Hot Toys: Iron Man 3 - War Machine Mark II MMS Diecast Review (cont'd)
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Box Art and Contents
- Part 3: Accessories & Lighting-up
- Part 4: Armor Details
- Part 5: Articulation & Option Parts
- Part 6: Poseability & Final Words
- Part 7: Photo Gallery
Part 5: Articulation & Option Parts
War Machine Mark II MMS is said to have over 36 points of articulations. I never count the number of articulations myself, so I couldn't confirm this number. Owner of other previously released Iron Man MMS might say, "what so special about this? It has the same number of articulation as before." No, it's not just about the count, but also the flexibility of each joint. You'll understand what I'm saying?
This is my first Iron Man MMS armor so I don't own any pre-diecast MMS armor. I can't really compare this to previous armor releases, but I have a good knowledge about the extent of articulations of those armors, specially on Mark VII.
Let's start moving some joints now, shall we?
Starting with the head, like I showed you earlier, it's ball jointed between the head and the neck. And there's also another ball-joint on the lower part of the neck, so it got a nice flexibility. It can look down as low as the photo above...
... and can look up as high as this. We'll it isn't too high actually. It doesn't really look great on flying pose and the ground punching pose. The Mark VII MMS was designed to look up higher than this I believe.
Without rotating the shoulder joints, the arms can only reach this high. That's because those shoulder armors hinders the movement. Forcing it more upwards might scratch the nice metallic paints.
But Hot Toys gave it a little tweak. By pulling the arms downwards, and releasing the shoulder armor movement from being blocked...
...the arms can now be raised as high as this. Notice the upper part of shoulder armors went through that channels of the shoulder joints. The arms can still go a little bit higher, but I wouldn't recommend.
The shoulder armor is attached by some kind of spring so you can actually pull it a little like this. Take a look at the joint details underneath the shoulder armor. Hot Toys gave their finest even on the internals of this figure.
You can rotate the shoulder joints like this giving flexibility to the arms to do various poses.
The shoulders can move forward as much as this...
...and can move backwards as much as this...
The elbow joints are double jointed and is unretractable. Retracted, the arms can only bend to about 90°, but if you pull the arms downwards, the elbow joint will extend a little....
...making way for a less than 90° elbow bend. I believe most Iron Man MMS can't do this elbow bend.
The mid-section of the body is also unretractable. This is how it looks like retracted as normal...
...but pulling the upper torso upwards, it will extend to about 10 mm. This unretracted abdomen is a little flexible, giving you less restrictive pose with some ab-crunch.
The middle part of the unretracted abs is attached by some king of spring as well.
It can crunch forward like this...
... and lean backwards like this. Notice that this creates a huge gap in the armor enough to fit a coin. You can actually hide something in there, or make it a coin back I guess :)
Just to show you how it works at the back side. Here's how it looks like retracted as normal..
...and here is how it looks like unretracted. While on this position, the upper body can be twisted a little sideways as well.
Let's talk about the leg joints area. In previous Iron Man MMS releases, the panties are actually blocking the movement of the thigh, giving it a frustrating limitations on leg movement. Hot Toys solved this issue on this figure by giving it a movable flaps on the panties, that gives less restriction to the leg joints.
With these flaps raised up, the legs can be raised forward as high as this (left leg). There is no movable flaps on the back so it can be only raised backward as high as this (right leg). This leg flexibility is already a big improvement comparing to Mark VII MMS. But that's not all,...
..there is an extendable part on the crotch area,...
... by pulling the legs downwards, it will pull down that crotch armor, extending that area.
By doing so, the legs can be raised forward as high as this (about 90°), and backwards as high as this. The knee joint by the way is also double jointed as well and can be bent to about 90°.
The legs are actually detachable. You can see that it's ball jointed. This ball joint is made of plastic. I don't see any problem for now, but I am worried that with a few amount of posing, it may end up with loose joints. I don't know yet, but time will tell. Well, my recommendation is that, even if the figure has a lot of posing flexibility, it's still not meant to be played like a toy. Some changes in the display pose is fine every now and then though.
The feet like I've said earlier has some movable flaps.
It can move backward like this...
... and move forward like this.
But that's not all you can pull the foot downwards a little...
...giving you more angle to move backwards like this...
... and move forward like this. It's not much but and a few millimeters of additional posing flexibility are always welcome.
Each foot also have joints in mid-section, so you can move the toes downwards..
...and upwards. While it's good to have this toe flexibility, it is somehow made the figure stand less sturdy when standing by itself. War Machine always had a tendency to fall face down because of those bendable toes. It isn't so bad actually, it does stand by itself. Just make sure to balance properly, or you'll end up crying with a battle damaged War Machine.
Just a quick look at the sole of the foot.
The included pair of hands with articulated fingers are attached to the figure as shipped. Each digit have 3 points of articulation except for the thumb which has two. You can bend all the fingers to make a closed fists but it's not gonna be as closed as the optional closed fists.
These are fully articulated hands that can even do the web-shooting pose.
"Don't shoot, I am not Iron Man!"
This pair of hands, while it's fully articulated, cannot do the repulsor blasting pose. That's because the hole for the wrist joint attachment is in a straight position. As I mentioned earlier, there is an optional pair of hands for the repulsor blast.
Here's the comparison between the articulated hand (left) and the repulsor blast hand (right). As you can see, the hole for the wrist joint attachment for the repulsor blast hand is actually angled so that it will be in the upright position when attached.
Let's change the left hand now. Here you would see the wrist ball joint, with the LED light that illuminates the repulsor palm.
Now with the repulsor blasting palm, ready to shoot.
Attached this time is the close fist, it works well with that hidden forearm machine gun. I still wish that I can pose it with both arms on a machine gun shooting spree.
Right arm with the articulated hands,...
...with the repulsor blast palm,...
...with the closed fist,...
...and the fist for the salute pose. This hand gesture cannot be done on the articulated hand as well, all four fingers should be close to each other, the articulated hand is basically an open palm when outstretched.
Wondering if it can salute properly?... No sweat. You just need to adjust the head forward a little to make contact to the forefinger.
I believe none of the older Iron Man MMS can do this pose. As a soldier, it's just fitting that Hot Toys included this hand option to this figure.
Mid-air pose?... No problem, the included display stand can support that. Just adjust the holding clip a little higher on the metallic rod, making sure that the screw is tight enough not to let the clip slide down due to the weight of the figure.
There aren't many of Iron Man MMS can do a pose like this. Very simply mid-air pose, but those bends on the arms and legs simply made it look a lot cooler.
Though you can do some mid-air poses with this stand, it is somewhat limited comparing to the separately sold Hot Toys Dynamic Figure Stand ACS001. Too bad, that figure stand isn't recommended for these diecast MMS.
The holding clip isn't really tight enough to hold the figure and it tends to let it slide down until it is blocked by the edges of the upper torso armor. That's fine I guess since we don't really want a holding clip that is tight enough to damage the paints of figure.
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