Extremis Iron Man

Original MSRP: 11.99

Hasbro has focused their Marvel release efforts on their Marvel Universe 3 ¾” line, but after dabbling with a few six inch figure two-packs, they have brought back the Marvel Legends line! The first series features a variety of character that contain parts to build the wave’s extra figure, Terrax.

The Iron Man’s Extremis armor debuted in the aptly named Extremis storyline that was the start of the second to last soft reboot of the character by writer/ruiner Warren Ellis. In Extremis, Tony Stark infected himself with the Extremis virus to combat new and more powerful modern threats. The virus gave him true superpowers, including the ability to telepathically communicate with technology, restart an atomic battery with his mind, regenerate severed body parts, and store the under-sheath of the armor the hollows of his bones. It removed pretty much everything that made the character of Tony Stark compelling, and I am still not over it. The armor is cool, though, with a very sleek finish that informed many aspects of the movie designs.

I did not take a picture of the back of the packaging because the artwork is not very good. Included with Extremis Iron Man is Terrax’s right leg, which seems pretty nicely made. You will have to forgive me, since I was only able to find the Stealth variant at my local retailer, but there is also a regular red and gold version out there.

Extremis Iron Man stands six inches tall, and is made of much nicer feeling material than the smaller Marvel Universe figures. Pretty much the whole figure is still PVC, but the main construction of the figure is a much harder feeling blend with a nice satin finish and sharp details. Softer material is reserved for the joints in order to provide durability, but I did not encounter any of the warping that is so prevalent on the smaller figures.

Extremis Iron Man features decent articulation… nice, but not incredible. Starting from the top, he features one of those ball and swivel-jointed necks that always makes the head sit at a weird angle. The shoulders are multi-axis joints with movable shoulder guards that fit on very securely. Anyone who has any of the first Iron Man movie six inch figures will remember that shoulder guards can be a real pain, but that is not the case here. The mid-torso joint goes front to back and side to side, but there is no actual waist joint. Elbows and knees are double jointed, the wrists are swivel and hinge, the ankles hindered swivel and hinge, and the hips ball joints.

One cool thing Hasbro did to help use the design of the leg armor in the articulation was make the thigh armor layered around the mid-thigh swivel, and it looks really nice.

The thighs are ball jointed, but Hasbro prioritized the sleekness of the sculpt over any significant range of motion in the hips. The power pods on the hips can swivel to allow further side to side motion, but front and back movement is pretty limited.

Within the limitations of the hips and ankles, Extremis Iron Man looks pretty great in motion. The wrists are good enough that you can pull off a pretty convincing repulsor blast pose.

It’s not the best Iron Man figure, but it’s the only six inch Extremis figure, and it does look good. The only other options for this suit are the even less articulated Marvel Universe release, or the really bizarre eight inch Diamond Select release that features a weird sculpt, and faux-revoltech joints. Extremis Iron Man is on shelves now!