COWBOY TONY STARK & ALDRICH KILLIAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

Now listen up, here’s the story, about a little guy who started both of his Iron Man 3-themed Minimates reviews the same way, and all day and all night, everything he sees is reviews, inside and outside.  Okay, I think the Eiffel 65 thing as far as it can possibly go.  Look, you get the gist, right?  Minimates?  Iron Man 3?  Great.  Here’s Cowboy Disguise Tony Stark and Aldrich Killian!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Cowboy Disguise Tony Stark and Aldrich Killian were released as part of Series 49 of Marvel Minimates, the specialty component of the Iron Man 3-tie-in ‘mates.  It’s one of the two sets contained there in which was completely exclusive, the other being the previously reviewed War Machine and Maya.

COWBOY DISGUISE TONY STARK

Over the course of his three films (and Age of Ultron), we’ve gotten all manner of Tony Starks, but I think Cowboy Tony may very well be the most out-there variant. Well, at least he seems that way on the surface.  In practice, he’s actually just a fairly standard Tony, who also includes a cowboy hat.  The figure is built on the standard post-C3 body, so he’s about 2 1/2 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  He uses two add-on pieces, one for his hat, and one for his sweater.  Both parts are re-used; the hat is from Mad Dog Tannen and the sweater comes from Agent Zero.  The sweater is fine, but the hat ends up being rather off the mark for the one he was wearing in the movie.  Obviously, DST wanted Tony to be a re-use figure, and I guess this hat was just the closest thing they had on hand? I don’t know, but it makes him look more like a mountie than a cowboy.  The paint work on Tony is the strongest aspect of the figure, to be sure.  His likeness to RDJ is a decent one, and the replication of Tony’s injuries from the move on his face make for a more distinctive look for the character.  The detailing on his vest and what we can see of his plaid shirt is also pretty impressive.  Tony is packed with an extra hair piece, for those of you that want the non-cowboy/mountie look for him, as well as a set of extra arms for a look sans-sweater, and a now standard clear display stand.

ALDRICH KILLIAN

Man, Killian really through marketers for a loop, didn’t he?  His role was super down-played going into the film, with all the focus going to Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin, but toy companies were still informed he’d be important, but in a sort of a vague way.  The character in the comics is very, very minor, but then, boom, there he was, main villain of the piece, unquestionably.  Well, at least the Minimates included him, right?  Killian uses three add-on pieces for his hair, jacket, and tie.  All three are re-used; the hair’s from Larry Talbot, the jacket from World of the Psychic Peter Venkman, and the tie from The Spirit.  It’s a reasonable enough collection of parts, though I personally find the hair to be a touch to close cropped for Killian.  We’ve seen worse, though.  Killian’s paint is pretty straight-forward color work.  He’s not terribly thrilling or anything, but he’s accurate to his (present day) introductory scene in the film, and the face has a decent Guy Pierce likeness.  Aldrich’s only accessory is a clear display stand, which is rather light.  Some extra Extremis-powered parts would have been cool, though it’s possible they weren’t a viable option, due to spoilers.  He still feels like he should have *something* else, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I picked these up, alongside the rest of the assortment, the day they were released from my local comic book store, Cosmic Comix, on a special trip to the store in the middle of my day of college classes, meaning I got to carry them around in my bag.  You know, like I was in elementary school.  No, I mean, like an adult.  Yeah, an adult.  Sure.  Tony is a figure I had little interest in when he was initially shown off, but the ability to remove that hat actually opens the figure up quite a bit, and makes him a fairly intriguing variant of the character.  Overall, Killian is a passable figure of the character, but there’s not a whole lot that really sells him.