It’s time for This Fortnight In Ridiculous Toys, or Figure Friday as I like to call it. Let’s see what’s here to punish out bank accounts for the crime of merely existing.
Avengers: Age of Ultron Infinity Saga DLX Iron Man Mark 44 Hulkbuster 1/12 Scale Figure by Threezero
I’m not terribly familiar with Threezero’s products, but a quick scan of their offerings reveals that they appear to be yet another premium collectible company intent on bankrupting nerds everywhere. At $250 this Hulkbuster sure seems like a purchase you would hide from your spouse if they weren’t particularly understanding.
The second figure from Marvel Studio’s The Infinity Saga series, DLX Iron Man Mark 44 “Hulkbuster” armor. This fully-articulated 1/12 scale collectible figure stands at 11.7″ (30cm) tall and is constructed of threezero’s renowned DLX die-cast system with over 65 points of articulation.
DLX Iron Man Mark 44 “Hulkbuster” armor is specially designed to engage in different poses, particularly the signature landing pose. The exterior chest armor and the head of Mark 44 can be opened and the interior panels can slide apart to insert the torso of the Iron Man Mark 43 (sold separately) figure inside. Together, the two figures form the impressive Hulkbuster.
DLX Iron Man Mark 44 “Hulkbuster” figure has three lighting functions located on the chest, the back, and the eyes; and features functional forearm armor. It includes three pairs of interchangeable hands: One pair of fists, one pair of relaxed hands, and one pair posed for shooting.
Age of Ultron was a lot of things but at least it gave us the Hulk vs Iron Man fight which is a win in my book.
X-Men Marvel Legends: Age of Apocalypse
Believe it or not, there was a time when I was not reading comics. You see, I wasn’t exactly the best student in high school and without access to a car of my own trips to the comic shop were one of the first things to go when my grades tanked. Due to that, I missed the whole of the Age of Apocalypse storyline and by extension I have no real nostalgia for the crossover nor have I felt the need to go back and revisit it.
While these figures look great, I can’t see myself going out of my way to collect them…with Iceman being the notable exception. I am an absolute sucker for translucent toys AND I’ve loved the Iceman character ever since he was an Amazing Friend of Spider-Man (it didn’t hurt that he sounded like Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo either).
Spider-Man Marvel Legends Retro Collection: Spider-Man 2099
Speaking of the 1990’s, one of Marvel’s many gimmicks of the era was to launch an imprint of comics set in the far-flung year of 2099…and most of them we’re not good. Ravage 2099, anyone?
Spider-Man 2099, on the other hand, was written by one of my favorite comics writers Peter David AND it was awesome! There seemed to be a lot of thought and world building put into the title which other 2099 books weren’t able to live up to. Without doing any research (even though I’m seated at a computer connected to the internet) I’m going to say that Spider-Man 2099 far outlasted any of the other titles in the line. What I DO know to be true is that this version of the character (Miguel O’Hara) managed to survive the cancelation of the book and continued to pop up in other Marvel titles at various points over the last 30 years. At one point in the last few years the character even got his own title again…with Peter David back in the writer’s chair!
For as much as I’ve gone on about loving the character I missed this toy during its initial release. A combination of it being popular, poorly distributed, and insane secondary market prices meant that I was never able to secure one. The Marvel Legends line has always been good in terms of figure sculpts so when they re-release figures like this it doesn’t come off as dated or retro. Often times they’ll give them a new coating of paint to set them apart from the previous release. Even better, I’m not getting stuck with a Build-A-Figure piece I’m never going to do anything with.
