By Loran
While it’s pretty much the second time they’ve done it so far, I have to say I quite commend the live-action Iron Man movies for using one of my favorite mecha clichés: the “evil version”, where the bad guys take the technology of the hero’s robot and pervert it to their own devices. In the first movie we got this in the form of Iron Monger, and this time around, we have a series of drones made from armor that didn’t quite work because Justin Hammer, well, isn’t that good at his job.
The Air Assault Drone, or as it’s more commonly known, the Air Force Drone, is one of the many drones released in the Iron Man 2 toyline. All four drones managed to get released, although the only drones that saw any mass-release were the Marine and Air Force drones. It’s a shame that the other ones were all Toys R Us and Target exclusives, but at the same time, they were some of the only ones that could actually be FOUND because this wave was so poorly-distributed. See, retailers? This is what happens when you over-order the first few waves. Nobody’s able to get the later stuff!
The drone is, appropriately, VERY tall and imposing. I’m amazed that Hasbro managed to cram such a gigantic toy into the same pricepoint as the regular ones. He’s bigger than every other figure I have at this scale, and comes closer to a 4.5 or 5 inch figure. It makes him surprisingly movie-accurate in terms of height, and lets him tower over Iron Man and War Machine, keeping us from the problem that the first Iron Monger toys had of being way too small.
The drone mold has all of the articulation of the basic Iron Man 2 figures… for the most part. Like a lot of other figures in the line, these guys come with stuck joints. Unlike some of the others I’ve bought, however, the joints on this guy are REALLY stuck, and took multiple goes in a mug of hot water and in the freezer before I could get the joints to work. Unsurprisingly, he came seriously warped out of the package like most soft-plastic toys do these days, so even if yours miraculously comes with unstuck joints, you’ll need to fix his structure.
His poseability is quite… random. Some parts like the torso have a superb joint, but others like the neck and shoulders are quite hindered. Neither can extend all the way across, especially the right one. It’s a very weird design flaw. His head also can’t look up all the way, which is kind of unfortunate for something that… flies.
He does have ball-jointed wrists, which are a nice treat, but some of the details on his arms prevent them from swiveling properly. Like most other figures in the line, he has double-jointed knees that are kind of nerfed by the bulkiness of the legs. His hinged ankles work well, though!
The only accessory this guy comes with is a backpack. It can actually fit on the other figures with backpack holes, and even some Joes, but it looks kind of silly.
Curiously, his color scheme is different in the stock photos. The picture on his package shows a much darker color scheme with no silver, and a red arc reactor instead of a white one. Personally, I like the finished product a bit more…
Aerial Assault Drone is kind of a disappointment, which is a shame for such a rare figure. While he LOOKS nice, he takes more work than usual to get him to function properly, and he has some very strange joints. If you’re into hard-to-find figures and use them for display only, definitely pick him up if you see him here, but for a normal collector, I’d say he’s a pass.
