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Jun 13, 2023

Marvel Legends Heroes Return Iron Man review

If social media were as back in 96 as it is now, Marvel might have been burned to a meme, emoji gif crisp when Heroes Reborn was announced. Prodigal sons Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee (who would ironically

If social media were as back in 96 as it is now, Marvel might have been burned to a meme, emoji gif crisp when Heroes Reborn was announced. Prodigal sons Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee (who would ironically repeat this trick several times in his future role as head honcho at DC Comics), had free reign on the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America corners of the Marvel Universe.

Lee’s Fantastic Four and Iron Man (with Hulk) actually…weren’t that bad. Liefeld’s contract was cut halfway through if that’s any indication. The experiment might have been ultimately one of the best things to happen to Marvel as it launched the Heroes Return brand for Captain America, Fantastic Four, The Avengers and Iron Man.

Kurt Busiek wrote the latter two and helped revitalize the very tarnished Iron Man brand and crafting one of the all-time great Avengers runs with George Perez. Long before the MCU films, this run reestablished Iron Man as a major player in the Marvel Universe. As such, the Heroes Return armor is one of my absolute favorite armors in Tony Stark’s house of armors.

Heroes Return Iron Man is part of The Marvels’ wave featuring the Totally Awesome Hulk BAF. In lieu of more cosmic characters, there’s a decent connection with Stark and Carol Danvers as he helped her fight her destructive battle with alcohol. As much as Marvel tries to make Carol an A+++ character now she’s never been more interesting and enjoyable a character than under Busiek in both Avengers and Iron Man.

That was a lot of set up. I normally wait for sales on Marvel Legends, but I ignored my rules for this Heroes Return Iron Man. Let’s hope I don’t regret it.

Packaging: We’re in the closing waves for the windowless packaging and I won’t miss it even a little bit. The front features a nice image of the figure and the side art provides the iconic (?) cover to Iron Man #1 from Sean Chen. This is an important distinction, and the Hasbro team smartly showed the source material for this figure.

Heading to the other side, it breaks down which figures come with which part of the BAF. This time, Iron Man doesn’t include a part. No doubt to account for the onslaught (if you get it, you get it) of accessories. Nope, the rear shows Iron Man is coming in pretty low on that category. More on that later.

Likeness: It was very savvy for Hasbro to choose the Chen art as their reference for this armor as there’s some subtle differences from his take compared to Perez’s version. I’m biased of course because…it’s George Perez.

Perez drew the chest plate/arc reactor wider and thicker; the teeth were slotted lines compared to Chen’s more braces setup. The side pads have the vent slots and are drawn smaller per Chen’s take than the bigger Perez style.

The biggest distinction — and this is common with most of Perez’s designs — is he didn’t leave the eye slots a black void and instead drew the eyes.

This naturally helped convey more emotions and was a reminder Iron Man isn’t a robot, but a man in a suit of armor. As we’ve seen Hasbro do alternate portraits when they weren’t necessary, this was a case — especially given the lack of accessories — where the Perez head sculpt would have been much appreciated.

That sounded like I was ragging on the execution of the armor in figure form. It’s very well done and matches up nicely with Chen’s art. Iron Man’s face plate reverts to the pointed top of the Mark III armor with ear vents.

The neck piece borrows from the Heroes Reborn armor with lined plating around the neck. His collar piece also has slotted vents leading to the layered shoulder pads connecting to the chest plate with two rods on either side.

Iron Man’s forearms have a cut out section on the inside revealing more slotted portions. That’s also repeated in the calf portion of the armor as well.

These are distinct aspects of this armor so it was nice to see Hasbro executed this properly. The “armored” portion of the forearm armor also has vented sections while his knee/shin section are angled exactly like they appeared in the comics.

Paint: Hasbro doesn’t tend to screw up with Iron Man paintwork. It’s usually pretty basic without much need for precise detailing. In Avengers, colorist Tom Smith went above and beyond with the armor highlight all the vent points with a bright white yellow lighting that highlighted the energy output to power it.

This was such a cool effect and made this armor look very unique compared to its predecessors. Iron Man colorist LIQUID! provided gold highlighting around the vent slots, but it didn’t look nearly as cool. And weirdly, Smith colored the neck portion red while LIQUID colored it yellow gold. With the heavier lean toward the Chen/LIQUID! look the figure is accurate.

As usual, Iron Man has the bright pearlescent cherry red and rich gold color scheme to stay consistent with the other Iron Man armors.

Scale: Hasbro has stuck to a pretty basic formula since the 80th anniversary Iron Man — give him enough height and weight so it captures the look of a dude in armor.

Scale wise Heroes Return Iron Man is just right as he’s shorter than Thor and taller than Captain America. I’m curious how the upcoming Vision stands as he should be around Iron Man’s height as well.

Articulation: Iron Man’s articulation is solid as has been the case with his figures since the revamped body. You can hit all of the expected Iron Man poses with little trouble while still maintaining the integrity of the sculpt.

I was still annoyed that Hasbro hasn’t fixed the repulsor hand hinge yet. This would add so much to the functionality of the figure and it’s weird that they don’t view it as an essential aspect to his articulation.

Heroes Return Iron Man has:

Accessories: Iron Man is lacking on this accessory front considering he doesn’t come with a Build-A-Figure piece.

He has a swappable set of fists and the reused translucent energy blasts effects that most Iron Man figures come with these days.

I don’t mind the reuse, but this would have been a terrific opportunity for the eyes showing Perez head sculpt or a Stark with a 90s style goatee.

Worth it? Going against the norm for Marvel Legends in 2023, I picked up Iron Man for $22.99. I wonder if this will be the new price point for single-card figures? This would be a better compromise of acknowledging the costs of supplies has risen without the dramatic increase of $25.

Heroes Return Iron Man really needed some more accessories, but the figure itself is fantastic with a fresh new armor complete with unique elements to make it stand out in your Iron Man armory. Time to get that Busiek/Perez Avengers lineup completed.

Where to get it? I got Iron Man from Target, but Wal-Mart and Gamestop seem to getting The Marvels wave in at this time now as well. You can also order him from LMF affiliates Amazon and Entertainment Earth.