The Inhuman Torch isn't the only member of the Fearsome Four in this box set - we also get his huge, stoney teammate, the It.
The It is little more than a mindless dog, and serves as Doom's personal bodyguard. During battle, he's led around on a telekinetic leash by Doom's wife Valeria, the Invincible Woman. Doom himself will berate the It one minute, and treat him like an old friend the next.
The It is an even 7" tall if you stand him straight up, but he looks better with a slight stooped hunch, like he's being crushed by the weight of the world. Metaphorically. Not actual weight. Though he could probably support it. It's articulated at the toes, ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists and fingers.
Now, the elbows and knees are single joints, and he doesn't have any kind of swivel for his hands and feet, but he makes up for those losses in his hands. Like Spider-Hulk, he has a single thumb joint, then two joints in each finger for maximum poseability. Beauty!
There's a bit of an easter egg with the It. If you look closely, you might just notice the smallest hint of resemblence between the It and Fantastic Four member the Thing.
You have to be pretty sharp-eyed to catch it, but it's there. Okay, kidding aside, this is obviously the House of M version of Ben Grimm - maybe. It's kind of left up in the air at first. Johnny Storm fights in the Sapien Death Match alongside Tony Stark, so the fateful space mission in this reality involved Reed and Sue Richards, Ben Grimm and John Jameson. They still encountered the cosmic radiation, but the results were much different: the survival rate, for one. The rocket crashed and was recovered in Latverian territorial waters, so Doom was the one to find the bodies and set his scientists to work on unravelling the results.
Even after granting everyone their powers, Doom kept tinkering with ways to make them stronger,
which is why the It is so much bigger and bulkier than the Thing. The stones on his arms and legs are sculpted to look like the ones we're used to, but on his chest and shoulders they get larger, overlapping more like a dinosaur's plates of armor than a pile of gravel. The depressed look on his face is absolutely crushing, with human eyes staring out from under that massive stone brow. His control collar is the only smooth part of the sculpt, and its silver paint really makes it stand out against the dark orange apps of his body.
The set includes two Doop stands, two HoM-logo disc bases and a reprint of the Secrets of the House of M comic with a new, bland cover. The discs are unneccessary, because Hulk and It can stand fine on their own, and the comic doesn't offer a story, but instead is just a handbook of who was where in the new world. It's a good reference, but couldn't they have at least thrown together a few panels of these four characters in action? Kudos to including the Doop stands, though - keep those fliers off the ground!
It's odd that, being drawn from a world ruled by Magneto, this set gives us four modified humans and no mutants. Still, if you want to assemble a House of M display, ToyBiz gave you a fine selection of figures to stock it. However, there are still many more. Let's hope that Hasbro keeps mining this crossover for costumes, characters and variations, and that the future quality is as good as we got in this box set.
-- 01/06/07
The sculpt is really detailed, capturing all the Evangelionish shapes seen in the comic. Seriously, if this thing was blue and purple, you'd expect to see Shinji Ikari climbing out the back. Instead, we get the traditional IM colors: red and yellow. There's a great wash that brings out all the seams in the armor, making the figure look like it was literally pulled off the comic page.
Tony takes part in Sapien Death Match, a gladiatorial endeavor that pits humans in powered armor against one another. Not content with just a unibeam on his chest, Tony included some add-on armaments.
but there are still some pockets of human-controlled society, such as Latveria. Victor Von Doom knew which horse to bet on, and supported Magneto in the human/mutant war. As such, he was allowed to continue ruling his homeland. But recognizing that conflict was inevitable, he formed his own defense force: the Fearsome Four. He recruited his family for the team, including his young ward Kristoff Vernard, who became the Inhuman Torch.
He moves at the toes, ankles, shins, knees, thighs, hips, waist, torso, wrists, gloves, elbows, biceps, shoulders and neck. Plus, each wing is on a balljoint. Can't beat that.
the figure looks like he might reuse some 
Hulk moves at the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, forearms, wrists, thumbs, fingers, chest, waist, hips, knees, ankles and toes. He's still got the same action feature... or most of it, at least. GPH had spring-loaded waist and shoulders, while HoM Hulk just has the waist.
Bruce Banner was living with Aborigines in the Australian outback, trying to learn to control his fury and avoid the persecution faced by all humans. And it was working pretty well, until he caught in the middle of a fight between Magneto's governors - Exodus, 
and flake off when he grew, but hey, it's a comic. Maybe that explains why they were drawn inconsistently. The figure's paint is applied well, and all those intricate details have really crisp edges. The lines get broken up by the fact that they run over the joints, but not so much so that they look bad.
