IRON MAN – SILVER CENTURION & CRIMSON DYNAMO

MARVEL MINIMATES

Hey, how ‘bout another Minimates review? Yeah, that’d be nice, wouldn’t it? And it’s even a Marvel review! I certainly haven’t had many of those recently! Riiiiiiight…

Iron Man is undoubtedly one of the biggest name characters in Marvel’s pantheon now, but that wasn’t always the case. Prior to his first movie, there were only five Iron Men in the whole Minimates line, and absolutely none of his foes were represented. Even with the success of Iron Man, Tony wouldn’t get his own comic-themed series until the release of Iron Man 2, which brought us not only some important armor updates, but also some of Tony’s most prominent foes. Today, I’ll be looking at Silver Centurion Iron Man and longtime foe Crimson Dynamo.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pair was released in Series 36 of Marvel Minimates. As noted above, the series was released in the summer of 2010 to coincide with Iron Man 2’s release.

IRON MAN – SILVER CENTURION

After sticking with more or less the same look for about 20 years, (and then giving said look to James Rhodes after Tony developed a bit of a drinking problem) Tony decided to mix it up and go silver in 1985. While the armor wasn’t incredibly long-lived (lasting about three years real-world time), its rather unique design, and its place in the “Armor Wars” storyline have helped to make it rather memorable. This is actually the second incarnation of this design in the Minimates form. The first was a Previews exclusive, and was from much earlier in the line, so the update was certainly warranted. The figure stands about 2 ¼ inches tall and has 12 points of articulation. He’s built on the usual body, with add-on pieces for his helmet, gloves, belt, and boots. All of these are new pieces, and they do a pretty great job of translating the design from the comics. The helmet is slightly too short for the head, but not terribly so. What’s weird is that the prior Silver Centurion had the same issue, despite they two using two different helmet pieces. Aside from that, he’s pretty great, though. The paint on this guy’s pretty strong. The metallic are in full play, and they make him look really sleek. He’s got a bit of detailing on the faceplate and torso, which look nice. Under the helmet is a full Tony Stark face, which has more than a passing resemblance to Timothy Dalton. To aid in showing off the Tony face, the figure includes a spare hair piece, which has been re-used from Series 31’s Captain Marvel. It’s a pretty pitch-perfect match for Tony’s look from the time, so that’s good.

CRIMSON DYNAMO

Dynamo gets my vote for best Iron Man villain, if I’m being honest. That’s probably part of why I wasn’t super wowed by Iron Man 2, since it kind of smashed him together with Whiplash and gave us that weird Mickey Rourke character that graced the screen. I’m kinda still hoping to see a proper Dynamo at some point. At least I got a Minimate out of the deal! This figure’s based on Dmitri Bukharin, the fifth incarnation of Dynamo, who’s probably the most definitive of the possible choices, since he was Dynamo during both “Demon in a Bottle” and “Armor Wars,” and his armor is considered the classic Dynamo armor. The figure has add-ons for the helmet, chest armor, gauntlets, and boots. He’s a bit chunky, but that’s pretty appropriate for this incarnation (and most other incarnations) of the character. There’s some pretty cool details in those parts, and the re-use of the Widow’s Stingers from the Champions version of Black Widow is pretty clever. His paint’s mostly just metallic red up and down (as it should be), but he also has some nice detailing on the chest armor and the visor, as well as a full detailing on the underlying head and torso. The head is what makes it clear that it’s Dmitri; there’s no mistaking that mustache! He also includes an extra hairpiece, re-used from Egon Spengler. Dmitri was often shown bald, but it’s a nice inclusion nonetheless.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with most Marvel Minimates, I got these guys from Cosmic Comix when they were first released. Series 36 was a series I had been looking forward to for quite some time, and this pair was part of why I was so invested in it. There are a few minor flaws here and there, but I remain very happy with this particular pair, and they’re two of my favorite Iron Man-themed ‘mates.