Iron Man preview

On one of our club excursions to Phil’s Hobbies, I spotted the Moebius Iron Man figure on the new items shelf as soon as I walked in. I walked directly to it and declared it mine. The sticker price of $36 was kind of a shock, I expected it to be about $25, but I had to have it. And then it was mine. After everyone taking a cursory look at it in the car, we came to the conclusion that it was a decent sculpt, but all agreed that styrene isn’t kind to most figure subjects.

The box contains 3 sprues, the base, and a color instruction sheet. All were individually bagged IIRC, bags don’t last long when I check out a model. The base is rather large, and is the form of two meshed gears molded together. The smaller cog has the Iron Man logo on it, the other larger one has a very roughly detailed pile of junk for the figure to stand on.

What You Get

After everyone had gone home, I dug into the box and took a closer look at the figure pieces. I cut the body halves from their runners and snapped them together. The panel lines are soft edged and too wide, as well as the typical problem that styrene figure kit have of body halves not lining up well. There's a nasty wide seam down the center of the helmet that WILL have to be filled, and the arms and legs don't look to be any different. Even if I were to cut the alignment pins out of the main body halves, the details along the seam where the halves meet don't all line up.

I think some clear parts would have been nice, there are none, but like the rest of the model it seems to me to be a "budget" job. I would say it's not as nice as the Halcyon Predator, a much sharper molding, but much better than the old Lindberg ID4 Alien kit. Styrene isn't exactly figure friendly, but it can be done very well when the effort, and therefore money, is put into the molds/sculpt. The price of the kit in this instance doesn't justify the end result IMO. $25? Ok, that'd be about right, but not the $38 after tax that mine cost me.

Scale: no scale stated
Manufacturer: Moebius
What you get: 35 injection styrene parts, color instruction sheet
Price: $36 + tax from a local hobby store
Molding Quality: sharp molding, no visible flash on parts
Detail: soft panel lines, some parts don't line up well
Accuracy: resembles the movie character

Final thoughts: The pose is stiff, but I planned to cut it up before I ever bought it so that doesn't bother me too much. I like the basic design of the base, but it will need a lot more detailed "junk" on it to look decent. The panel lines, IMO, are too wide and not sharp enough. The “real” suit is a finely crafter, well put together piece of armor. This kit will need much scraping of panel lines to achieve that look. I’m also not a fan of filling seams, this one will test my limits.

April 28, 2009