REVIEW: Hasbro War Machine

Released 2009-2010 

Hasbro makes huge improvements to their Iron Man line

Front View

   If you read my reviews of Hasbro's Mark II and III figures then you know that they were full of suck.  A sub-par sculpt, sloppy paint apps, useless articulation and horrid quality control undermined the vast potential of those figures to kick ass.

Rear View

  So you can imagine that I didn't have very high expectations coming into Hasbro's Iron Man 2 figure line.  And maybe that's why I've been so pleasantly surprised.  While far from perfect, Hasbro made some serious strides with some of the figures in this line... WAR MACHINE being the best of them.  Here's why: 

SCALE and HEIGHT

Six inches of fun

This is an approximately 6 inch figure, and corrects the slight "shortness issue" found in the Mark II-III.  It fits more closely with Hasbro MARVEL LEGENDS figures than the older Toy Biz figures.  But it's close enough to not really matter.

 I wouldn't recommend it to be used with the larger scale MARVEL SELECT figures since they are in a 7 inch scale.

Sculpt

Sharp Detail in the Sculpt

By the time that this figure was released, Hasbro had really upped their game when it came to sculpting.  Finally, we had an Iron Man movie figure with crisp, film accurate proportions and an eye for detail that was in striking range of even Kaiyodo's superb Revoltech line.  More impressive was this level of detail at a fraction of the cost.  This is impressive work by any standard and holds up under close examination.

Sculpt Detail even extends to hidden areas.  Nice work!

  War Machine bristles with weaponry and Tank-like armor plating, all of which is faithfully recreated.  The "pinched" look of the Mark II-III helmets has been fixed and substructure detail can even be found INSIDE the armored knee joints.  Lesser figures would have cut corners here, and Hasbro should be applauded for not cheaping out.

Where's the Love, Hasbro?

  The only real shortcoming can again be laid at the feet of Hasbro's Quality Control.  There are spots all over the figure that have had chunks of plastic literally RIPPED out of the sculpt by rough removal of the figure from the sprues of the mold.  This speaks to the mass market nature of Hasbro's production pipeline.  Kids won't care, but collectors might be disappointed in how their figures took abuse during assembly.

  

Paint Apps 

Here too War Machine impresses.  The broad strokes of color are spot on with a deep semi-matte finish grey that includes tiny flecks of metallic in the plastic itself.  The result is a surface that picks up the highlights around it nicely without looking too shiny or like plastic.

  Silver accents can be found throughout, and are crisp.  There is almost zero paint bleed to be found (even in hidden areas like under the knee armor).  And the paint is applied with enough thickness to avoid the plastic underneath coming through.

Looking Good

  The eyes and Arc Reactor are rendered in white with a red painted outline to give the effect of a glow.  The result is well done and effective.

  But what impressed me the most were the tiny details that most people would have overlooked.  Some of these details are even absent on the MARVEL SELECT War Machine, and Marvel Select are known for their impressive paint apps (if not their limited articulation).

Stencil Markings

  It's really cool to see the stencil style markings all over War Machine.  Markings like "AF57" might hint at an Air Force division and "001" probably denotes that War Machine is the first military effort at this kind of tech.  It's fertile ground for the imagination... and isn't that part of what appeals to us about comics and toys in the first place?

WARNING!

  You'll even find tiny yellow and black "WARNING" style striping on the rear end of War Machine's forearm guns.  Hasbro, certainly went the extra mile here, and it shows all over this figure.

Articulation   

  It's clear that Hasbro made an effort to improve the articulation on War Machine beyond what had been done for the Mark II-III but the bulkiness of the armor does limit his movement a bit.  He's not quite up to Marvel Legends spec due to a few legacy issues, but what is here gets the job done.

Articulation gets the job done, but suffers legacy issues

Again, it's not that the points of articulation are lacking, but that the range of motion of each joint is especially limited... some in ways that were avoidable.

  For example:  AGAIN we have a Hasbro movie based Iron Man figure with NO WAIST joint.  This is just ludicrous.  Say what you will about it interfering with the beautiful sculpt, but I'll make that trade any day.  It works GREAT on Hasbro's HEROIC AGE Iron Man, and there is no excuse for it to be missing here.

What you get instead of a Waist Joint

  Instead you get not an ab crunch but another diaphragm rib pivot joint.  This is the ONLY way to get War Machine's shoulders to rotate off axis from the waist.  Backward bending and Forward bending are much improved and have a decent range of motion.

Looking Down

  The head is mounted atop a ball hinge joint, that also includes a bit of toe to heel play.    As you'd expect, his head does rotate left and right.  Again, you can forget about that flight pose, but looking down is no problem.  Since War Machine is more of a ground level piece of firepower, I don't really miss the flight pose capability.

Shoulder Armor done right

His shoulders rotate and raise just like most MARVEL LEGENDS do and surprisingly his hinged shoulder armor doesn't get in the way.  That's no small feat.  Biceps swivel nicely and elbows are double jointed.

Not bad for all that armor

  War Machine's wrists swivel and extend (via a pivot) far enough for that iconic Repulsor pose, with separately hinged hand armor that gets out of the way when needed.  This is a nice touch, though these pop off easily.

Hand Armor is hinged.  Good call, Hasbro.

  Both hands are pre-posed in useful ways.  See the ACCESSORIES section below for details.

Return of the wacky hip joints

  I continue to be mystified by Hasbro's bizarre choice of hip joints though.  In their default position his legs can't really be raised to the side OR move forward (dorsiflexion) without first rotating the hip joint by 90 degrees or so.  Even then, his leg motion has a slight arc to it and you have to use the upper thigh swivels to get his knee joint top side again.  I can't get my head around what they were thinking here.

  Knees are double jointed and work surprising well.

  Which brings us to the ankles and feet... which are a design hold over from earlier Iron Man movie figures.  Sure you can eek out a bit more vertical pivot from the ankles than before, but this isn't very useful.  Want some camber out of those feet to support a wide heroic stance?  Well forget about it.  But hey, the ankles allow the feet to ROTATE.... though even this is limited by the ankle armor.

The end result is a bit of a mixed bag.  Likely "good enough", but not great.

Kick ass

I was surprised by one cool bit of articulation though: Mini-gun articulation!  And this just kicks ass.  By default the mini-gun is attached to the left side of War Machines back... but let's say you'd prefer it coming over the right side instead.  NO PROBLEM!  The turret arm is on a track which allows it to slide from left to right.  Add to this a vertical pivot and horizontal swivel and you have a gun that can be pointed pretty much anywhere you'd want it.  He's even got a rocket Launcher pod (over his right shoulder) on a Horizontal pivot.   So when it comes to weapons, you have some serious options.

Special Features

Now THAT's a gun!

  War Machine's most obvious special feature is a turreted mini-gun that includes a separate ammo belt (which is a nice touch).  This looks great and functions even better thanks to the articulation options described above.

Missing Foot Peg Holes... Again

  There's just one thing keeping WM from being a home run here and it's the absence of Foot Peg Holes.  I know I harp on this a lot, but these should be standard issue on every Hasbro figure.  You'll find them on nearly all MARVEL LEGENDS figures and yet for some reason they've been consistently left off of the Iron Man Movie figures.  

Accessories 

No shortage of Accessories

  Another thing that surprised me with War Machine was that the figure wasn't an "either-or" proposition.  Previously (with Hasbro), you'd get a crap figure with accessories OR and nice figure with no useful accessories.

Fists

  In the case of War Machine, you get a very nice figure AND some very nice accessories.  For starters, you get 3 SETS of hands (6 total)!  That alone gets you a lot of possibilities.

Partially Open Hands

  You'll find open "Repulsor Blast" hands, Partially Open Hands and Closed Fists.

Rocket Pod and Ammo Belt

  And finally, he includes an accessory that you won't even find on either the Marvel Select OR Revoltech War Machine offerings... his rocket launcher pod!

Rocket Pod cover

This affixes to a hole over his right shoulder and should you decide you don't want to use it (or prefer the mini-gun to slide over to his right instead of left), there's even a little cover that you can plug into the hole.  GREAT WORK, Hasbro! 

Other versions

  I'm not going to talk about HOT TOYS offering here since that is in the 1:6 scale and might cost you a kidney to get your hands on these days.

But there are two other serious contenders in the space that Hasbro's offering occupies.

Only a Revoltech can do this

 Japan's Kaiyodo produced a War Machine in their REVOLTECH line that looks VERY good.  It's got a sculpt that rivals Hasbro's, as well as very good paint and some great accessories.  It also DOMINATES Hasbro's figure when it comes to articulation.  So if you are into ACBA or just love getting your figures into the most dynamic pose possible, make yours a Revoltech.  Yes, it does cost about $55 so it's worth considering if you *need* all that poseability or if a Hasbro War Machine would take care of you.

MARVEL SELECT (Left) and HASBRO (Right)

  The other option is a Marvel Select War Machine (from Diamond).  This is in a slightly larger 7" scale and is positioned as an affordable proposition to the "statue on my desk" audience.  While I don't personally own one (I own their Mark VI) it's clear that the sculpt is excellent.  This is also your only option if you want a figure with the helmet open.  But paint apps have been hit an miss with Marvel Select in the past.  When they get it right, it looks great... but then other times they do things like forget to paint the eyes.  What you WON'T get is articulation.  Range of motion has been extremely limited on a per joint basis in the past, and while their upcoming NIGHTCRAWLER figure gives me hope, War Machine was released prior to these improvements.  Expect a nice desk ornament, but not an action figure.   

Size Comparison

Maybe Bigger IS better after all

I've shown War Machine next to the Mark III.  You can see that War Machine is bigger overall.

Opinion, Value and VERDICT 

Now all we need is 6" Hammer Drones

For fans of the Iron Man films it would be hard to find a better value for money than Hasbro's War Machine figure.  Dollar for Dollar it's just a clear winner.

Closing thoughts

Weapons HOT!

  There are other War Machine Figures out there that fill their respective niches nicely, but you won't find a single figure that does as many things right for the money as Hasbro's War Machine.  Get one before they are gone. 

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