This time around, Iron
Man transforms into a futuristic sportscar, which makes sense given his
general personality and background. As you'd expect, it's primarily red,
though the dark silvery gray windows look pretty nice and are a good contrast
color. The proportions are great, and there are no real mech mode extras.
That said, the mech mode feet-- which become the spoiler in this mode--
do look a bit odd, given the hollow detailing on them. The mold detailing
on the toy in this mold is really sparse. I get that it's a speedy sportscar,
but even considering that he's rather barren. There also needs to be a
bit more paint to break up all the red-- the window paint apps are the
only ones that really help to do that, and he's missing said paint apps
for his rear window. The white paint apps for his front headlights are
nicely done, but they're small, and the wheel spokes and taillights are
painted light red-- hardly an eye-catching color amongst all the already
fairly vibrant red plastic used for most of this toy.
Iron Man transforms
in a very similar manner to Cybertron Hot Shot,
and thus his mech mode has many of the same features-- prominent shoulders,
fairly bulky feet, and no real vehicle mode extras. His proportions-- with
the exception of the aforementioned feet-- are very good, and he's quite
stable, so no issues there. The yellow added to this mode helps to diversify
Iron Man's color scheme from being so one-note in this mode, but both colors
are still really primary-- a duller version of either color would've worked
better, I think. What sculpting there is is done very well- his head, in
particular-- but it's all still rather simplistic. I was expecting better,
particularly in this mode. The re-using of Iron Man's characteristic "chest
symbol/reactor" from the front of the car mode to the chest of this mode
was creative, and helps to keep one of his main features prominent in both
modes. He may not be as heavily-armed as his other versions this time,
but being Iron Man, he still has some weapons-- there's swing-down (non-firing)
guns on his shoulders, and the exhaust pipes on his lower arms can easily
be seen as blasters (and they can swing outwards a bit to emphasize this).
As for articulation, Iron Man's got it-- he can move at the neck, shoulders
(at two points), elbows (at two points), wrists (at two points), and at
the waist, hips (at two points), knees (at two points), and ankles-- so
he can strike quite a few nice poses. Unfortunately, he has a bit of a
QC issue-- the pegs that connect his lower legs to his upper legs can come
undone a bit too easily (particularly during transformation), and given
the collapsible nature ofhis legs due to his design, can be a little bit
of a pain to reconnect.
The sportscar version
of Iron Man could use a bit more color variety and mold detailing, but
those issues aside he's a great design in both modes, and one of the most
solid Marvel Transformers Crossovers, in my opinion (and definitely the
best version of Iron Man). Watch those knees during transformation, though.
Review by Beastbot
*This mold was re-released in a near-identical color scheme for the
Iron Man 2 "Concept Series" Transformers Crossovers sub-line. The only
main differences between this and the initial version were that the red
was a bit darker, and the gray plastic parts and window paint apps were
changed to black. His tailights were also painted yellow. All are positive
changes, increasing the contrast and decreasing the overall "brightness"
of the color scheme. The aforementioned mold problem with the knees was
also fixed here.
**This mold was re-released again for the Avengers movie line, as "Transformers
Mech Machines". Again, this version is not different enough from the initial
scheme to warrant a completely new review, and mostly shares the same overall
look. It keeps all the changes made to the Iron Man 2 re-release, but makes
the yellow a bit more golden in tone, and the characteristic "chest symbol/reactor"
paint app is a light blue. Again, both positive changes, and help to make
the toy less primary in color-- an improvement over both previous versions.