CLASSIC IRON MAN, BOLT FACE IRON MAN, & AIM SOLDIER

MARVEL MINIMATES

2008 into 2009 was quite a resurgence for Iron Man, due to that whole, you know, really successful movie thing he had going for him.  In the world of Marvel Minimates, it meant that he went from a character with one release every now and then to a character that could very seriously be banked upon.  In the space of about a year, his number of Minimates tripled, and we even got some looping back for proper updates to older releases.  He wound up as an anchor figure for the line’s 25th series, which saw him get two different figures, each packed with an AIM Soldier.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Classic Iron Man and the AIM Soldier were released in the 25th specialty series of Marvel Minimates, with Bolt Face Iron Man swapping out for Classic Iron Man in the one-per-case Variant set.  Classic Iron Man and the AIM soldier would both also see release in the third TRU-exclusive series, albeit split up and packed with other figures (Mark I War Machine for Classic IM and Bucky Cap for the AIM Soldier).  Series 25 hit in May of 2009, and TRU Series 3 hit the following month.

CLASSIC IRON MAN

“Continually improving his Iron Man armor designs, the brilliant Tony Stark’s early red and gold armor set the standard for years to come by combining lightweight and maneuverable armor with new Repulsor technology!”

Iron Man had debuted with his classic armor in Series 6, but it had been a couple of years since that at this point, and there hadn’t been a proper update to the design since.  With all of the new attention, DST opted to do an all-new one, based again on his ’70s-’80s armor.  The figure is built on the standard post-C3 ‘mate body, so he’s about 2 1/2 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  Classic Iron Man got a rather astounding 9 add-on pieces for this release, which included the helmet, belt, collar, shoulder, arm, and leg cuffs.  All of the pieces were new for this release, and represented DST moving to a generally more sculpted approach to even classically-based designs, although it also showed more of a melding between purely sculpted and printed detailing, as well as a general slimming down of certain figures.  The gloves and boots get cuffs without the need of full hand and feet pieces, and the shoulders get their add-ons without needing to bulk up the whole torso.  It was honestly a pretty big change-up.  The shoulders in particular are a little frustrating, since they had trouble staying properly in place, but they do look good when properly set.  Iron Man’s paint work is pretty involve, with a lot of detail line work on just about all of the surfaces.  While the prior Classic Iron Man had used flat colors, this one used metallic red and gold.  The gold’s a little on the orange side, which kind of muddies the look just a bit.  On the plus side, it’s held up better long term than other gold paints, so it at least doesn’t look awful.  I was never much of a fan of the face plate on the helmet for this guy, though; something about the spacing of the eyes, coupled with the actual eyes being visible, just doesn’t work for me.  It was a pretty common complaint at the time of release, and DST changed it up for later releases of the designs, so they seemed to agree.  Under the helmet, there’s a slightly more intense facial expression for Tony, which was honestly a pretty decent look.  Classic Iron Man was packed with an alternate hair piece (re-used from 24‘s Tony Almeida) and an alternate left repulsor hand.

BOLT FACE IRON MAN

“Similar to his previous armor designs, this improved model featured modular components such as the Black Light Tracer, Reverser Ray, Miniature Generator and even a Proximity Alarm designed to mimic Spider-Man’s Spider Sense!”

We couldn’t just have one Iron Man, so we got two instead.  This one goes for a just prior to classic look, ever so affectionately dubbed “Bolt Face” due to the rivets on the faceplate.  We’d sort of gotten this armor before in its horn-masked iteration, but this was the first proper “Bolt Face.”  Structurally, he’s largely the same as the standard version, though he ditches the shoulder add-ons and gets the Series 6 belt, which gives him a slightly older school look.  His paint scheme is also pretty similar, with the shades all being the same, but the actual detail lines being changed up.  They’re really nice, not as over detailed as Classic, and just a very nice recreation of his comics look for this one.  This time around, the helmet gets blacked out eyes, and the spacing just generally looks a bit better.  The face under the helmet is a lot calmer than the standard, and is again a very ’60s looking Tony, which I really like.  Bolt Face IM got an alternate hair piece (re-used from Jack Bauer), and a repulsor hand, just like he Classic.  He also got a spare helmet, which represents the short-lived nosed faceplate, as well as the shoulder pieces, so that you could turn him into a slightly later stage Iron Man.  Technically, the pieces don’t really match the rest of the detailing on the armor, and would be more at home on the standard Iron Man.  And, actually, swapping the nosed helmet to the Classic Iron Man fixes my only real issue with that figure, and lets me leave this one in all its Bolt-Faced glory.

AIM SOLDIER

“Capable of both saving the world and destroying it, Advanced Idea Mechanics is a powerful terrorist group consisting of brilliant yet misguided scientists determined to invent more and more destructive weapons.”

The AIM Soldier marked an important change for Marvel Minimates: Army Builders!  Up to this point, you were forced to buy a duplicate of the figure packed with the Variant, and it was at this point that DST officially decided to try to make lemonade out of those lemons, and make the duped figure one that people might not mind having a dupe of.  The first offering in the army building venture was those crazy beekeeper guys themselves, who are honestly a pretty natural choice.  The AIM Soldier had two add-on pieces, one for the mask and one for the holster.  The mask was an all-new piece, and a pretty spot-on one for their classic comics look.  The holster was a re-use from Assault Punisher, and it’s a little bulky, but it’s also very easily removed if it’s not your thing.  The paint work does a quite nice job of capturing the usual AIM design; there’s plenty of line work on the suits, bot front and back, and the belts even continue all the way around the waist.  Under the mask, there’s a fully detailed face with ears and a pair of lenses.  The AIM Soldier included a standard pistol (re-used again from Assault Punisher), and a larger rotary gun, which is a slight reworking of one of of War Machine’s cannons.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When this series and the Series 28 (which was originally Series 26, before it got bumped for the Origins tie-in assortment) line-ups were revealed, DST ran a contest to guess the line-ups based on daily clues.  I was actually quite good at it, and wound up winning a fair bit of free stuff because of it.  Interestingly, Iron Man and his variant were the two that stumped me, but I did get the AIM Soldier.  In general, the whole thing made me very pumped for both assortments, which, as per usual for the time, I got via Cosmic Comix.  Classic Iron Man wasn’t my go-to at the time of release, nor has he really stuck with me.  The variant, on the other hand, remains one of my favorite Iron Man variants.  Likewise, the AIM Soldier’s top two for army builders for me.