Flashback Friday – The MCU – Iron Man

Welcome to Flashback Friday: The Marvel Cinematic Universe. In this series you’ll get a discussion and brief review on some of your favorite Pops from the MCU. Here, we really appreciate the shared universe so the figures will come from film, television, and streaming. Iron Man from the Iron Man 3 set is this week’s choice for discussion.

Discussion: As I approach the one year mark when I first started this series I want to harken back to some of the original sets that I haven’t completed yet. Today, we’re going way back to 2013 and jumping into the Iron Man 3 set which gave us our second Iron Man Pop from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were not Disney owned or produced by Disney at the time of theatrical release. Once Disney acquired Marvel Studios we began to see Marvel characters make their first appearances from the films which was very exciting. Thor, Avengers, and Iron Man 3 were the first three MCU films to get the Pop treatment. After Marvel Studios was purchased by Disney every film release has received a Pop set based on the characters from each movie.

Surprisingly, only one Pop in the entire Iron Man 3 set is Iron Man in his full suit of armor. There is one Tony Stark San Diego Comic Con exclusive which I covered here but it’s kind of ironic that a Pop set based off of an Iron Man movie only has one Pop. Other Pops in the set included 1 War Machine, 2 Iron Patriot, and 1 Deep Space Suit that never even made it into the film or a post credit scene. I really hope that in the future Funko can revisit older sets and add new characters or variations to those sets. I mean if they released Captain America and on the box it says Captain America: The First Avenger from ECCC this year then I see no reason why they can’t go back and add to older sets.

Iron Man had a wide release in 2013 and for those fortunate enough to pick it up at the time were very lucky. Nowadays this Pop has been vaulted which means production has ceased and whatever Pops are in the market is all we have. Interestingly enough, the average price isn’t as high as I would’ve expected. For the most part you can find Iron Man (23) for $25.00-$30.00 on most online sites such as eBay and Amazon. However, at times it’s been higher than $50.00 so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it around that amount eventually. If you’re interested in purchasing, selling, or trading for the man of iron you should definitely check out our sweet Facebook group which can be found right here. Let’s jump right into the description and review.

Description/Review: Iron Man’s entire head is red except the face which is covered in gold. There are lines that come down over the forehead which gives definition to the Pop. The eyes are white similar to the arc reactor on the chest. Each arm is surrounded in gold except for the forearms and part of the hands. Red is very minimal on the upper and lower body. Gold covers the majority of the chest, stomach, and legs. There’s some red along the side of the ribcage, the kneecaps, and the bottom portion of the boots. There are multiple lines around the legs and waist to give some definition to the character. Overall, I think this is a very solidly designed Iron Man Pop. My only issue is that there is a little too much gold and it overshadows the red that’s part of the suit.

What’s next? Iron Man is expected to be heavily featured in the upcoming two Avengers films. I don’t expect an appearance in Thor: Ragnarok or Black Panther. Tony is one of the major characters that could potentially perish in one of the two films which would be a huge loss for the MCU as a whole. Look for at least two variants of Iron Man in each Avengers set going forward and don’t be surprised if that number increases due to the popularity of the character.

What are your thoughts on Iron Man? Sound off in the comments section below.

Would you like to see a specific Pop in a future article? Post your choice in the comments section and you just might see your favorite character “Pop” up in the coming weeks.

Check back next week for another MCU flashback. Excelsior!