Ultron

December 2, 2013 | By More


Ultron (6)

 

The subject of today’s review is one of the rare villains that I actually knew a little about from his brief appearance in the Secret Wars story arc, back in the 90’s. I am referring, of course to Ultron; one of the characters released in the second half of action figures in the Iron Man Legends line by Hasbro.

 

Ultron (4)The character has been around for a very long time, his origins retconned to serve whatever changes are made in the Marvel Universe, with one of the more recent being the narrative used for the Facebook game Marvel Avengers Alliance. Although details vary in each version, the constant theme is that Hank Pym is involved in the creation of Ultron who, like most sentient cybernetic entities in fiction, decides that humankind is an obstacle to his plans.

 

Ultron has always been depicted in the media as a pretty formidable opponent to the Avengers, and this 6-inch action figure sort of delivers, even though Hasbro did go the cheaper route in his design by using most of a pre-existing mold. The head is the only new sculpted piece and it is a pretty decent, comic-accurate look. Ultron uses the same body mold as the Titanium Man figure released a few years ago in the first is Iron Man movie line.

 

The amount of detail in the older mold is still quite good and since this is meant to be an android, it does not matter that the body proportions are actually too thin to have an actual human being inside. Although the articulation is actually not bad, it is noticeably different from what can be seen on newer figures. Said articulation consists of:

 

Ultron (3)

• Hinged ball neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Upper biceps swivels.

• Double hinged elbows.

• Pegged hinge wrists.

• Hinged torso.

• Swivel waist.

• Pegged hinge hips.

• Upper thigh swivels.

• Double hinged knees.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

 

The shoulder pads are also hinged to allow Ultron to raise his arms further. The overall range of movement is good, but rocker ankles would have been really useful to adopt more dynamic stances.

 

Ultron (2)Ultron was cast in silver plastic that appears to have some amount of pearlescent resin in it, which provides a fairly rich finish, although not particularly metal-like. In fact, Ultron is possibly the one character in this assortment that looks the most toy-ish, with just a few bright red color applications on the eyes, mouth and a couple of disks on his pauldrons.

 

Certain sections of the body have a certain blue tinge to them, but at this point I am uncertain if this was a design choice or simply the result of using different resin lots to produce each component. Whatever the case may be I have to admit that this makes Ultron a bit more interesting to look at.

 

Ultron comes with no accessories, but it is ok since his hands are not sculpted to hold anything, really. He does come with a piece to complete this series Build-A-Figure, though. It is the Iron Monger’s head, which is molded in the same metallic/swirly blue plastic as the other pieces, with a visor painted in a deep red hue.

 

So, while I would probably not have bought Ultron if he didn’t come with a BAF piece, I have to concede that this turned out to be a pretty good rendition of the character.

 Ultron (7)

 

Errex Score: 80/100

 Ultron (5)

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Category: Featured, Iron Man, Marvel, Toy Reviews

About the Author ()

I've been collecting action figures since the original Kenner Star Wars days. Nowadays, I still collect pretty much anything that catches my eye.

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