Part of my recent
Iron Man 3 win from ActionFigurePics.com were these two 'Assemblers:' War Machine and the Mark 42 Iron Man armor. The first thing I noticed when I got these two next to each other was that War Machine is much bulkier than Mark 42. I'm surprised they did that, especially since interchangeability is the theme for this line.
They're both neat basic action figures with limited articulation and basic paint but good detailing in the sculpts.
The 'Assemblers' gimmick is that you pop off and re-attach or swap limbs for armor modification. Each figure comes with extra arms and an action shooter of some sort. While this feature does nothing for me as an adult I think it would have been pretty neat as a kid; it's well executed with the arms snapping in securely and not feeling loose or wobbly or like they'll just fall right off.
War Machine looks great, although the shoulder cannon piece he comes with looks lame when attached, it's just too tiny and barely peeks over his shoulder. I didn't bother attaching it for the photos.
War Machine's extra parts are even less exciting then Mark 42's. There's no added paint apps, and the plastic color doesn't even match up.
Of course you can add one figure's parts to another, which might be fun for kids but in this case ends up looking a bit odd, especially since Mark 42 is more svelte than War Machine.
The Assemblers gimmick is clever and well executed, but I don't think they are making enough armors in this line to make it truly worthwhile. If there were ten or more armors you could make zillions of cool creations, but to my knowledge there are only three: War Machine, Mark 42 and Iron Patriot.
But I'm not complaining, free toys are free toys, and if you're an Iron Man fan you could have been treated a lot worse by the toy companies. In my experience the third film in a trilogy usually gets the worst of it when it comes to toys, be it through repaints or rushed, lazy product. At least these are new and nice representations of the on film armors!
