Cosmo Burger Iron Giant

Diamond Select Toys got the Iron Giant license in 2016, but so far all we've seen from it have been statues and Minimates. Finally, we get an action figure! The Iron Giant is what he chooses to be, and when he's hiding from humans, he chooses to be a Cosmo Burger mascot! This set would have been an SDCC 2020 exclusive, if Americans weren't too proud to wear masks and stay at home for a few weeks, but we have no leadership and our largest population group was raised to believe that making any sacrifice for something other than immediate personal gain is a sign of weakness, so plague is running rampant and all the summer conventions had to be cancelled. On the plus side, that means DST's exclusives are available through your local comicshop. A round of applause for convenience! There's no credited sculptor on the packaging, but the figure does look just like you remember him from the movie. When Mondo made their wildly overpriced version, they bragged about having access to the film's digital files, so maybe DST got the same thing? Someone still had to turn them into a toy in any case. There's the big, broad trunk and the comparatively thin limbs, and the angled panels that make them up are smooth and flat. There are rivets sculpted around the edges of the chest and circling the waist, and the joints are big and round. Although the shoulders are the widest part of him by far, his feet are broad and flat enough to keep him sturdy. The head is sculpted with the fin running over the top and the big chunky jaw. It's even got the appropriate dent over the brain, which the Minimate and Vinimate were missing. The eyes are unpainted, because they can light up: a tiny switch located between the shoulderblades at the top of the spine activates them, and they glow quite well. Part of what makes this exclusive different from the normal release is the paintscheme. The colors are darker, because we're looking at him at night instead of during the day. The regular figure has more variety, with light gray on the surface and darker greys down inside - this one uses the dark shade for everything, meaning the only variety comes from the few areas that are actually black. The toy stands about 8¾" tall, and is highly articulated. He has hinged ankles, swivel/hinge knees, balljointed hips, a swivel waist, balljointed chest, swivel/hinge wrists, swivel forearms, hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, a hinged jaw, and the head can turn and lift (it's basically mounted on a lightbulb, for the light-up eyes). There are some odd choices made, though. In the knee, for instance, the swivel is below the hinge, so while the shin can turn, there should be a swivel for the thigh as well. And at the shoulder, the little flare that sticks out over the joint moves with the arm; that seems weird, but it is how he moves in the animation. It looks like the toes should be hinged, but that's just the sculpt. The forearms can slide off the joint, which might be meant to allow you to swap on the weapon arm on a different release, but there's no such thing here - all this release has is an extra pair of hands. The set specifically references the scene where Hogarth takes his new friend out for a walk at night (thus the colors). While the small Maine town is mostly asleep, meaning the Iron Giant can wander around with a fair degree of freedom, the approach of a human witness means he needs to hide - rather than try to crouch behind a tree or something, he cleverly backs up against a billboard and pretends to be an advertising mascot. The packaging is dark blue, re-creating the night scene. The tray behind the Giant is printed with an image of the Cosmo Burger billboard and the night sky. The toy is posed in front of it, saluting with his left hand and pretending to hold the burger with his right. In the movie, the hamburger is an inexplicably 3D element hanging off the side of the billboard; for this release, it's just flat cardboard. It probably would have been ridiculous of us to wish DST had been able to make it an actual accessory, but... we wish DST had made it an actual accessory. I can use Burgertron as a stand-in, but everybody deserves the chance to have a bigburger in their robot's hand. The Iron Giant logo at the bottom of the package can be removed from in front of the figure, allowing you to see his legs and the beams hlding the billboard up. A hole in the back of the box provides access to the switch for his eyes, so you can light him up without even having to open the box. It may have taken a long friggin' time to finally get an Iron Giant action figure from Diamond, but he's here at last! We really hope they do an "ultimate" release with all his weapons, some extra heads, maybe a loose battle-damaged hand, an all-in-one release to shame every other version that's come out before. But until such time, this not-SDCC-exclusive is a fun alternate take. -- 08/09/20

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