IRON MAN 2020

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Arno Stark wields powerful weapons and a superior armor suit as Iron Man 2020.”

2020’s been such an onslaught of a year, it needs to have its own dedicated Iron Man.  Simply having the standard just wasn’t enough.  Introduced in 1984, Arno Stark was the distant first cousin of Tony, and was from a far off future, that none of us dared to even think of.  Man, remember when 2020 was far off and it couldn’t hurt us? Those were the days.  Arno, rather unsurprisingly, got a bit of a revival this year, this time as Tony’s previously unmentioned half brother, who takes over the Iron Man identity for a bit.  He also got an action figure, again rather unsurprisingly, although this one’s based on his classic design.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Iron Man 2020 is a Walgreens-exclusive Marvel Legends release, and was the first for this year.  He was shown off at Toy Fair, and started arrived in late spring/early summer.  The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  He uses the 80th Anniversary Iron Man figure as his starting point, which, given the similarities between the armors, and the general quality of the body, is a very sensible choice on Hasbro’s part.  He gets a new head and belt, as well as an all-new overlay for his chest piece.  It translates to a figure that does a pretty solid job of replicating the character’s comic appearance.  The head’s not too far removed from the standard classic Iron Man in design, but it does mix things up by making the faceplate a separate (albeit unremovable) piece, allowing for at least a glimpse at Arno’s eyes.  It’s a goofy look, but also an entirely accurate look for Iron Man 2020, who is admittedly pretty goofy looking.  With the overlay piece, I was definitely a little bit worried that it might be too free floating, but it actually stays in place pretty well, thanks to seating in place over the original sculpt’s unibeam.  The figure’s paintwork is pretty similar to the prior release as well, with the obvious changes for the new design elements, as well as the newly visible eyes.  Also, for some reason, they’ve molded the unibeam in a transparent yellow, a cool touch that will literally never be seen, since it’s completely covered by the overlay piece.  I shouldn’t even know it’s there, but somehow I do.  Iron Man 2020 includes the same two sets of hands as the 80th release, as well as the standard repulsor effects for his hands, and an all-new (well, at the time of the release, anyway) set of blast effects for his boot thrusters, which can work as single boosts, clipped into a supporting stand for each side, or all be joined together into one stand.  Sadly, there’s no unmasked head, so we don’t get to see Arno’s fabulous Snidley Whiplash mustache, but I guess he’s still got an okay selection of extras.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve never really clicked much with the whole Iron Man 2020 thing, which is probably why I didn’t snag either of his previous figures, despite actively collecting both of the lines he was included in at the time of release.  Honestly, I wasn’t in much of a hurry to get this figure either, but I managed to find him on a quick stop-off for some other supplies at Walgreens, and he looked nice enough in person to be worth it.  Of course, I still couldn’t get excited enough to review him all that quickly, which is why it took my like five months to get this thing up here.  Hey, at least I got it up before the end of the year, right?