Iron Man - War Machine - Moebius 1:8

[Julien]

Iron Man - War Machine

Moebius 1:8

Iron Man what can you say, if you have not heard of him where have you been for the last few years? Iron Man is the latest in a line of Superheroes to get the Hollywood treatment. Starting in 2008 with Robert Downey Junior playing the lead role of Tony Stark a.k.a Iron Man there has now been three blockbuster films which have grossed over $2.4 Billion.

Iron man was originally conceived by Stan Lee at Marvel Comics and made his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 in march 1963. The basic story is that after billionaire playboy / industrialist / engineer Tony Stark suffers a severe injury during a kidnapping he creates a powered suit of armour to escape. He then uses this as the superhero Iron man to protect the world.

War Machine (real name James Rupert Rhodes was a Lt in the US marine Corps who served as a combat pilot in Southeast Asia. After being shot down by The Viet Cong he helps Iron Man who is at the times escaping in his original suit of armour. After escaping Tony Stark thanks Rhodes for helping to save his life by offering him a job as his personal pilot. Rhodes was to don the Iron man armour when Stark was unable to. Rhodes had problems with Starks armour and was forced to stop using it.

Later on Stark designed the Variable Threat Response Battle Suit nicknamed War machine, this was a more heavily armed version of the Iron Man suit designed for all out warfare. After Starks apparent death he left a suit specially designed for Rhodes to carry on the Iron Man legacy. Even after the revelation that Stark was alive and the friendship between the two ended Stark asked Rhodes to keep the War machine suit as it was his.

The Kit
The kit arrives in a standard opening lid box resplendent with the figure in the pose the final model will take. There are six sprues of dark plastic in three bags, and a further bag of loose parts in the same dark grey plastic. There is also one small sprue of white plastic which has the parts for the ARC reactor lens, eye insert & repulsor lenses. A separate bag contains the base, again in white plastic. The parts appear to be well moulded with no problems or flash evident.

Construction starts with the head. The white eye insert is glued in and then the head and neck are assembled. Next the white reactor insert is added to the chest plate. The upper torso is assembled and the lower torso parts attached. The chest plate is then attached to the front of this sub-assembly.

The next subassemblies to make up are the arms. Each arm consists of two side parts. The hands are made up and the repulsor lenses added. Then the gun mounts are added. Elbow plates are added along with the hand back armour. The instructions have you add the guns at this point though they can be left off until later.

Once the arms are made up its time for the leg sub-assemblies. The feet are three part affairs which are made up first. Then the upper leg parts are assembled. Once this is done the lower leg parts are added, these sandwich mountings on the upper leg and the feet at the same time. Knee parts are added along with rockets and their mounting plates on the lower legs.

Next its time to make up the Gatling gun and its mount. The four part mount is made up first, then the 3 part gun is assembled. You then have make the ammo feed belt for the gun which is comprised of 8 parts due to its complex shape.

Once all of these sub-assemblies are completed its time to add the head, arms and legs onto the main body. Final touches are to add the shoulder mounted rocket launchers, the Gatling gun and its feed belt. The figure can then be placed on the supplied base or one of the modellers own choosing. There are some 3 views of the completed model which will help in construction but the instructions are a bit vague on where the ammunition belt attached to the figure. On the whole they are good though.

Base
Its a good touch that this kit provides a base on which to place your completed figure. The base is pretty generic in that it is just a piece of cracked ground. However with some correct painting it should look the part. The base contains some large locating pins to slot the figure onto so there should be no problems of it falling off.

Conclusion
This figure is a more complex construction than the Iron Man figure from Moebius but should prove no problems to even a novice modeller. This will look great when made up next to the Iron Man kit or on its own. Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of UK distributors for

[chrisrope]

WARMACHINEROX