Toy Review: 3.75" Hulkbuster

05/6/10

Iron Man 2 Hulkbuster

Shortpacked.

If you’ve only been a collector for awhile you’ve probably heard the term “shortpacked” and scratched your head. The term refers to toys that are packed into boxes in lower quantities thanother figures in their line. For example, in an assortment of Marvel figures, you might have 2 Wolverines, 3 Spider-Mans, 2 Iron Mans, and 1 Squirrel Girl.

Now you’re asking “Squirrel Girl? Why would anyone want a Squirrel Girl figure?” This is exactly the same thought that big wigs at Hasbro have when they work on wave assortments. They pack more pieces of the figures that have name recall because those are the figures that kids are going to pester their parents into buying. The lesser known figures get the haft with only 1 per box. They are “shortpacked”.

Shortpacked figures are a bitch for collectors. They are usually obscure characters from major teams, or a female character, or a really gorgeous variant that has gotten rave reviews. Given that the popular figures are ones that everyone has serveral versions of anyway (Batman, I’m looking at you), most of us are all after this same rare toy. Now that distributors are being cautious with their imports here in the Philippines, the competition between collectors (not to mention scalpers) is going to get fierce.

The Hulkbuster armor from the 3.75″ Iron Man 2 line is one of the first figures that Philippine toy collectors have been racing around the metropolis for. He’s got several things going for him. He’s shortpacked for one. I lucked out when I arrived at Toy Kingdom in Podium and found the Playkit rep just about to shelve the new figures. She brought out the boxes and I had first pick. There were only 1 figure per box while there were several of some of the other Iron Man armors and some of the repaints.

Second, he’s pretty big. Not as big as say, Iron Monger, but still he’s sizable for a 3.75″ figure. He’s also highly detailed. Unlike the Marvel Universe line, the Iron Man line seems to have details up the wazoo. Even without any real accessories, Hulkbuster is worth the Php 450.00 you have to shell out for him.

The package tells a little about the armor, it’s reason for being as it were. If you can’t guess that reason from the name of the armor, you’ve been living in a hole for about 50 years. The product shot on the back makes the armor look shinier than it actually is. In reality, the red is no where near that metallic looking.

Out of the box, you’ll see the Hulkbuster comes with the requisite stand and Armor Card. It honestly doesn’t need the stand since it’s huge foot print will keep him upright fairly easily. As I’ve said in past reviews, I really like the inclusion of the Armor Cards. I do wish that the URL printed on them actually worked (they still redirect visitors to the Marvel site), but can’t have everything.

As you can see in the size comparison above, he’s not as impressive as the 3.75″ Iron Monger. In fact, he’s barely taller than the Mark II. He makes up for it in girth though. This guy is really WIDE.

Compared to the old 6″ Marvel Legends Toybiz figure, you can see how tiny this Hulkbuster feels. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever get over the feeling that 6″ is the perfect scale for superhero toys. There’s just a heft lacking in 3.75″ that leaves me feeling very unsatisfied.

That said, however, this little guy is much more detailed than his counterpart. The old version was based on the Hulkbuster’s first appearance. It was an auxillary module for the Modular Armor, Model XII, Mark I. It was smoother and was sort of an exoskeleton that the Modular Armor fit into.

The new one is based more on the Hulkbuster Armor MK II Argonaut Drone, designed by Adi Granov, who gave us the Iron Man Model 30, or the Extremis Armor. I love this design, so it’s wonderful that they chose to go with it rather than the more recent John Romita Jr. design.

The thing has amazing detail, from the cell design on the shoulder pads, to the cloven feet to the shin guards and the pistons and gears all over him. It really is something else.

I was honestly worried about the articulation on this thing. After all, the Marvel Legends line had some pretty poor articulation on the bigger figures. The 6″ Hulkbuster, while gorgeous looking, couldn’t do very much. This little sucker, I’m glad to say, can. He can kick Hulk in the face! How aggravating!

Paint, however is another matter entirely. I had the choice of 2 examples of the figure. One had lots of splotch all over his face and this one has a big splash of the Iron Man red they used right on the big gold spot on his stomach. Many of the new figures are like this. Hasbro has to up it’s game in this area. Their quality control has been awful lately.

Seriously, there isn’t much to say about the Hulkbuster. It’s one of the best in the line so far, and probably the one that is the best value considering the amount of plastic it took to make him.

I hear they’ve been restocked at the time of this writing, so hurry out to toy stores to get him.