Tag Archives: Iron Patriot

#3249: Iron Patriot

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

IRON PATRIOT

MARVEL STUDIOS: THE INFINITY SAGA DLX (THREE ZERO)

In the comics, the name “Iron Patriot” was first taken up by Norman Osborne, during his time as leader of the Dark Avengers, during “Dark Reign.”  With Steve Rogers dead and Tony Stark on the run, Norman repurposes their gimmicks into one leader for people to rally behind, before his eventual undoing  His design actually took some of its cues from a concept Captain America armor that was floated about as part of a proposed alternate ending for “Civil War.”  When it came time to adapt the concept into the MCU, Osborne was still off limits, so Iron Man 3 gave the Iron Patriot monicker to James Rhodes, as part of a rebranding by the US government to make his War Machine persona a little friendlier.  While it’s clearly meant to be a little goofy in-universe, it’s still very much a fun design, and one that the comics even made use of for a brief time.  There was a little bit of toy coverage for the look back when Iron Man 3 came out, but more recently ThreeZero’s started up a line of their own 1/12 scale Iron Man armors, and Rhodie in his Iron Patriot armor is their latest offering!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Iron Patriot is the third figure under the DLX branding for ThreeZero’s Marvel stuff, following up on the Mark 43 and the Hulkbuster.  Thus far, everything’s falling under a larger “Infinity Saga” banner, and they’re presumably looking at offering armors from most of the movies.  The figure stands just over 7 inches tall and he has 43 points of articulation.  In terms of sizing, at over 7 inches tall, Patriot feels a little over-sized for a 1/12 line, but he appears to be consistent with the scaling on the Iron Men we’ve gotten so far from ThreeZero.  So, they’re at the very least keeping an internal consistency.  He’s also close enough that you can probably fudge him into smaller scale displays.  The articulation scheme is, like a lot of ThreeZero figures, designed with a lot of smaller moving parts that aid in moving larger pieces a greater range.  The flaps of the armor can move up and out of the way for the arms and legs, allowing for a slightly better motion.  The joints are still very tight, and you have to be careful with them while posing, but it’s honestly a pretty good set-up.  The figure’s sculpt is quite an impressive recreation of the design from the movie.  It’s a mix of plastic and diecast metal, which gives him a decent amount of heft.  The outer plates are all plastic, which allows for a slightly sharper detailing, and a slightly better depth of quality to said detailing.  Iron Patriot’s paint scheme is pretty nicely handled.  It’s certainly an eye-catching palette, and the application is all very clean.  In particular, the markings and writing on the armor are a really good touch, and they’re very sharply defined.  Iron Patriot is packed with six different pairs of hands (fists, two different styles of open gesture with spots for blast effects, and the same two styles without the spots for the blasts), a saluting hand for his right side, his shoulder cannon (which is articulated itself), two different styles of forearm plates (closed up and with the rockets out), four different blast effects, and a display stand.  He also has a light-up feature in both the head and torso.  The eyes are kind of dim on my figure, but the arc reactor is nice and bright.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

For the most part, I’m pretty much content with Legends for my Iron Man armors, especially of the MCU variety.  I got to see the MK 43 and the Hulkbuster from this line in person, though, and they were definitely cool.  This particular Iron Patriot design is one I’ve really liked ever since IM3, plus it kind of vibes with all my Cap stuff, so when it was announced I put myself down on the list for one through work.  I’d honestly forgotten about him by the time he came in, but he did, and I certainly wasn’t going to pass up on him.  My initial reaction was that he was cool, but I wasn’t sure he was great.  After messing with him a bit more, I’m actually a lot more impressed with him than I initially was.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#2295: Iron Patriot

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

IRON PATRIOT

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Proud and powerful, the Iron Patriot is heavily armed, high-tech, and ready for battle.”

So, here’s the thing about Endgame, and specifically about its armored characters: the armor we see them wearing on the screen isn’t what the actors are actually wearing during the shoot.  Don Cheadle isn’t wearing the latest War Machine armor, he’s running around the set in a pair of sweats with motion capture markers.  When it comes to making toys of these specific designs, Hasbro has to work from the design sheets of what’s supposed to be on screen.  If things change between those sheets and the final film, you get inaccurate products.  Take, for instance, last summer’s Endgame War Machine.  An awesome figure, held back by only one small thing: it was the wrong colors.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Iron Patriot is the final single-carded figure for the Thor Series of Marvel Legends.  The figure is technically covering the same ground as the Endgame War Machine, but as noted above, that figure was working from early designs.  Though never called Iron Patriot in the film, the figure nevertheless uses the name again; one has to wonder if Rhodey was using the monicker during the time jump to try and re-inspire the public again after Steve Rogers stopped being Cap for a bit. The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  We’ve seen some of this sculpt before when it was War Machine, but not as much of it as you might think.  The two figures share the same head, shoulders, upper arms, hands, waist, and shins; the torso, forearms, and feet are completely new, and the upper legs have been re-worked to accommodate the missile attachments.  The new parts mesh pretty well with the old, and he’s got a pretty similar feel to that figure in terms of build and posability.  I really liked the War Machine figure, so I can’t complain about seeing those parts again.  With the exception of the torso piece and feet, which aim to make the figure a tad more film accurate, the primary purpose of the new pieces are to more fully kit out the armor.  The first War Machine had a few weapons out, but this version’s got pretty much everything deployed.  With the exception of the forearm cannons, everything can be removed, so that he can be a more paired down version of the armor.  The paintwork is more colorful than War Machine, obviously, and requires more apps.  That said, he does end up missing out on a number of spots of colors he should have.  The most evident missing parts are some of the silver elements.  They’re not horribly obvious, and he’s doesn’t look *unfinished*, but I don’t feel he looks quite as clean a figure as the War Machine.  The metallic blue is cool, though.  In addition to all of the weapon attachments, Iron Patriot also includes not one, but two heads for the Build-A-Figure Thor.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was pretty happy with the War Machine figure, inaccurate to the source material though it may be, so I didn’t feel like I needed a fixed version.  That said, I certainly wasn’t going to turn it down, since I liked the previous figure quite a bit, and I also liked the first Iron Patriot a lot.  Ultimately, I do like this figure, though I’m not sure I like him quite as much as I expected to.  He’s cool, but I think I’ll stick with the standard War Machine colors.

As with the vast majority of my Legends these days, I picked up Iron Patriot from my friends over at All Time Toys.  If your looking for other Legends or other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

 

#0261: Iron Patriot & Extremis Soldier

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

IRON PATRIOT & EXTREMIS SOLDIER

MARVEL MINIMATES

Extremis&Patriot

Minimates represent a large portion of my large collection of action figures, and Marvel Minimates are the backbone of the Minimates brand, so it’s no surprise that Marvel Minimates have a high frequency of review on this site. Add in the fact that the reviews are a little bit easier to write, and also tend to garner a decent sized number of page views, and you’ve got a winning combination.  So, today, I’ll once again being going back to the Minimates well, this time to review Iron Man 3’s Iron Patriot & Extremis Soldier. Let’s jump on in!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Iron Patriot and the Extremis Soldier were released in Marvel Minimates Series 49. The series was a tie-in to Iron Man 3, so it depicted characters from the movie. The set was also released in slightly different packaging in the Toys R Us exclusive Iron Man 3 assortment, making it the easiest to acquire of the movie sets.

IRON PATRIOT

Iron Patriot is the newer, friendlier name for Colonel James Rhodes’s War Machine armor. He’s a pretty pivotal character in the movie, so his inclusion here is a no-brainer. He’s built on the standard Minimate frame, which meads he features 14 points of articulation and stands about 2 ½ inches tall. The figure features ten sculpted additions: helmet, chest plate, shoulders, hands, waist, boots, and shoulder cannon. All of these pieces are new to this figure, although they were shared with his Series-mate the War Machine 2.0. It’s a sensible set of parts to share, given that they’re actually the same armor with a different paint job. The sculpt is pretty decent, though all the add-ons do end up making him look just the slightest bit pudgy. The paint work is pretty good overall, but it’s not as great as other Minimate releases. The detail lines are all nice and clean, but the basic color layout is a bit sloppy, especially in the transitions between silver and the other colors. Underneath of the helmet is a fully detailed Rhodes face, which has a pretty decent Don Cheadle likeness and has nice and clean paint apps. Iron Patriot’s sole accessory is a basic clear display stand, but given the large amount of parts that went into his armor, that’s more than acceptable.

EXTREMIS SOLDIER

The Extremis Soldier doesn’t refer to a single character in Iron Man 3, but rather a whole subset of characters who were suped up on Extremis and working for the big bad. They were key to the final battle of the movie, and Diamond has created a hodge-podge of looks to simulate the soldier in a generic way that allows a collector to have a few in a group. The figure is built on the standard frame, just like Iron Patriot, so he has the same height and articulation. The Extremis soldier incudes a sculpted hairpiece, vest, and holster. All three of these pieces are re-use. The hair originally appeared on Series 24’s Shocker, the holster comes from Series 27’s Nick Fury, and the vest comes from the first version of Trench Mauser from the Expendables line. The pieces offer a pretty good approximation of the kind of stuff the soldiers wore. The paintwork on the Extremis soldier is quite good, better than Iron Patriot for sure. All of the line work is nice and clean, and the Extremis details present on the face, torso, and shoulders looks great. The Extremis Soldier includes a pistol, which we’ve seen a few times before, and a spare blonde hairpiece, originally seen on Series 35’s Happy Hogan, which allows for an alternate look.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like most of my Minimates purchases, I picked up Iron Patriot and the Extremis Soldier as soon as they were available, which would have been a week or two after the release of Iron Man 3. Although the paint is a little bit sloppy on Patriot, he’s a nice bold design that really stands out on the shelf, and he’s got some really great sculpted pieces. Add in a pretty sweet looking Extremis Soldier who has several potential looks, and you’ve got a set that’s pretty much a winner!

Extremis&PatriotAlt