The Low-End Geek: Iron Man 2 Figure [Toys on the Cheap]

In my old blog, I had wanted to do light, casual reviews on the many thrift toys I see sold in Divisoria and the like. Well, I figure I'd continue doing that here. Why am I doing this? *shrug* Dunno, there's really no huge reason for me to do this, I just find it fun to see and share what's out there. Maybe it might even help along the way with giveaway or gift ideas, maybe prizes for parties and such.

If I think about keeping it in line with the supposed spirit of this whole blog's title, well, you could say that this is also a semi-help thing for the rest of us who don't have thousands of pesos to spend on just one geek thing...

Fine, that's some really flimsy reasoning, but what the hell. Haha. Feel free to take whatever it is you can take from this featurette. Haha.

Base rules for this segment? I'm trying to think of some but I can't right now, except that items featured here will be given to charity after the review. Maybe I'll add to this later.

Anyway, on to the impressions!

IRON MAN 2 figure
Price: PhP 35 / USD 0.80 / SGD 1.02
Construction: plastic with metallic screws
Points of articulation: 9

To be honest, this is one of the more eye-catching low-priced knock-off toys I've seen so far, if only because the presentation right off the bat is impressive to look at. You have an Iron Man figure along with snap-on armor upgrades and what even looks to be like one of those spring-loaded launchers that can hurl plastic projectiles at a push of a button.

Granted, Black Widow figures heavily into the box art for some curious reason, but she was still in the Iron Man 2 movie, so it's fine.

Moving to the back of the cardboard backing, we see this:

You have a basic statement on who Iron Man is (and it's grammatically correct, to boot), and at the bottom half, a chart showing the name of the parts included and where it attaches to the main figure. Now that Iron Man backgrounder with the grammatically correct English stood out for me. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

The Mandarin mention seemed to be prescient of Iron Man 3's plot! Prescient since I actually bought this item some time before the first leaks / teasers of Iron Man 3 came out, only that I didn't have much time then to do this entry. So did this toy maker really know what's coming down the line then?

Well... not quite. Doing a Google search on the first few words of the first sentence gets you this link, where you can see that this toy is apparently a knock-off of an existing one.

It also goes a long way in explaining why Iron Man's helmet piece in this toy is more dated-looking than the one in Iron Man 2.

Kicking it old-school.

If you'll also notice, the paint job is sometimes off, like with the mouth area which now looks like Iron Man's taking some cues from a rocker chick. To be fair, though, even original toys do get erratic paint jobs on a regular basis, and you can only really be assured of a near-perfect paint job when the toy is hand-painted by masters of the craft.

Now here is something you won't see with the original, though.

There's a pretty conspicuous hole at the back of Iron Man's head, and it looks like someone took a laser pistol and offed Iron Man gangster-style. Or you could think of it as a neural connector for Iron Man that doesn't have a lid. Anyway, yeah, it's there. I don't see it as a deal-breaker, though, and maybe some skilled crafts person can patch it up nicely.

Oh, before I forget, if you're curious, this baby stands at around 5 inches. Here's the toy alongside my now defacto size comparison object, Pipboy.

So yeah, if you'll notice, the base figure has a lot of holes in it, as you're supposed to put on the armor pieces on it, and that's fine. But if you look at the back, there are two big holes on Iron Man's thighs where there isn't an armor piece to put there.

Actually, those thigh holes aren't the only ones that have no armor piece going in. There are holes at the triceps area, shoulders, near the joints at the waist area (not seen here), and the inner ones just above the calves (also not seen in the photo) that don't have pieces going in there. I'm inclined to think it's a cost-saving measure, and to be fair, it's also not that much of a concern unless you take an interest in spending time looking at the toy's back. For general play and display purposes, it's mostly the front that will see most time.

Oh, and an interesting thing is that the elbows and knees of this toy are held together by screws.

It's a departure from the plastic dowels (not sure if that's the correct term) used as joints. It doesn't post a threat for kids, though, as the other ends of the screws are embedded firmly in the plastic and doesn't stick out.

So let's get to the snap-on armor. How does it look when put on?

That looks pretty cool, actually (from the front, at least). Sure, the original toy looks so much better (especially since the paint detail is better there), but this one's not too shabby for 35 pesos. For the extra detail, you can always go in and paint the details that are lacking, a la HG Gundam kits. Personally, though, I think it's fine for what it is, and I would've been all over this if I snagged one of these off of a pabitin back when I was young. For the uninitiated, the pabitin is a kid's party game where prizes are attached to a wooden frame and kids try to pull down as many of those prizes as possible until they're all gone) back when I was young.

I dreaded getting foodstuffs when there were toys that are also up there. (Credit: Nenettesque via AmbalongForum)

Going back, this 5-inch toy is pretty light. I would say that it's as light (or even lighter) than a 3.75-inch G.I. Joe figure. How light?

Light enough to float on water. The plastic used is decidedly less dense, and in line with most cheap figures you see in Divisoria or supermarkets. Though to be fair, it's pretty rigid, and I see this toy being able to take some abuse from kids.

I have this one issue, though. Don't expect much from the cannon.

For one, the handle doesn't exactly fit in the figure's hand.

Not sure if the photo shows it, but trust me when I say that the handle is bigger than the hole in the hand.

Two, though it might seem like the cannon is one of those things that is spring-loaded and can shoot projectiles (heck the package even includes one missile), it actually doesn't. Take a look through the cannon.

Yep, the cannon is essentially just one big hole. No springs, no levers, nothing. Just static plastic with a hole.

I still don't see it as a big issue, though. I think it's just a bonus if the cannon actually worked.

All considered, you're still getting a decent value from your 35 pesos. The actual figure does look like Iron Man, you get some decent articulation out of it (head, shoulders, elbows, legs, knees), and the snap-on armor would have kids enjoying snapping it on. And from a not-so-far distance, the figure actually looks pretty legit, so it could have some purpose as a display item or a cheap alternative to destroying an original toy if you're making some diorama where Iron Man takes some punishment.

Now all that's left is an arbitrary numerical score to assign to it. Hmm. I will give it...

Random arbitrary rating: 85% (I'm saving myself some wiggle room for future items, haha)

What I Liked: pretty decent detail and articulation, low price, cool snap-on armor

What I Didn't Like: quite a number of unnecessary holes at the back, cannon didn't work

Nope, I'm not done here. I actually played with the toy some (because I'm still a kid like that), and so I'll share with you some photos, because yeah, if you're still reading up to this point, you're a captive audience! Mwahahaha. Nah, I'm kidding, I'm really just thankful you made it up to here. :D

So yeah, photos: