.

The standard Marvel package, this time designed to fit in with the Iron Man 2 movie merchandise aesthetic. Unfortunately, this makes for a slightly plain-looking box, as we are used to the comic panels for the background now. Please note that this set is from the TRU wave and not the specialty wave, as you can tell from the Minimate gallery on the back of the package.

The main issue for Tony as Iron Man is that he has to be in his lab to put the armour on. But what if he had a more portable solution? Meet the Mark V armour!

This armour is quite different to previous armours for the Iron Man 1 and 2 movies. First off, the colour scheme is red and silver rather than red and gold, similar to the comic-based Silver Centurion armour. And this one is clearly more streamlined and lightweight than the others.

Let’s start with the helmet, which is the same as the Mark IV helmet, just in different colours. Underneath the helmet we find a grimy, bashed-up Tony, sporting a grimacing expression. There is no second, visor up helmet, but there is a hairpiece included.

The excellence in the design of this set is the way it uses sculpted pieces yet feels much less bulky than the Mark IV armour. There are several cool examples of this. Instead of a full chestpiece the Mark V has one that covers the shoulders only, along with providing a sculpted arc reactor on the chest. The rest of the detailing is printed on the actual chest block, with the segmented pieces of the armour looking particularly good at this scale. The gauntlets – normally much bigger than regular Minimate hands – are cut away along the sides, allowing both a cleaner look and some simple colour variation as the silver can be seen poking out of the red.

Even the legs have been streamlined. Normally sporting specially sculpted boot and leg pieces, this version includes sculpted thighs in a lovely scale like pattern, but also includes a clever boot design that mimics, the “front only boot” attachments as seen on more recent Marvel Minimates like Rogue. This time though, the front boot piece is sculpted onto a full boot, rather than being a sleeve that goes over the Minimate foot peg. It’s a great compromise.

In conclusion: A very sharp colour scheme and clever design touches mean this Minimate is one of the best Iron Man armours yet seen.

MMC Score – 9 out of 10

In the second film Colonel James Rhodes gets to team up alongside Iron Man, using a modified, heavy weapons version of the armour, codenamed war Machine.

The War Machine armour is based off of the Iron Man armour so in terms of sculpting this Minimate is similar to earlier Iron Man armours but with several key differences and additions. The helmet remains the same as the ones seen on the Mark IV and V, and Rhodey gets the separate “flipped up visor” helmet too. His hair is painted on, so no additional hairpiece. Maybe it’s this that makes the face look a bit strange, or maybe it’s the gigantic, wide eyes. They are so big they look anime style, cartoony. It really doesn’t work for the more realistic look that the Iron Man movie Minimates have, it’s very jarring.

War Machine’s chestpiece appears much larger than on Iron Man. This is a unique sculpt, different from what we have seen before, with big shoulder pads and holes for his additional weaponry to plug into. These are a gatling gun and a missile launcher. They can move slightly from side to side, and add greatly to the Minimate’s fearsome, militaristic appearance, along with the sombre, utilitarian grey colour scheme.

Also unique are War Machine’s gauntlets, with huge slabs of metal keeping the hands protected, and the legs, which are sculpted to almost resemble medieval knight’s armour, with the overlapping plates. No bandy leg issues for war Machine, I’m happy to report. These pieces once again add to the intimidating look.

In conclusion: Yet another superb Iron Man 2 Minimate, War Machine certainly lives up to the expectations set by the other armours.

Review and pictures by Danny Mills

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