Review – Iron Man 2 Hulkbuster

“Tony Stark is always thinking ahead about how best to protect the Earth. One of the dangers that has preoccupied him for years is that posed by the Hulk. Stark built the Hulkbuster Iron Man armor, an immensely powerful suit designed specifically to take down the Hulk and prevent him from threatening the planet.”
— from the back of the card

After the amount of hunting and number of pegs of Iron Man action figures I had to dig through in order to find a Hulkbuster, I’ve gotta say that the toy is a little disappointing. Why? Mainly because of its size — I was expecting the action figure to be a bit taller and beefier — but the color choice also takes the toy down a notch from awesome. That rust/maroon isn’t anywhere near as nice as the bright red of the Iron Man Hulkbuster Mini-Bust (review here) and Marvel Legends Hulk Buster Iron Man (review here).

Sculpt

The sculpt is generally great, as with most of the toys in the Iron Man 2 series, with slight changes between this version of the armor and the Marvel Legends Hulk Buster. The forearm guards, shin guards, and shoulder pads are all separately sculpted components that are glued in place on the figure and for the most part the effect is excellent. In the review at Articulated Discussion) Ewan is a bit unhappy with the shoulder pads, writing:

“While they’re supposed to be part of his shoulders, the guards are actually fixed to hover over his shoulders and look flimsy from a bottom up angle.”

I don’t think they look that bad, but I do think using a different type of plastic for the shoulder pads would have helped the appearance a little. The honeycomb texture on the shoulder pads looks as good as it does on the Marvel Legends, and the pieces add real depth to the toy, so overall I’m happy with how these shoulder pads look on the toy.

Damn Fun!

So what is it, disappointing or fun? I’m gonna have to say that Hukbuster is both disappointing and fun. He’s disappointing because he’s not as big as I had hoped, but he’s still a hell of a lot of fun and feels great in my hands. He’s a lot heavier than most of the other Marvel Universe and Iron Man 2 action figures in my collection, which he should be since the Hulkbuster armor is meant to be massive and terrifyingly heavy. And while he would be better if he were bigger I’ve had a lot of fun playing with Hulkbuster today and attacking a few of the Transformers I’ve got out.

Articulation

That review at Articulated Discussion that I mentioned gives a great breakdown of the toy’s articulation so check that for the details, but I’d like to mention a two points that bug me.

1. The left hip joint on mine is fused in place. I don’t know what’s causing the problem, but for some reason the hib ball-hinge is locked in place and angled so that the leg only swings out to the side. I’ve tried twisting, pulling, poking with a screwdriver, and pretty much anything I can think of to get the joint to move but no luck.
   
2. The ab joint is too restricted by the toy’s sculpt. Too many times we get thick, chunky action figures with sculpts that limit the joint’s movement and that’s exactly what happened here. I guess that’s fitting since Hulkbuster is a big bruiser, but I would have loved a bit more side-to-side movement range.

Paint

Unlike the Titanium Man (review here) my Hulkbuster doesn’t have any serious paint problems. There is a plastic problem that affects the coloring; the limbs are manufactured of a different plastic than the torso so the colors don’t quite match and the torso is smoother and more reflective than the limbs. It’s not a significant problem, but if you’re a fanatic about perfect color on your toys then you’re gonna be really upset when the light hits your Hulkbuster.

I would have liked to have seen some gold detail work on the shin guards, and I would have loved the toy in the same bright red as the Marvel Legends version, but in general I’m happy with the paint quality.

Closing Thoughts

Hulkbuster’s a great addition to the Iron Man 2 and Marvel Universe collections out there, but for as tough as Hasbro’s making it to find the action figure they should have made the toy slightly bigger and used better colors/plastics. And the fact that mine has a fused hip joint is especially annoying, because it’s not as if I can just run out to Target or Wal-Mart and grab a replacement.

I’m seeing some stupid prices for Hulkbuster, but I recommend avoiding online sellers for now and just take your chances finding one of these at retail. For $7 the Hulkbuster is a great buy, and at $10 he’d be a good buy, but anything over that is too much.

I’m happy I’ve got a 3.75-inch scale Hulkbuster in my action figure collection — after all, this was one of my Marvel Universe Wish List: Five Action Figures I’m Ready to Buy Today toys — but the toy isn’t everything I had hoped it would be. Still, other than U.S. Agent the Hulkbuster is probably the only figure I could have realistically expected Hasbro to give us. And now that the tooling is done there’s always a chance we’ll see a repaint pop up somewhere, and maybe that will use the brighter red, better plastics, and not have a fused hip joint.

And maybe it won’t be so damned hard to find..

Philip Reed wonders when Tony Stark will create a Galactusbuster suit to deal with ol’ big helmet.