then the IV smoothed things out, making the helmet look less like a bullet and more like a bucket. You actually get to choose how you want the helmet to look. Artists never seemed to be able to settle on whether the suit had two separate eyes or a visor slit, so DST (or specifically, designer Yuri Timg and sculptor May Thamtarana) opted to make the helmet's faceplate removable, so you can swap between two different versions. Or actually three, but we'll get to that later. Also, does Diamond employ both a Yuri Timg and a Yuri Tming, or was that previous name a typo? Crimson Dynamo is, as the name implies, red. One solid shade of red. He's even more red than Titanium Man was green, because Tittsy [I am still 100% sure no one has ever nicknamed him that --ed.] at least had some lighter washes to delineate his skirt, and silver soles on his boots - Dynamo is just red. You know what's not red? The black aection around his neck. The white eyes. The orange eye-slit. Nothing to take away from the overbearing redness that so perfectly suits this suit. Krasnoe Dinamo has a blockier design than the average Iron Man armor, with panels that reflect human anatomy but are still more flat than organic. The iconic part of this look are the big ridged sections around the forearms, shins, and particularly the shoulders - if you're making a Crimson Dynamo without those, you might as well not. He has vents on his chest, and chunky metal underwear. The sculpt really does capture all the details seen in the old OHotMU control art (even if it's not quite as thick around the middle). Once upon a time, Marvel Select figures had bad articulation, but those days are far in the past. This walking lipstick has swivel/hinge feet, swivel ankles, swivel/hinge knees, swivel thighs (though the left leg on mine is stuck fast, and so far neither heat nor cold have broken it free), balljointed hips, swivel waist, balljoint chest, swivel/hinge wrists, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell head. Having swivels in the elbows/knees and the biceps/thighs is more than is needed, but at least it means my stuck joint isn't as much of an issue. So the shoulder-things don't get in the way of the arms, they're separate pieces that fit in between the arm and the body, like the way Hasbro's been doing armor suit pauldrons for a while now. There's a hole in the back of his belt that can accommodate the kind of flight stands DST includes with some of its figures. Not with this figure, mind you, but with some. I do think he'd be too heavy for stand to actually hold up, but it's nice they included it. In addition to the swappable faceplates on the helmet, the set includes a fully unmasked head for Dmitri. Originally the character was just shown as bald, then he had a little black Van Dyke beard, but this look, with a full, bushy brown beard that has grey streaks in it, is taken from the same story that introducedthe Squadron Supreme of America. At nearly 8" tall, this figure was already technically too large to integrate with Marvel Legends, but the Crimson Dynamo armor has been drawn big enough sometimes over the years to allow you to willingly cheat it; having the head exposed, though, will definitely shatter any illusions of propriety. Crimson Dynamo doesn't get a nifty display base, something that used to be Marvel Select's bread and butter, but we do get some alternate hands: there's the regular stuff, like fists, holding, or clawing, but also a pair of flat ones with translucent energy shooting off them. And if you remember when we promised a third faceplate, this is where that comes in: you can have him firing a blast from his eyes. This is a very blasty action figure! We've long wanted a Marvel Legends Crimson Dynamo, but neither ToyBiz nor Hasbro have delivered. The Marvel Select version is close enough in scale to not look entirely out of place if you want to build the core Winter Guard, but all the alternate pieces make it a good standalone figure, too. -- 02/03/25 Are there any other Winter Guard figures you want them to make? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.