Iron Patriot

Leave it to Americans to just get chunkier over time. Proud and powerful, the Iron Patriot is heavily armed, high-tech, and ready for battle. When this figure was revealed, I jokingly referred to it as the Mk. "Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" Armor, because I'd only seen Endgame once at that point, and I didn't realize that when Rhodey switched to his backup armor, it was done in Iron Patriot colors, not just a bigger, more heavily armed War Machine. Between the dark colors of the scene and the utter crussh of characters who were on-screen at the time, the armor's paintjob was not my focus. Surprisingly little of this figure's sculpt is shared with the Series 2 War Machine: the shins, the hips and lower torso, the hands, the upper arms and shoulders, and the head. The new pieces are bigger and blockier than before, and add more weaponry: missile pods on the thighs, machine guns and mini-missiles on the forearms, plus holes on the back (above the larger, armored vents) where some extra weaponry can plug in, but we'll talk about those down in the accessories section. The feet are more angular than before, which calls to mind the Hammeroids from Iron Man 2. The Iron Patriot Mk.II uses a lighter blue than the Mk.I, but the design of the armor means it doesn't get the broad stripes on the abdomen. The shoulders have tampographs of a pseudo Air Force logo (on the right) and base designations (on the left), but the "FF" letters suggest he's part of the 1st Fighter Wing stationed at Langley, not the Avengers' New York compound. Iron Patriot moves at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, chest, wrists, elbows, biceps, shoulders, neck, and head. The fact that the elbows and biceps both have swivels seems superfluous. His plug-in weapons also swivel a bit: there are two missile pods and two drum-fed double barreled guns that stick up over his shoulders. The missile launchers fit better onto the toy if they're posed vertically, but the intention is to have them horizontal. Still, the weapons all look good in place, and have enough of their own paint apps to look like actual items and not just parts of a toy. While War Machine didn't come with any Build-A-Figure parts, Iron Patriot does. Yes, despite coming with extra weaponry and a larger body. Go figure! He gets two heads for Thor. The switch from War Machine Mark 6 to Iron Patriot Mark 2 wasn't really that momentous in the film, but it does mean we get a cool, heavily armed figure, and sometimes that's enough. -- 12/22/19

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