SILVER CENTURION

MARVEL MINIMATES

Con exclusives and Minimates have been pretty heavily linked since the line’s inception.  In the first year of Marvel Minimates, Diamond used these exclusives to fill out the line-up of characters a touch further, and this would continue into the line’s second year.  Though absent from the line entirely in its first year, Iron Man was the recipient not only of a main line release, and a variant, but also his own exclusive two-pack, which I’m taking a look at half of today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Silver Centurion (as he’s dubbed on the box; he’s not actually named Iron Man there) was part of the Marvel Minimates exclusive pack from Wizard World Chicago in 2004.  That meant that he hit roughly a month after the first Iron Man arrived in Series 6 of the line.  The figure was built on the standard C3 mate body, pre-peg hole on the head, so he stands about 2 1/4 inches tall and has 14 points of articulation.  He has add-on pieces for his helmet, shoulder armor, belt, and gloves.  All of these parts would remain unique to this particular figure, which was actually pretty rare for these earlier figures.  They’re not a bad assortment of pieces, although the helmet was plagued by an issue of being slightly too short for the head.  Interestingly, the updated Silver Centurion from Series 36 had a similar issue, despite the two parts being different tooling.  Ultimately, it’s not the worst thing in the world, and in most poses, the shortness isn’t too noticeable.  The paint work on this guy is pretty involved; it follows the trend they’d started with the standard Iron Man, who likewise was a step-up from other ‘mates at the time.  It kind of informed how they’d go about a lot of ‘mates in the coming years, with a lot more individual details.  The only part that could stand to be changed is the mouth, which doesn’t get the black detailing like the eyes, which makes it look slightly off.  Still, it looks pretty solid.  Under his helmet, there’s a fully detailed Tony Stark head.  It’s screaming, which is a different sort of expression, but not a bad change up given that it was our fourth Stark head that year.  Silver Centurion was without any accessories.  Flight stands weren’t a thing yet, but the lack of an alternate hair piece for display without the helmet’s a bit of a bummer.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I wasn’t really on the up-and-up with convention exclusives at this point in the line, so I didn’t get either Silver Centurion or his pack-mate Classic Iron Man when they were new.  I always wanted them, but just never got around to getting them.  Classic got redecoed into gold for the Avengers boxed set, and there was the updated Silver Centurion, so I felt less of need to get them after that.  However, when that big Minimates collection came through All Time in 2019, this guy was in there, so I went ahead and grabbed him.  He’s not a bad little figure all things considered.