Iron Monger and Sabretooth Mighty Mugs

Tune in next week for a much better episode.

For now though... Courage hello and welcome to

the 54th episode of toy cast sponsored by big

bad toy story comm where you can save from 22

90 % and over 1 ,000 items I am your host TF

Joe and Mike and joining me is general techno.

Hello. Hello there. Are you sir? I'm doing okay.

That's good I think we're just going to get right

into it. Who are you going to be talking about

tonight? I'm going to be talking about one of

the figures from the Iron Man 2 toy line, which

as of this recording, it's just, it's started

to show up in like its full launch. I think that

there might be some more waves in the U .S. right

now, but right now we've gotten the first waves

in Canada. And I'm going to be talking about

the movie series Iron Monger figure in the three

and three quarter inch scale, which is an updated

version of the Iron Monger from the first toy

line. Now the big change with this toy line of

Iron Man figures was that movie one they used

the, I think they used, it was either a five

or six inch scale, I can't remember which, but

for this movie Hasbro has done the same thing

they'd be doing with G .I. Joe in Star Wars and

Marvel, and they've made the primary line predominantly

three three -quarter inch figures. Overall, just

looking at the first few waves, this strategy

is already bearing fruit. Just looking at the

number of different toys that they have on the

shelves already for Iron Man 2. Because you've

got a whole ton of variants of Iron Man. There's

a couple of war machines out already. There's

Iron Monger, there's Crimson Dynamo. They've

got a whole ton of variants of the character

out already, and there's even more to come. So

I think just in terms of quality versus quantity,

three, three -quarter inches is probably the

best way to go. And of course, I won't lie in

saying that I like three and three -quarter inch

figures because all my Star Wars and G .I. Joe

figures are also that size. Right. So he just

fits on it. Well, but anyway, Iron Monger. I

don't have the original, but I'm aware that the

apparently the version which had the opening

a cockpit with Jeff Bridges' character in it.

Apparently that Iron Monger toy was a very poseable

figure. It was very good. This one, like all

the Iron Man 2 figures, it comes with one thing

which I always deride Hasbro for when they don't

include it with a toy like with Star Wars, which

is a stand. This guy he the Iron Man figures

to be fair figure like iron monger He doesn't

actually need a stand because he's not gonna

fall over easily at all He's got very good leg

support because he's just massive And he's got

massive feet just because the armor design But

it's still a great move on Hasbro's part that

they're including stands with all their figures

And I hope they keep doing that keep this up

in the future simply because I'm do not like

The problem when I pose my Star Wars toys is

if I bump the table I risk them falling over.

Or even in a few cases I have some that just

won't stand properly like Darth Sidious from

Clone Wars. Right. But anyway, Ironmonger. Another

thing about the stands too is that they've got

an unnecessary little gimmick but a neat one

where they come with little tech spec cards,

the characters. And each one's got a torso piece,

some legs, some arms. And these are, I believe

these are supposed to be mix and match. I'm not

sure, but the idea is that you can display them

on, is that you set them up and display them

in little slots on the stand itself, so that

they're sitting there behind the figure. And

I've just confirmed just by taking the ones from

my Crimson Dynamo that these are indeed mix and

match, so you can actually like mix and match

and create different custom armor designs and

stuff. So I can see how this would be popular

with kids here. Because then you can make your

own armor designs and draw them and stuff like

that. Yeah, it sounds pretty cool actually. It's

a neat little gimmick, yeah. I did see, when

you talk about the cards, I did see P .O.'s review

of the Iron Monger toy and I saw the card and

they colored him blue. They colored the armor

blue. It's a mix actually. It's a mix of blue,

there's gray, and there's blue. I think they

probably did it just to add some more variety

to the design. I'm not entirely sure on the why.

But I mean, it doesn't look that bad in person.

And I mean, yeah. I mean, the mixing and matching

is pretty cool just because you can take three

figures and mix and match. Like right now, I've

got figures from the cards from all the Iron

Man figures I have in play. And I haven't actually

fiddled around with these things yet. And it's

pretty neat, quite honestly. It's a very neat

little feature that's completely unnecessary,

but it adds to the value. But as for the figures

themselves now, for Ironmonger, first of all,

the sculpt, it's a really good Ironmonger sculpt.

Like, it looks pretty much bang on. The paint,

paint apps, there isn't much paint apps, so to

speak, on him, other than, I mean, in terms of

variety or detail. Like, there's some figures

like the classic Iron Man where there's a lot

of rust and stuff on him, but this one is mainly

painted just ash. It's got more of a shiny, semi

-shiny metal finish. It looks like that's painted

on top of the plastic. And then, you know, he's

got the glowing eye. He's got blue eyes and the

blue chest, and they're done to me in such a

way that they look like they're glowing. And

as far as posability, this is where I'm going

to... I have to make a few criticisms of Hasbro

here. First, I want to say that the potential

of these figures for poseability, whoever was

in charge of designing these figures did a great

job from the design standpoint, and that they've

got joints pretty much everywhere you could possibly

want joints on these figures. They've got some

pretty cool hip joints. You can pretty much get

any hip pose out of them. in so far as if they're

limited by the armor or not some poses might

be limited just by the way the armor is built

but you can get any pose that you could get out

of the armor in theory you can like they've got

like rotating a rotating ankles as well as like

a swivel on them so you can so you can bend the

feet to the up or down you've got knees you've

got the thighs you've got waist articulation

You've got a head. In the case of Ironmonger,

it's not on a ball joint. It's on a... Or if

it is, it doesn't really have much room, but

that's just, again, because of the design of

the character. So you really don't have room

for a ball joint on it. But yeah, he's got some

ball -jointed shoulders. He's got the swivel...

His upper arms are on swivels that are attached

to the ball joint. Then he's got elbows. And

he's got his wrists which are nice because they

don't just have like the traditional, you know,

plug it in and rotate 360 degrees. They also

have a joint on them so you can bend the hands

in and out. Yeah. Which is really nice because

it lets you do stuff like different grabbing

poses or maybe even dribbling a basketball or

something like that. Why would you have Iron

Monger dribbling a basketball? I don't know,

I was just trying to think of something that

fits the description, and now I'm picturing an

Iron Monger slam dunking. But yeah, he's got

very good, very good posability, he doesn't come

with any... Some of the Iron Man 2 figures, they'll

come with little energy blast accessories and

stuff like that. He doesn't have any Iron Monger,

but the fact still remains that when you compare

him to the classic Iron Man design, he's not

in scale, but he's at least a head taller. Well,

he wouldn't be in scale. I mean, you know...

there's no i mean yeah they're all three and

three quarter inch figures or whatever but there's

no way that that that they would have put iron

monger in scale with iron man because the whole

point of that coming out of the movie and the

comics and wherever else it originated from was

that iron monger was twice the size of iron man

i mean if you watch the first movie right i mean

tony stark can pretty much stand on on iron monger's

neck yes but by the same token though that doesn't

mean it's a bad figure just because of the fact

that he's still a very bulky figure like if you're

familiar for people who bought other marvel universe

figures or star wars figures it would be equivalent

to say the hawks figure which is probably twice

as much like at least a third more plastic than

any of the other marvel figures and it's just

massive i mean this guy's like a lot bulkier

than iron man well i'm not saying that It's a

bad thing that he isn't in yeah, I'm glad he's

not in scale with Iron Man because that would

be bad Yes, I'm just pointing out that he's that

as far as his size goes It actually is pretty

good right in terms of a bulkiness and stuff

like it feels like the character and I mean It's

out of scale, but it fits in well with toys in

general The only real criticism I have for Hasbro

here, and this is on the joints. As I mentioned,

the design of this figure is great. It's very

well thought out. The problem is in the execution,

specifically stiff joints. The ball joints that

they use at the attaching legs and arms, they're

capable of a lot of motion, so long as you get

some that don't have the swivel on the ball.

Like the ball, it's capable of two movements.

It can rotate in the socket. They're not really

socket joints. The sockets are on the outside

of the body. So you can rotate the socket 360

degrees, or you can bend the arm up and down

on the socket as well. It's kind of hard to describe.

I don't know if you're getting my mean or not.

No, I get what you're saying. But the problem

is that the part that bends on the joint It's

stiff and on my figures on my iron monger. They

were stuck ooh Yeah, the way you can this is

possible to solve by the way the way you solve

this is by dunking the figure in boiling water

for several minutes to loosen the joints and

That works really well. I've got full pose ability

out of him now, and I'm really impressed by the

range of motion that he can do but the fact still

remains that this is a flaw with Hasbro's fate

with the Iron Man 2 figures. I don't think Iron

Monger is the only one that has it. Crimson Dyn

- uh, sounds like it's a widespread problem of

the line. I know my Crimson Dynamo, he's got

some joint restriction, but it's not that bad

on it, and my Classic Iron Man, I got fortunate

in he didn't have any restrictions on him, but

- Still, the fact remains that I can see this

being a potential problem for the line because

kids aren't exactly going to go on the internet.

I might not be giving them enough credit, but

I don't think a lot of kids are going to think

to go on the internet, look up toy reviews and

stuff, and find out, oh, you need to dunk this

guy in boiling water for x minutes in order to

be able to pose him as much as I want. I'd rather

foresee broken toys coming about from people

trying to force the joints. Yeah, probably although

to be fair when I did try and somewhat when I

was trying to bend one of the shoulder joints

the arm does pop off at the Joint as well. So

it's going to keep you from actually breaking

anything Because the arm will pop off before

you apply enough force to just snap it, right?

So then you can plug it back in but it's again.

It's still a problem Yeah, that would suck Overall

though Iron Man 2 figures great sculpts. They're

pretty well They're well priced considering them

in three and three -quarter. You're getting some

great sculpts here. There's a lot of different

variety I've heard there's a lot of good figures.

I'm still looking for war machine myself and

I Mean yeah as a three and three -quarter Preferential

guy. I have to say Iron Monger is great and I

guess I'll close it up, but just by pointing

out that For the Dr. Who fans out there, this

just occurred to me the other day that one thing

you could potentially do with all of these cheap

Iron Man figures is, well, get the Mark II and

do some customizing and boom, you've got a Cyberman.

I'm not a Dr. Who fan, so I don't know what that

is. I'll just grab you a pic of the Cyberman

just a sec. I'll probably get the ones from the

new series. Because they are a different design

than the origin. They're slightly different design

than the original but yeah, this is a cyber man

here, so You can probably see that it would actually

be really easy to customize Iron Man figures

into cyber men Let's see here Yeah, you probably

could but still But I mean like From the perspective

of, for Doctor Who fans out there, I mean, if

you're an aspiring kit master and you want to

build your army of three and three quarter scale

Cybermen, because the Doctor Who figures are,

I think they're in the five inch scale, those

ones. So if you want your three and three quarter

Cybermen to come in and start wanting to upgrade

your various Star Wars and G .I. Joe figures.

Then heck, why not pick up a bunch of Iron Man

Mark IIs? Those will probably end up warming

shelves anyway because that's the design he used

for like two minutes in the first movie. And

it's silver anyway, and just do some head modifications,

put the Cybus Cyberman symbol on the chest, and

boom, instant Cyberman. Yeah, I guess. I just

don't... I mean, I get the whole point of Kitbashers

and all that, but why not just go out and buy

yourself a damn Cyberman toy? because you need

to go to specialty shops to find those. That's

what online retail is for. Pardon? That's what

online retail is for. Indeed. But you're one

of those people that refuses to do online retail

for the most part, aren't you? No, not as much

as I used to be actually. I do a lot more in

terms of online. I'd like to buy stuff in stores,

but I'm a lot more willing to buy online than

I used to be. Like, I mean, I'm probably going

to order that, uh, fan's project, uh, the Warbot

Defender, uh, sometime this week, because we

just saw those, uh, pictures of it in color.

Which I was kind of waiting for before I bit

the bullet on that. To hear about when it was

gonna be shipping and stuff. And that thing looks...

You're not gonna like it simply because of the

fact that it's Springer. Well, exactly! It's

a really good Springer! You know, it could be

the best springer that they ever made, and I

still wouldn't like it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm aware

of that. I mean, it gives me high hopes, though,

looking at this. I mean, I'll still have to see

quality control, but that'll definitely be a

factor in when I finalize my pre -orders, which

I have yet to actually order for the Swindle

and Blast offsets. I mean, it gives me high hopes

for those, seeing just how intricate... The Paint

apps are pretty good on this. Really the only

thing that it's missing is an Autobot symbol

on its chest. And that's just reprolabels for

you. Yeah, you can always get reprolabels, because

unfortunately, a fan's project would get sued

the hell out of themselves if they put... Yes,

they've been... ...on the stuff. They've been

fairly aloof for a Chinese company that's skirting

IP law as is, in terms of the fact that they're

consciously avoiding using any actual trademarks

or trademark symbols. I mean, it's much more

of a gray area what they're doing in terms of

doing updated designs of Hasbro characters. That's

a really gray area, I would say. And I mean,

Hasbro does have a leg to stand on there, but

it's something that they'd be less inclined to

get involved in, given it's an $80 figure. Well,

it's also something that, I mean, granted, Hasbro

is a multi -million dollar toy company. And,

you know, they're also getting their hands wet

in media and fiction and all that stuff. But,

I mean, you know, really, what are they going

to gain other than losing some of the fandom

if they go ahead and try to sue Fans Project

and then say Hasbro beats them and then Fans

Project can't do this stuff anymore. We won't

get any more City Commander stuff or Shadow Commander

or whatever. You know, I mean, that's just going

to piss the fans off more than anything else.

And then the fans will just go and buy Hasbro

stuff when they announce the awesome new homages

at the next Toy Fair or BotCon or San Diego Comic

Con. So really Hasbro doesn't... Hasbro's a huge

company and the fans are a small part of its

business. I don't think it's really... The position

I get the impression from Hasbro in Q &As is

basically... quit bringing these quit bringing

this up to us otherwise we might act otherwise

we'll have to do something about it it comes

across more as in uh you know if we don't know

about it we don't have to do anything about it

so quit telling us about it yeah exactly because

sooner or later once legal gets involved in this

it's out of our hands so yeah even if we like

this even if we as designers love this stuff

we can't actually comment on it because of our

hands are tied by legal yep So I mean, really,

I'm sure that there's a mix of love and hate

at the Hasbro offices for these designs, but

they can't really do anything about it, and oh

well. So I will be talking about another Mighty

Mug. This time, probably what I consider to be

the worst out of all the ones that Hasbro has

released under the Marvel line, which is Sabretooth.

The coloring on him is okay as far as the orange

and the brown on his body I don't like the flesh

tone and yellow he has on the back of his head

For his hair and then he has like I guess they

would be mutton chops on The problem with this

thing is is the mouth is All the way on the front

of the figure where normally on the front of

the head you would have the eyes Nose and then

and then a mouth but his mouth is like open like

he's gonna eat something His eyes are on his

forehead and his forehead is almost on the top

of his skull. I Just I don't like that at all.

What's so that is kind of weird and You know

don't and you know people are gonna be saying

well, why did you buy him? Well, I bought him

in a wave And as we all know, you know, there

are probably certain figures that people, you

know, say you want to get a Cyclops or a Jean

Grey and BBTS only has it in stock as a wave

item or whatever. Well, you buy that wave, the

Wave 6 Marvel Mighty Mugs, you're going to get

a saber tooth, whether you like it or not. He

doesn't register as much hate as I have for the

movie Mighty Mugs, but it's just one of those

things where I just don't like the way they did

the paint apps on him. The character of Sabertooth

I mainly know from the 90s cartoon, the X -Men

90s cartoon, and of course the 2000 movie, although

he wasn't that prominent. for the majority I

mean he had like five or six good scenes out

of the entire film but you know overall I'm glad

he's part of my collection I can actually have

him like if I not that I really pose my Mighty

Mugs in any way shape or form but if I wanted

to have the three Wolverines gang up on him I

can so do that and you might be asking me why

I have three Wolverines they are three different

ones one is What? By the same token, you might

ask me why I've got however many movies, why

I've got three deluxe movie bumblebees, or three

classics, or three of the Starscream decos of

the classic Starscream molds, so. Well yeah,

but those are repaints though, aren't they? Yes,

but isn't the Wolverine stuff, aren't those all

essentially repaints slash remolds? Well, with

the classic Wolverine, which I covered back in

episode 37 of the show, that's the classic yellow

and blue spandex. And then there's the one where

it's supposed to just be Logan. On his box it

says his name is Logan. It's not actually Wolverine.

And it's him without a costume. It's him in a

cowboy hat, a wife beater. and blue jeans with

a gold belt buckle with an X on it. And the other

one, the SDCC exclusive one is, I guess it's

supposed to be based off the Wolverine movie

where he has detachable, not detachable, retractable

claws. So they're really going in for a lot of

different budgetary things on a lot of these

Mighty Mugs. And a lot of the Marvel ones do

not come with accessories. But they're starting

to build them into them into some of them like

the The cowboy Wolverine comes with a cowboy

hat, you know You know, but but but saber tooth

he he kind of sucks I Mean as far as being I

guess I'm a muddy mug completionist for the most

part I think the only ones I'm not gonna get

into right now is Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

Not that I don't want them, but just because

of monetary reasons, it's just not something

I can start collecting. But as far as the Transformers,

the G .I. Jones, and the Marvel ones, I have

pretty much all of them. I think I only need

ten more to complete the collection for Marvel.

Which isn't bad. So yeah, the paint apps on him

and where his mouth is and just the face design

just completely sucks. If my camera wasn't unplugged,

I'd show you, but I was doing other stuff today.

But it's just one of those things where it just

sucks. Alright, do we have anything else we want

to bring up? The only thing I can think of is,

in terms of toy news, this is Transformers related,

but the Transformers Collectors Club just announced

what their theme for this year is going to be

for BotCon. which is, it's going to be a G2 theme,

which is what the predominant speculation had

been since they gave their hint. Yeah, I'm not

surprised at all with this news. Right, and we

got to see a picture of the set some, what you

would call him, art. Where you got to see Autobot

spark or pyro as he was called in the European

market when he first came out we have to see

a picture of him in his vehicle mode and he's

a redeco of the universe inferno mold which is

Definitely like one of the better Voyager molds

we've gotten in the last few years. I Just want

to see what they're gonna do with the box this

year I mean, I want I want to see the other figures

as well But I seriously doubt this is this will

be a set that I really seek out Yeah, myself,

I wasn't really all that interested in last year's

set. I mean, it was like, you know, you've got

Flak, you've got Landshark, you've got Cup was

the main one that's like, okay, cool, and Scourge.

But with this set, though, I look at it and it's,

I mean, you've got G2 symbols, which we haven't

seen for ages. Like, we haven't seen those since

G2 on a toy. Yeah. even on the universe Inferno

who was released on his box as representative

of the generation 2 for the 25th anniversary

in that he had a water cannon like the G2 Inferno

had. But like this one, it's got the same type

of garish colors that G2 was known for. If you

look at pictures of him next to the original

Pyro, it's pretty much the same. Like, they didn't

really change much at all in his paint apps.

It looked very much the same, and it's pretty

cool for that, actually, in that they actually

went ahead and did some Garus G2 decos. And again,

that doesn't surprise me either, because they're

just basically, like you said, it's a universe

mold of Universe Inferno. It doesn't surprise

me that they would take the paint apps back to

G2 as well. Right. I mean like, just I mean like

last year for instance with Thunderclash, I mean,

when they did him, his paint apps were somewhat

different than the original Thunderclash's because

they wanted to try and make him less G2 -ish

in terms of just how much the color, just how

the colors looked and stuff. Like if you look

at the original versus the Wings of Honor, like

the Wings of Honor when they made more of an

effort to make it all mesh more. Right, but like

the but yeah on this guy. I mean he's Garish,

and I mean it helps a lot that I want him because

he's pyro And he's now a wrecker in the records

cut in the last stand of the records comic Like

basically an optimist prime wannabe which is

hilarious, and he's probably gonna die in an

issue or two so Because they're gonna be killing

characters off, and they've said and the writers

have said we're gonna hate ours We already hate

ourselves for some of the stuff. We're doing

to characters but I mean like this set is a this

set I do want this since we've got this figure

and it also means we're probably going to see

Clench released as well at BotCon because Clench

was Pyro's rival in the European releases that

they were part of originally like Pyro was the

Autobot leader and Clench the Decepticon leader

and also I will definitely have to be getting

this set if we get an Iron Fist. If we get Iron

Fist, this set is a must. Absolute must for me.

Yeah, you know, see, it's one of those things

where, you know, after G1, I just kinda dropped

off the radar when it came to Toys, Cartoon,

whatever. Yeah, I saw the rehashed G1 as, you

know, as G2, but... I don't know, it's not...

so far from what I've heard and seen, they're

not characters that I would want. Now if they

would have gone back and done, you know, some

sort of G1 set or hell, even if they did, you

know what I would really like to see? You know

what? No, seriously. I would like to see, this

just came to me and I can't believe I didn't

think about this before. Shattered Glass Beast

Wars. Ooh, that would be good. That would be

potentially good. I'd be curious what Tarantulas

would be like in those Beast Wars. Although honestly,

I would see him as being the equivalent of Cliffjumper

in the original Shattered Glass, because he'd

be really easy to introduce to the story in that

matter, given the nature of his death. But then

it would make a nice dark mirror of the original

Shattered Glass. No, you would need someone like

Cheetor to do that. Not as far as the dark depth

but as far as like if you're gonna introduce

them like cliff jumper was introduced through

the time tube thing You would have to have Cheetor

Do I'm thinking more in terms of the fact that

it would give you a dark parallel of the original

shattered glass in that last time we saw stuff

from the heroic Decepticon point of view oh,

okay went through and allied with the Evil Maximals

trying to take out the trying to take Omega Tron.

Okay. Oh, yeah Prime where... Oh, and in that

kind of story what I would potentially imagine

is I could very well see Rhinox being in charge

because then we'd have essentially Tankor personality

right off the bat. You know if they ever did...

Rhinox having Optimus Prime's head or Prime would

be leading and Rhinox would be the puppet master

behind the scenes. You know if they ever did

do that, you know what toy I would want that

to be if they ever did do a Shattered Glass Beast

Wars? The read the the silver redeco from dark

designs Right although honestly make a toy out

of that I think the reason we won't see a shadowed

-glossed beast force though is simply because

the fact that they're that they're beast designs

and Whereas with something like g1 for instance

where there's a bajillion cars out there that

they keep remaking and updating stuff So it's

really easy to find a mold that haven't been

used yet to homage characters With Beast Wars,

you're tied to very specific molds for characters,

many of which are like at least 10 years old.

Well, true, but I mean, it's still a good idea.

Yes, but I mean, if you're limiting yourself,

you end up limiting yourself to some extent simply

because Hasbro doesn't do very many Beast figures,

so you can't really use very much. You'd have

to go all the way back to Beast Wars to do figures,

and most of the people who are fans of Beast

Wars already own those figures, which already

had a few redecoes. So it would be really hard

to make a convention exclusive set people would

want out of those. Whereas when they did say

Dawn of Future's past, it was a new take on the

Beast Wars characters with vehicle modes. True,

true. Alright, yeah. I think that's about gonna

wrap up this one. I still say that's an awesome

idea though. I don't disagree, but I just don't

think... Yeah, as far as the toys go, it probably

wouldn't work, but you could at least create

a comic fiction for... Yeah, you could do a timelines

fiction where the club does that theme for your

own releases, maybe a couple exclusives in that

series. Right. Thank you for joining us here

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Prime, Transform and roll out, and thank you

for listening. Until next time. Hey, this is

Sari, and you're listening to the GeekCast Radio

Network of Podcasts. Podcast good! I'm depressed!

Watch out for that way! Brave Star! Maybe it

was a main lore! It's Casual Brave Star!