Product Line / S.H.Figuarts
Scale & Class / Non-Scale Collectible Figure
Manufacturer / Bandai Spirits / Tamashii Nations
Release Date / 2017
Appearances / Iron Man (2008)
Correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I know, Iron Man Mark 2 probably has the shortest screen time out of Tony Stark’s armors prior to The Avengers. It did play a significant role though, leading to the development of the Mark 3, and eventually became the base unit for the first War Machine. However, with the Mark 2 and its successor unit Mark 3 being exactly similar outside of the obvious color swap, figures of the Mark 2 are released as straight recolors of the Mark 3. Tamashii Nations did the same, and the S.H.Figuarts Iron Man Mark 2 is basically a silver painted Mark 3.
Tamashii Nations has already released several Iron Man figures previously, so they have an idea of the essentials. But at the same time, they still have lots of room for improvement. The articulation is fairly standard for an S.H.Figuarts and the silver paint looks great, with some even calling it the signature “Bandai silver.” I mentioned the Mark 2 is often a straight recolor of the Mark 3, but there’s one detail most companies overlook. The Mark 2 acts as a prototype or testing unit, so the armor panels of the Mark 2 have a lot of rivets from assembly and were later removed with the launch of the Mark 3. These rivets would normally be sculpted details but because of reuse and cutting costs, they’re instead dots of darker paint lined together. These break the illusion of realism when looking at the figure up close, but not so much from a distance. And that annoying thing of needing to swap flaps every time you change hand parts? Yes, this figure still has that.
