By Loran
Alright, big confession time: I was never into comic books as a kid.
Still reading? Well, okay. They just never appealed to me too much and I could never figure out why. Even superheroes in general left me kind of cold. I was pretty ashamed of it for quite awhile, but then a friend of mine took me to see the first Iron Man movie when it came out, and boy did I love it. I guess it was my love of robots and powered armors and stuff taking precedence over my general distaste for Superheroes at the time, leading me to find something new to like. Oh boy. I haven’t gotten much comics (there’s waaay too much stuff for me to catch up on) so I just buy the toys to fill that gap, so to speak.
So here we have a pair of Iron Man’s villains-both from good old Mother Russia (don’t you love it when supervillains really show what era a hero was popular?)! They’re two big, hulking villains to help balance out the 50 different Iron Man variants in the Iron Man 2 line, and for what it’s worth, it’s always good to have villains for your heroes to fight.
First up is Titanium Man. He’s the taller of the two, oddly enough, and comes in a very eye-catching green and silver. However, picking him out is kind of annoying as a result since at first glance he could easily be mistaken for the Guardsman figure from the same wave-I know I sure had that problem when I was looking for him.
He does have some unfortunate design flaws. For one, he has WAY too much shoulder armor. As a result, the poseability of his shoulders is severely hindered to the point where he can’t extend his arms out fully.
Second, look at all the rivets! What the heck? Why does he have rivets on both his hips and shoulders? None of the other Iron Man 2 figures have those, and heck I haven’t even seen a G.I. Joe with those since 2005! Why did they go back? Was it a cost-cutting measure or something? The hip joints themselves are really strange, too, because they aren’t a full ball-hinge like the other figures, giving it a much shorter range of motion.
Also, this is really nitpicky, but man, this guy has tiny feet in proportion to the rest of his body…
He also has one of those weird energy burst things like the other figures have, but this time it’s in the form of a punch, I guess. It’s actually kinda cool, like he’s doing a Shining Finger or something.
Next up is Crimson Dynamo, coming in a huge frame despite being shorter than Titanium Man. He’s adorned in two awesome shades of dark crimson with some nice muscular details and his silly Reese’s Cup shoulder pads that make him reek of the 90’s oh so delightfully.
He does have his share of issues, though, specifically on the torso. It doesn’t move as well as the other figures and can’t really move to his sides very well, making it hard for him to turn. Instead, it has a joint that allows him to “rock” side-to-side pretty fluently, though that doesn’t make up for the other joint.
Second, what’s up with these calves? It just looks… off, like they’re on the wrong sides, except… they’re on the right sides? It’s hard to describe but it looks really strange to me.
He also includes his own silly energy burst which I misplaced for mine. I don’t get this, at all. I get that it’s an energy beam coming out of his eyes but… why is it wrapping around his entire head? That must be painful.
Between the two villains, I’d have to give it to Crimson Dynamo as my favorite. He comes off as the most “villainous” and most imposing despite being the shorter of the two. I really hope they expand on the villain line more, with maybe a classic outfit for Whiplash or a Titanium Man based on the design from the first video game. Drop on in and pick yourself up some guys for your armies of Iron Men and War Machines to fight-remember, Iron Monger’s got a few figures, too!
