My US trip was expensive, and NYCC '23 was no exception. But, even though the exchange rate was terrifying, I did manage to find a few things - deals even. The Figma I found was belwo aftermarket, but this.. THIS.. was actually a deal.
Sort of.
I did get it for $200 USD, but missed the fact the head was a bit banged up, so I had to get a new head. Still, $270 USD for a displayed Die Cast figure isn't terrible.
Not the best picture but the best I can do with my primitive lighting solultions.
The Hot Toys MMS538 Rescue is of course the 1/6 scale release of everyones least liked Stark Industries outfit. Designed by Tony Stark and given to Pepper Potts to pilot, it made its first (and only, so far) appearance in the climactic battle scene at the end of Endgame. You'd think being in a climactic battle scene WITH Iron Man ,combining energy beams nonetheless, would make this figure a popular one.
Well, based on sales everywhere I've looked, no, not really. But, collectors will collect what they want, and often that overlooks conventional decision making wisdom. While I'm a pretty much a female focused collector, I do appreciate quality engineering/manufacturing, and this happens to be one of those figures that meshes the two together. The fact it's discounted is just a huge bonus and sped up the purchasing time, cause there was no way in hell I was gonna spend $400 USD plus sales taxes to get this from a Sideshow dealer.
That $400 USD price tag, mind you, is at the lower end of tthe spectrum, and the contents are included accordingly . You of course get the figure, both light up and Pepper Potts heads, but in terms of hands you only get 6 in total (fists, Repulsor palms, articulated). With regards to effects, it's really just one the one energy blast, along with the floating wing things. There is of course the typical dynamic flight stand.
The figure also comes with the necessary batteries to test out the LEDs, but I didn'thave the patience to attempt that.
There were of course some proportional changes made to the on screen look. Body is kind of drawn out, and if you put this next to say the Mark 50, you can easily see how homework was copied and slightly modified, which is less of an issue when it was the more mechnical suits, but when they're supposed to be nanotech and adhere to the users body, it's a bit unfortunate.
The head appears to be a bit big and the neck is a tad long. Nothing out of place for one of these releases, I suppose. What is also nice is that both helmets are the same size. It sounds stupid, but it does happen. Eye size is n longer an issue like with the original Mark 7.
The actual Pepper Potts face sculpt is... functional. It's looks like her, but they put her face through the randomizer to create the face of the most generic looking red head possible. So, it's not hideous and would pass for the face of a person, but the Goop Queen herself this is not.
The wing pack on the back opens up and the flams on the gauntlets flip up. Chest plate comes off for.. reasons I can't recall from the movie. There aren't any other functional panels on this armour, and I think if there were any in the movie they would have made their way here - Hot Toys is pretty good about that sort of thing.
The floating wings are equally well done and connect to the back of the figure via transparent plastic parts to simulate the look of free floating.
The wings can also be connected to the energy blast effect and displayed that way. The Mark 7 with all its intense weaponry, this is not.
So in terms of articulation, its pretty impressive what the Die Cast Iron Man body can do, especially when you consider your typical Hot Toy can't really do much due to constume restrictions, but compared to more modern tech like the in the ThreeZero DLX line up, it does seem a bit antiquated. The figure does feature pull down hips, butterfly shoulder joints for arm crossing, pull apart upper body for ab crunch and upper torso tilt. The neck joint features a sliding mechanism to allow for pretty much a 60 degree upward tilt and 15 degree downward tilt, though the side tilt is non existent and is through the neck. For better for for worse, angle articulation is highly limited. which helps with stability but really won't allow for any proper looking wide legged stances. Articulated hands are pretty good for general purpose posing. Wrist articultion is heavily limited by the static wrist joint needed to facilitate the lights in the hands.
From my experience. standing battle poses are decent, and you can actually do some nice flying poses. But anything kneeling or requiring low to ground body positions aren't the greatest unless you decide to cheat with the positiong of the legs just to get the body into a favourable position. Proportions of the legs and the knee joints/ankle articulation don't help matters either.
Nobody has ever compained about bad paint on the Die Cast line, and there's really no reason to start now. The paint on the actual armour is fantastic,, and while there aren't too many exposed die cast metal parts, paint matching across all parts is no issue. I'm pretty sure there was no loss from the prototype. The face itself I'm not sure has better or worse paint quality, but I can say it looks very clean. It's just that there was a significant change in overall look between that and the final product, so there really isn't anything to compare it against, and most of the changes made the head closer to the actor herself, not like the recently unveiled Wolverine with its backward slide.
Finally, there's Build Quality. Gone are the days where the Die Cast line ended up with a broken joint here, a loose shoulder there. Barring transportation screw ups, the figure is rock solid, and even the smallest joints move as they're supposed to and, more imporantly will remain intact so long as you treat them reasonably. Naturally, being this painted and with tolerances this tight, you need to be wary of paint rubbing. The plastic bracked to mount the wings is also a bit flimsy, so I'd be careful with that.
So, from a technical perspective, there's nothing wrong with this ifgure. It behaves in a fashion like all the other Iron Man suits, and the overall design is very eye catching. So why didn't it sell particularly well? There's talk of over production, burn out over the Endgame line of releases, (Mark 85 didn't exactly sell like gangbusters either) and pricing. But ultimately, it's most likely that nobody wanted to buy a Pepper Potts figure, at least not at full MSRP. Whatever the case is, there's pretty good chance of finding a fire sale price on this figure, and has a lot to offer in terms of display options.
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