Review – Iron Man 2 Titanium Man

“As a loyal KGB agent, Boris Bullski was more than happy to undergo the experiments that increased his size and strength, and wear the massive armor that turned him into the Titanium Man. He was assigned to embarrass the United States by defeating Iron Man in open combat, but the armored hero’s fighting skills and superior technology defeated the massive Russian armor.”
— from the back of the card

It took a little while, but we’re now seeing the second wave of Iron Man 2 action figures in the Austin area. Still no Hulkbuster in sight, but I did manage to score this sweet green Titanium Man. So after all of the crawling through store after store in search of a Titanium Man of my own — especially after my “Jealous Toy Collector Review” post — was Titanium Man worth tracking down? Yes and no.

Looka That, a Coupon!

So this latest wave must be the point at which Hasbro has enough sales numbers to know that they need to do something to clear the shelves of Iron Man action figures, because packed inside the toy was a coupon for $5 off any purchase of $20 or more of Iron Man action figures. This is gonna come in handy because there are at least three more Iron Man 2 action figures that I’d love to grab. It’s a tiny extra in the pack, but anything that’ll save us money on more Iron Man toys can’t be bad. I think I’m gonna use mine to grab a Guardsman, Neo-Classic Iron Man, and one of the concept suits I don’t already have.

Fantastic Sculpt

This isn’t the classic Titanium Man like I expected (mentioned here), but what we get is a almost as good. Taller than most of the Iron Man suits, the Titanium Man’s only real sculpting flaw is the extra-long abdomen. Damn, this guy has some wonky proportions. It’s not too bad if you angle the chest as far forward as it will go, but the unusual length of the abdomen kinda bugs me as long as I keep looking at the toy.

But that abdomen is my only complaint with the figure’s sculpt. The details on the knee pads, shoulder pads, and even the soles of his boots are all excellent and really make Titanium Man stand out from the Iron Man suits in the line. And this is a great thing, since we honestly have maybe too many Iron Man suits; it would have been nice if Hasbro had given us more Iron Man villains and cut back on the variant Iron Man action figures just a tad. Just imagine how happy we would have been if they had given us a M.O.D.O.K. instead of the Hypervelocity Armor.

I can’t be the only person who would love a M.O.D.O.K. in scale with this and the Marvel Universe series.

Articulation

Rather than blow time and space discussing the action figure’s articulation I’m just going to point you at this review at Articulated Discussion. There you can find a point-by-point breakdown of the toy’s articulation and even a photo showing all of the points of articulation. My only complaint with the articulation is that the shoulder pads — as cool as they look — drastically reduce the articulation at the shoulders. That shoulder armor really should have been segmented in some way to better work with the arms.

Paint

Here’s where the figure really falls down. I love the colors — that metallic green with gray looks great at a glance — but the detail work is pretty damned sloppy. There are green splotches on the gray on the legs, there’s an orange drop on the right boot, the left shoulder pad has a blotch, and in general all of the detail points splash over and look rough.

The paint is pretty disappointing, but to be honest the paint is only a problem when you study the figure closely. At a distance everything looks pretty cool, and I love that we get a bright green in the line (there’s a hell of a lot of red, gold, and silver in the line so the green is welcome in the collection), so if you can deal with a little slop on the details then don’t let the paint bother you. But if you’re a fanatic for tight, sharp paint work then be sure to look at the Titanium Man very closely before buying one for your collection.

Closing Thoughts

If it wasn’t for the poor paint applications I’d be recommending this action figure to everyone with a superheroic 3.75-inch action figure collection. The articulation is pretty good, the sculpt is basically great, and the color choices make this guy pop off of almost any shelf. Unfortunately, the paint is so sloppy that Titanium Man gets knocked down to just okay. He’s fun, his energy blast accessory (shown above) is one of the better “blast” effect accessories we’ve seen in this and the Marvel Universe series, and overall he looks great (see the group shot).

Philip Reed should go out this weekend and try to locate a Guardsman. Some people have complained about the figure’s design, but Philip still thinks it looks neat.