Toy Review: Toys R’ Us Silver Surfer, Daredevil, Iron Man 3-pack

Toys R’ Us Silver Surfer,
Daredevil, Iron Man 3-pack

One of the things any late adopter of technology doesn’t have to worry about is paying more if they’re late to the bandwagon. Generally in the gadget game, older means cheaper and often times better as the manufacturers continue to tweak software and firmware. That’s never been the case with toy collecting. If you miss out the first time or decide to put it back, you’re pretty much shit out of luck. Either you’ll never see that toy again, or you’ll eventually find it, but you’ll need to pay about three times the price you saw it for on the shelf.

Once in a while though, prolonging gratification can actually pay off.

This here 3-pack was an exclusive to Toys R’ Us and never available at retail stores locally. There were a few scattered sightings at specialty shops, though. I saw one at Babes about a year back at a whopping p3,000.00 (about $70.00) which I don’t have to tell you is insane. I resigned myself to never having this little set, which was all right since at the time, I was still on my boycott of the 4″ scale.

After collecting all the other 4″ Iron Men from the movie line and the Marvel Universe figures however, I kept thinking about this set and remembering the gorgeous paint on that blue Stealth Suit. When I saw that one of our local collectors was selling a few at only p1,200.00, I couldn’t pass it up again. At p400.00 each, it was a great deal, much closer to it’s $20.00 retail price (Thanks again, man!).

The packaging is a sturdy box, with the plain graphics that Marvel and Hasbro are so fond of. Nothing spectacular, but it’s rugged and will protect the toys inside from most anything. I’m not saying it’ll withstand a round from a howitzer, but it should stand up to several falls from the toystore shelf.

The tray and box are a bit big, though. Toy companies love putting toys in dynamic positions but, personally I hate it. One, it necessitates a bigger box since a toy with it’s arms and legs splayed out requires a lot more space than one in a “relaxed” position. Two, you tend to get toys with bent joints because they were placed in the package wrong or they moved in transit. Sure a little boil/freeze can solve it, but I still have a fear every time I do that to a toy, I’m ravaging the tiny little bonds between the atoms of plastic, slowly moving closer to the complete disintegration of my prized possesion. I do not like.

Here’s what Hasbro’s practice did to Iron Man:

Still as I said, it’s a small matter that most collectors will be able to solve. The figures themselves aren’t something that you’re going to want to pay big bucks for. Let’s face it, there are 3 characters in this set, and NONE of them are unique molds. All have been released in the main line as singles and their exclusive paint jobs aren’t that spectacular.

That being said, I really enjoyed this set. If you don’t happen to have Daredevil, Iron Man, or Silver Surfer, this set solves the problem at a nice price point that is cheaper than buying them seperately (at least if you get them at the price I did). I can say that after buying the set, I was convinced that the Daredevil mold was not that bad and went out to get the Red one. That says a lot.

The Daredevil that comes with this set is the yellow and brown version. Since I was never a big Daredevil fan, so I won’t go into the history of the costume. My knowledge comes from what I’ve gathered from the movie and about 10 issues or so in my comics collection. I do know that this one is much less iconic than the red costume, but far more striking. It is lemon yellow after all.

Paint isn’t that bad, but I kind of wonder why they decided to black out his eyes. It’s sort of like they dropped a glob of paint on the first one and said, “Hey! That it looks pretty good!” There’s also the odd red lines all over the brown body suit. Instead of just the “D”, he’s got all sorts of odd highlights in weird areas that don’t look particularly realistic. Not awful, but I don’t really get the reasoning behind it.

He is still pretty articulated though, which makes his fun factor pretty high. Though he lacks the thigh swivels that some of the newer HAMMER files figures have, and isn’t as flexible as the Marvel Legends Nemesis Wave Daredevil, he can still do a lot. The torso crunch is particularly nice, as is the double hinged knees and the ankle joints.

Sad to say he doesn’t come with his billy clubs though, but rather a pair of nunchucks cast in red plastic. I can see where this came from as the nunchucks can be used for any number of ninja characters and I’m pretty sure they included them in the Hand Ninja package already. They aren’t as fun as a pair of truncheons would have been.

The mold’s been re-used for other figures besides Daredevil as well. I checked out the stores while looking for the standard red Daredevil and noticed that Moon Knight also is a Daredevil re-tool. Hasbro also chose to use this mold, which is slightly barrel chested and overly-muscled, for Mr. Fantastic for some unknown reason. Though I am convinced it’s a good choice for Daredevil, who’s dad was a boxer and who is supposedly a born fighter, it’s an odd choice for a lab coat geek.

Though Daredevil turned out to be my favorite of the three by far, the other two aren’t worthless. I love the Stealth model Iron Man. As I said, the paint on the chest is what really kept me coming back to this set. Instead of being content with the red arc reactor on his chest, Hasbro went and painted a red glow around it as well. Your opinion may vary, since it does look odd in the box, but I love the way it looks in the right light. If you have him in shadow, (which is his element since he’s a “stealth” armor) then the little glow really sticks out.

Other than that however, he’s exactly the same as the other Marvel Universe Classic Iron Man armors. He is darker than the other Stealth Armors though, which is great.

There’s nothing much to say about the articulation, it’s the standard Marvel Universe joint arrangement, just like the other two figures. No thigh cuts, so he won’t be doing any wide stances, and he doesn’t particularly excel at the ground punching pose that I love, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had:

He comes with the same accessory that ALL of the Universe Iron Man armors have; a repulsor blast that clips to the bottom of his wrist. At certain angles, it’s ok, but from the side, it’s obvious that it’s a cheat. I prefer the ones that come with the movie armors that fit over the hand instead.

The last figure in the set is a Silver Surfer and his board. This one is probably my least favorite as he’s really not different from the regular release. He’s got more paint, but both are meant to LOOK silver. This one is painted white and gray. Again, it looks odd in the box, but after shooting it, I’ll say that it’s the more photogenic of the two figures. The shadows they painted in really highlight it and you can’t really say that the silver cast plastic is that much different from the white paint. Both look white-ish in photos.

I’d have prefered a transluscent “cosmic” Surfer as they did for the Icons version. This one looks “creamy”.

Again, articulation is excellent, but you’ll need to be aware that there are some problems with this mold. The first is that though the ab crunch joint has an excellent range of motion, it’s not without sacrifice. When you push his chest to far forward or back, you can see the hole that the pin rides in on the lower torso. Not a big thing, but unsightly. Personally, I’m glad to live with it if it gives those extra millimeters of movement.

The other is a quality control issue. Though I didn’t find anything wrong with the creamy Surfer, the regular release I bought is annoying. The legs fall off constantly at the hip. The fit of the ball and socket is just slightly off, so everytime you pose him, you have to put him back together. I’m used to that with Revoltechs, but those are FAR more detailed and I can forgive a lot. These are not.

Overall, I really believe that this set is a great buy at anything around the p1,000.00 mark. If you’re a collector of this scale and luck into one, give it a try.