Hot Toys Iron Man 3 12-Inch Collectible Action Figure - Iron Man Mark 17 Heartbreaker Armor | Premium Movie Character Model for Display & Marvel Fans Collection

The best part about how popular the Iron Man character is ... is the fact that he's sooo popular that a company like Hot Toys isn't making just the core "hero" armor that Tony Stark wears in the movie. They're making the House Party armors as well. One HT promo image I saw featured their Tony Stark figure with 25 different Iron Man armor figures ... and the Iron Monger. With IM3 featuring the Mark 42 ... and A:AoU featuring Mark 43 and HulkBuster (both of which HT has already previewed as upcoming product releases) ... HT has made serious progress in releasing every version of the Iron Man armor Tony stored in his wine cellar. That's an exciting achievement. And, when you have that much to choose from, a person can look over all of the variants of the Iron Legion to decide which are Must Haves. "Which Iron Man armor is MY Iron Man?"For me, the Heartbreaker was it. This is my first IM armor figure that I had to pick up. I liked the complexity and intricacy of the design ... and the solid presence it has. The level of detailing of the face plate also made me think of the Iron Man 2020 character (a merc for hire), which was always one of my favorite armor variants. I thought the design itself made it look beefier. But, in reading reviews of comparisons with earlier armor releases, I discovered that it is significantly more bulky; especially in the larger arms and legs. In relation to the HT Tony Stark figure, he's nearly a full inch taller! Seeing the two together, you can believe that the man can fit inside of the armor. In trying to find more backstory on the armor design, it seems this may have been intended as a Thorbuster armor. Whether or not that's true ... I loved the concept ... and it made me love the armor design that much more. Whereas earlier designs were aimed at being the sleak "sports car", this is much more of the tricked out "muscle car".As to specifics about the figure ... the base has no lights, even thought it's built like the ones that used to have lights. In fact, they plug the screw hole to remove the battery cover and the instructions don't recommend removing it since it doesn't have lights. The stand features the bendy metal bar and clamp. While I like how my Man of Steel figure looks on his aerial stand ... in general, I'm not a fan of them. Besides not liking the look of how the bar has to be bent to enable a simple standing pose ... I feel the bases themselves take up so much space. I just picked up a generic HT-clone base to use so that Heartbreaker can actually stand right with Tony.The figure does have multiple light-up areas (palm repulsers; chest repulsers; side/rib accents; eyes). The arms are the only spots with a visible switch for the lights. The head and torso switches are hidden beneath a removable armor piece. Would have been nice to have them more readily accessible too ... but at least they aren't hidden inside the battery compartment itself (like the ThreeA Halo Carter did).And speaking of the battery compartments ... if you're going to put the batteries in, tiny fingers (which I don't have) would help tremendously. That and patience (at least I had that). The arms and head take 3 really small batteries for each ... and the torso takes 3 larger ones. It is nice that they come with the batteries (ThreeA didn't). But, it really took a lot of effort to get the batteries in without accidentally breaking anything on the figure. And, since I didn't think the instructions made it clear enough ... the top/flat part of the battery must be facing the spring ... and the bottom/indented part must face the metal terminal. As frustrating as it was to get 3 of those small batteries into one arm, it was even more frustrating to learn they were upside down. Oddly, the bigger batteries gave me more problems because the larger battery compartment made it more likely that the battery would flip over or they'd all pop out. The end result ... once all batteries are in place and the switches are flipped ... is impressive. But, it's a cool feature that is best saved for "special occasions" ... as I wouldn't want to have to keep replacing those batteries.The instructions also warn about the different "layers" of this particular armor. Some of the armor elements that give it additional depth, if not moved out of the way before a limb is moved, will scratch against or even collide with other armor elements. The whole torso should even be pulled up slightly before rotating it to avoid collisions. Likely requires more care than the normal armor when handling as a result. But, I consider it a fair trade-off in order to have that complex of an armor design.I briefly mentioned the ThreeA and their Halo releases. If Heartbreaker is a tricked-out muscle car, the Halo armor is still the massive battle tank. Heartbreaker has the great beefed up proportions that the Halo armor does. But, Tony is still an average-sized man in a suit of armor ... instead of a 6'8" super soldier in a suit of armor. They provide a nice contrast between "cutting edge tech" and "battle-hardened tech". But, at least this armor doesn't look like tissue paper in comparison.If this is an armor design that you love, I would highly recommend this figure. I know that the difficulties I had inserting the batteries aren't limited at all to this Iron Man variant (or even HT since ThreeA's Spartan has the same issue). And, despite the company's name, this isn't a toy ... so "handle with care" goes with the territory. If you like the base, but prefer it to be lighted up, that could push the price of this figure up significantly because of how much the lighted bases go for ... which could be a dealbreaker. But, if you just want a base, many stores sell those for a very reasonable price and it's not hard to find either genuine or clone HT bases. However, I do recommend only displaying it with a base. The front portion of the armor's boots are articulated. I wouldn't consider the articulation point "loose" ... but it is a beefy figure, and I already saw those boots starting to shift while I was getting the base put together. Too likely to take a nosedive without the proper support.