Vault Review: Iron Man 2
6″ War Machine

War Machine has some interesting joint choices. From what I can tell, his head is on a ball joint that sets on a hinge. You can get some interesting poses out of this, but they are usually limited by his shoulder pads. His shoulders, wrists, and hips are all swivel hinge joints. His ab crunch is an extremely flexible ball joint, while his ankles are ball joints that are far less flexible. Both his elbows and knees are double hinge joints.

That’s not all though, because his shoulder and wrist armor are on hinge joints to allow for more movement of the arms and hands. Then there’s his missile launcher that works as a swivel hinge. Last but certainly not least is his mini-gun that sits on a ball joint, which sits on a hinge joint, that’s also mounted on a sliding rail across his back. Now that’s one articulated gun!

Even with all this great articulation, I do still have two complaints. I really wish they would have given him a swivel joint for his forearms. I think this would have allowed him to pose his wrist mounted guns a little more naturally.

Second, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, but Hasbro really needs to do something about those hips. I don’t mind that they’re swivel hinges, I just wish they could move forward and out at the same time. All it would require is for the peg to go into the side of the crotch instead of up into the body. The Toy Biz Marvel Legends did this and it seemed to work fine and allowed for much more natural poses. I’m not really sure why Hasbro doesn’t just copy it.

War Machine comes with a couple of really nice accessories. I really love the mini-gun, but I’m not such a big fan of its ammo belt. It looks good, but hinders the movement too much for me, so, I just leave it off. I’m really glad that his missile launcher can be removed and replaced with a normal looking shoulder panel. That’s a really nice touch for those of us who don’t think Rhodie should be firing missiles constantly.

But my favorite of War Machine’s accessories are the four extra hands he comes with. Altogether you get two fists, two open, and two grasping. I’ve been seeing extra hands show up with Japanese figures for a while now, and I’ve always thought it was a great idea. It’s just an easy way to add more character to a figures poses. So I’m really glad to see Hasbro adapting this idea for their figures. I hope it continues for the ML2 line.

Even though this figure is nothing new to the market, he’s still new to me. I’ve always had this nagging thought at the back of my mind to buy him, and I’m pretty satisfied with him now that I finally did. He retailed for about $17 at Toys R Us, which seems a bit high. I’m hoping that’s just a TRU thing, though, and that future six inch figures will be closer to the $14 level.

-Vault

16 thoughts on “Vault Review: Iron Man 2
6″ War Machine

  1. I got this figure last year, straight after watching the film if I remember correctly. While it’s technically a good figure in every respect, I just don’t find it fun to play with. It’s not the hips either, since between the Wolverine/Iron man 2/Thor lines, I’ve really started to appreciate the benefits of this particular system.

    1. I have to admit he’s not as fun as Embo to play around with, but he does make for some good posing.

  2. You should have bought this last year at wally world. Toysrus is selling the exact same War Machine that Walmart sold for just 12 last year. Pretty crappy.

    1. I know, I’m still kicking myself for not getting it last year. That’s why I waited to get him at $14 instead of $17. That way the sting wasn’t too bad.

  3. I woke up this morning and started to read myy RSS feeds when I came to this headline. I had to stopnand wonder who would make twenty six inch tall action figure.

    Nice review vault, I see the top hat is still making it’s rounds

    1. I love me some top hat!

      A 26 inch War Machine would be awesome. It would be like a giant mech suit for Rhodie. This needs to happen. 🙂

  4. This was one of my favorite figures last year. The only difference I notice between the walmart release and this one, is that the newer release seems to have consistently better paint apps, and they painted that thing on the side of his thigh silver (walmart version left it black). However, those differences just don’t justify the $7 price hike. They should have done something else to differentiate the two figures more, maybe painting this figure with blue eyes and repulsors.

    1. I didn’t even notice those differences, thanks Clark.

      I think it would have been great to see an alternate open mask/Rhodie head as an extra piece. That would have definitely made up for any price hike and been a great repack item.

    1. Yeah, I know what you mean. He’s a bit more tempting for me now since I have a hero for him to fight, but the money’s just too much. Maybe if I get another TRU coupon.

  5. I like the hip joints as is. If they’re loose, then don’t affect the figure as much as the older Toybiz figures (looking at you ML3 Thor).

  6. My Walmarts still have WM show up from time to time (among the waves of Mark Vs and Mark IVs. Mark IV is way better than Mark VI in ever way, including having an alternate head. I highly recommend it). It makes it even more ridiculous that TRU is charging $17 when they can be had for $12 right up the road.

    1. That has to be a special case. I haven’t seen War Machine at Walmart since last year around November or October. All any Walmart has around here are Mark V’s.

      1. The walmarts all in my area have pegs and pegs of Mark V’s too. Hasbro really took too long to release that figure. I think had he come out sooner, people would have picked him up still excited about the movie. However, by the time he finally showed up at stores I didn’t really care anymore, and it appears nobody else does either.
        I do still want to see some new 4″ IM figures, I’m just worried that might not happen considering how many Wave 1 figures are still at every store.

        1. I saw Mark V maybe a month or two after Mark VI and War Machine. He was a hot-ticket item at first, but after a few replenishments that were nothing but Mark Vs, yeah, he started to warm up the pegs.

          I didn’t see Mark IV until probably right around Christmas time. Right now most of the Walmarts near me have a bunch of Mark Vs and a healthy sprinkling of Mark IVs. And, like I said, a few War Machines trickle in every now and again.

  7. It was a year ago when this first showed up as a Wal-Mart exclusive and I said it then and I’ll say it again….
    Best 6″ action figure of 2010.

    I agree /w Clark that changing the red eyes and repulsors to blue as originally pictured would have been nice and given people a reason to buy it again, but for the dramatic price hike I’d would have liked an alternate unmaksed head too.

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