Iron Man 2: Whiplash (Comic Series)

It's been 2 years since the fantastic Iron Man 2 movie graced theater screens across the world...and it's taken all of those 2 years to find this figure.

Ivan "Whiplash" Vanko from the Comic Series.  He's number 37 in the series and was released towards the end of the line.  I'm guessing he was so hard to find in the wild (i.e. retail) because the first couple of waves were still warming the pegs.  At least in my area they were.

I'm very grateful to Hasbro for doing a comic segment to the movie based toys as those are the only figures I'll buy, however it is taxing looking through peg after peg and not find what you are looking for.

"Whips Included!" - like Hasbro is doing us a favor!

I've never read the Iron Man comics for very long, although I really enjoyed the series when Matt Fraction was writing the book.  The Stark Disassembled story for a few years ago was a great read.  Whiplash was never a key villain of Tony's when I was reading, but I'm familiar w/ the character.  Although I enjoyed Micky Rourke's version of the character in the movie I was happy to hear the comic version was getting a proper Marvel Universe scaled figure.

Right out of the package I could tell this was going to be a fun figure to mess around with.  He has the typical 3 3/4" articulation - shoulders, elbows, wrist, upper torso, waist and knees.  The armor does hinder some arm poses, but that isn't a killer for me as it may be for others.  I'm not all that creative when it comes to posing my figures anyhow.  You can probably tell that from my boring pictures!

There is some great sculpting on the armor and you can tell Ivan is fairly ripped.  My only complaint are his whips.  I like the texture of the whips, but I wish they were poseable.  Several people had the same complaint about the whips on the Marvel Universe Constrictor figure.  The whips are removable so he doesn't always have to be battle ready.

I love his green hair and the sculpted pony tail.

Like with the rest of the figure's sculpting the head sculpt is fantastic.  Hasbro did a good job capturing his comic likeness here.  The only other disappointing factor is the lack of paint apps.  He seems kind of bland when compared to some of other comic figures.  The armor has a nice gun metal silver look and the arc reactor in the chest has a hint of blue.  Other than the red for his eyes and green hair the rest of the figure lacks any painted detail.

His chest piece of armor is removable as is the large leg guard on his left leg.  His gauntlets, belt and boots are molded and non-removable.  One he is "shirtless" you can see how the bottom half of the figure was molded in black plastic.

I don't find this figure as being an essential addition to one's collection unless you are a die hard Iron Man or Whiplash fan.  It's a great figure and representation of the character so if you can find him for retail I'd say go ahead and pick him up.  I can't justify paying the inflated prices he typically goes for on the secondary market however.