The Marvel Legends Iron Man Model 01 unexpectedly proved to be one of my favorite ML offerings of 2023. It was just a matter of time before Hasbro debuted the second armor or in this case the Model 01-Gold figure for Marvel Legends. While it’s basically a repaint, the Hasbro ML team made sure to not shortchange collectors.
This is an important figure since this was Iron Man’s original armor as a founding member of The Avengers. With Ant-Man, Wasp and Thor we’ve almost got that complete original lineup. Hulk in trunks is left, but now the Model 01-Gold Iron Man gets us one step closer.
Let’s see if this figure shines or is just a dull release.
Packaging: The Marvel Legends team is all about anniversaries. It’s crazy that it’s been 30 years since the Iron Man Animated show aired. That show started my second era of figure collecting along with the accompanying Fantastic Four show and 3 for $10 KB Toys deals on Marvel figures. The packaging for the Iron Man figures was done in this retro card style.
A large image of the cartoon Iron Man flying ahead next to the logo and a digital readout of the character. It’s a very cool Retro card that stands out among the Spider-Man and X-Men cards. There’s certainly some appeal to getting these figures MOC with the distinct lines now.
The back offers a brief bio actually explaining why Iron Man went gold and the villain he battled. That’s a nice touch.
Likeness: In the comics, Iron Man’s dark grey appearance scared off some folks. To appear more heroic and pure-hearted, he gave it a gold paintjob. That wasn’t the only cosmetic change as Tony Stark added a skirt to it. I spent way too much time trying to research the practicality of this addition.
There’s one other switch from the Model 01 figure and it’s a big one. Most of the Hasbro Iron Man figures just fill in the eye slot black. This is the first comic book based one I can recall that actually has Stark’s eyes underneath.
I love this change and would likely end up buying 2-3 of my favorite armors all over again just for the visible eyes added.
Everything else that made the Model 01 such a smooth figure is intact for the gold version. From the wider/thicker torso and chunkier arms and legs it really does look like a guy in a functional suit of armor.
His boots have the oversized tips around his knees with a detailed tread underneath his feet.
Paint: The shift to gold makes for a striking figure. There’s a very subtle dark brown wash in some of the paneling to help bring out some of the sculpt details. The Model 01 had some damage to the armor with painted on scrapes and scratches.
Forsaking that with the Model-01 allowed Hasbro to give the gold a nice sheen to truly make it stand out on the shelf. The arc reactor is a pure white instead of the white with blue shading of the original figure.
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Scale: This is the armor that Iron Man is with the other founding Avengers. He’s slightly taller than Ant-Man and The Wasp while looking up to Thor and The Hulk.
Articulation: Although it’s one of Stark’s bulkier armors, Hasbro came up with some clever ways to implement the max amount of articulation.
Within reason as this armor didn’t allow Iron Man that much range of movement anyway.
The torso is intentionally limited since Iron Man is still figuring out all of the kinks of the initial armor set up. While it lacks the ab cut or butterfly shoulders, the Model 01-Gold does properly convey that sense of Iron Man as a walking tank. The torso does have stellar clearance and range allowing for surprising back/forward and left/right range.
This figure maintains the same strengths and weaknesses of the Model 01 figure. Despite double-jointed elbows, the forearm guard makes it moot. The skirt is made of a very flexible material with slits on either side so there is no limitations to the articulation.
Iron Man Model 01-Gold has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- bicep
- elbow (double-jointed)
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hip
- thigh
- knee (double-jointed)
- ankle
Accessories: Iron Man Model 01-Gold has a pretty good haul of items for a non-deluxe figure. Ironically, he’s got more than the original Model 01 figure.
He’s got swappable repulsor firing hands. To keep mixing up the repulsor ray color palette, they’re cast in a translucent orange this time. The translucent charcoal black is reused for the smoke trail effect.
The additional piece for this figure is the Tony Stark head sculpt. This is more of Stark’s look from the late 1960s with the fluffed-up hairstyle.
To get the more accurate head sculpt, the ML team should have gone with the head that debuted in the Marvel Comics’ 80th Anniversary Iron Man figure.
Worth it? Iron Man Model 01-Gold is a regular release compared to the original grey figure, which was $27.99. He’s normally $24.99, but Target has a sale going now, which made regular figures $17.49. As always, getting Marvel Legends figures under $20 is a great deal.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Hasbro took an already good mold and added enough extra touches to make it the definitive Gold Iron Man. And certainly a Top 10 Marvel Legends figure of 2024.
Where to get it? Target has the Iron Man Retro wave in stock now. GameStop has the wave on their website. You can also grab the Marvel Legends Iron Man Model-01 Gold figure from Amazon or Entertainment Earth.
As an Amazon and Entertainment Earth affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.