InebriatedGnome
Super Freak
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A quick note on expectations: I really enjoy putting my figures in extreme poses and tend to expect a lot in terms of articulation. This may have coloured my impressions a little.
This is a long review, but I wanted to include my full impressions out of respect for both Comicave’s first product and for you, the collector. Our hobby isn’t cheap, and ideally we should have as much information as possible before making a purchase—so skim whatever bits you want; I hope some part of this review helps you make your mind up about this figure. This is also my first review, so I'm sorry in advance about any formatting jankiness.
Review: 1/12-scale Iron Man Mark XL, 'Shotgun', by Comicave Studios
Background
Since its initial PR push earlier this year, Singapore-based Comicave Studios has focused its promotional material on a colossal quarter-scale Hulkbuster with impressive animatronic features—a product whose scale and grandeur saw it exhibited at the red-carpet premiere for Age of Ultron. The almost unprecedented ambition of this first product sent a clear message: the new company has something to prove, and it intends to wow us.
But how ‘new’ is Comicave, really? Many collectors were initially suspicious of the unclear relationship between Comicave Studios and Play Imaginative, a company that developed a reputation for poor customer service and quality control with its Super Alloy line. Play Imaginative also frustrated many collectors with its inability to translate impressive showpieces into actual products: of the forty-two 1/12-scale Iron Man designs the company showed off at NYCC 2013, I can find only three available for purchase today. Comicave claims that Play Imaginative simply holds the license to produce Marvel figures in certain scales for certain regions, and that Comicave will now be producing toys under that same license—but some users on these forums claim that many Comicave employees are former PI staff, and that the Comicave label is an attempt to launch new products free from the stigma of the Play Imaginative name.
Whatever the truth is, Comicave needs to cultivate a reputation for producing high-quality collectibles with tight QC if it hopes to shed the PI name and compete with the likes of Hot Toys for our hearts and wallets. A few days ago, I walked out of Comicave's flagship store in Dubai clutching the company's first attempt at building that reputation: the Mark XL ‘Shotgun’ figure, in 1/12 scale.
Packaging
I’ve included pictures of the box above and below for the sake of thoroughness, but I don’t intend to talk about it for long. I am of course glad that everything is collector-friendly, but at a price-point of $160 it should be. The artwork on the front is nice to look at and the magnetic clasp holding the front window shut is classy—but anybody looking at details like that will surely notice the exposed paper on the right of the inner side of the flap, which lets the package down a little. If you’d like a look at the back of the box, which bears some memorable line-art of the Shotgun suit’s rear, check out one of the unboxing videos on YouTube. That box didn’t stay shut for long, as I was eager to put the Shotgun suit through its paces.
First impressions and breakages
With the figure sitting in-hand, the first thing that struck me was its weight—the box says that 75% of this suit is die-cast metal, and it certainly feels like that’s the case. With its heavier metal armour, the figure definitely feels more solid than a typical 1/12-scale item, which should give some comfort to most collectors that prefer more dynamic poses or simply want to find the limits of this toy’s articulation. Sadly, I was not one of those lucky collectors. While giving the figure an inspection, I noticed that the plastic on one of its soles looked a little warped and feared that the very thin plastic section connecting the two parts of the foot might break. I called Comicave immediately, described the issue and continued to mess around with the figure, thinking I should see if there were any other problems that might turn me off. Soon afterwards, I noticed that figure was starting to pitch forward from its standing position on my desk, and before I thought to do anything it fell over completely. The foot had snapped in half.
Luckily the staff at Comicave’s store were very understanding and helpful, and I managed to get a replacement the next day. Many shops in Dubai do not allow returns or exchanges for broken products, even ones which break out of the packaging, so when you consider the context it’s clear that the store staff went above and beyond the standard of service in this city to help me out. This was also one instance in which Comicave delivered a better experience than I might have expected from Play Imaginative, who didn’t even respond to Toy Haven’s emails regarding a broken 1/6-scale Iron Man figure. The photos in this review are of my replacement figure.
My word, it's a looker
The fit and finish of the figure impressed me when I first opened it in a dimly-lit room, but it was only next day, when I began taking photos of my replacement, that I realized how gorgeous this guy's paint- in daylight. The dark greyish blues and silver aren't ultra-bright; they're actually just muted enough to blend slightly in dim light, giving the figure a stealthy look. In full light it's a different story; the paint sparkles subtly, different regions contrasting enough to make the details of the sculpt ‘pop’. That marriage of paintwork and sculpting has honestly made Shotgun one of my favourite Iron Man armour designs. Reviewing this toy actually made me feel disappointed that the suit got so little screen-time and turned out to be embarrassingly ineffective against a super-powered Aldrich Killian, because Comicave’s Shotgun exudes a quiet, predatory kind of ‘cool’ that most of the other suits I’ve seen cannot match. Take a look at the very first image of the figure’s back—each groove between the armoured plates is sculpted in and painted black to highlight the many individual pieces of armour, and even subtler details, like the multiple levels on the triceps area, are very clearly visible.
In my early impressions on the toy's dedicated thread, I called the suit a sort of ‘Iron Man by way of stealth bomber’, and its many edges and sharp lines reinforce that impression. The moveable visor further adds to the figure’s aura of coolness and ferocity, strongly resembling a fighter pilot’s visor (which itself looks a little like a pair of oversized, too-cool-for-flight-school sunglasses). It’s an odd thing to pay special notice to, but I mean it. My favourite sculpted details are actually on the legs. If you look at this second rear shot of the figure, you’ll notice that I have its legs extended downward, a movement made possible by the double ball-joints attaching Shotgun’s upper thighs to his pelvic area. Those angular plates at the bottom of each buttock fit perfectly into the cut-out section at the top of the thigh, creating a bulky but still natural-looking leg that can still drop down for improved articulation.
The only region in which the sculpt falls short for me is the head area—I personally think the eyes are a little too square, and the lines on the face are a bit too deep. The paint-job, for all its lustre, also falls short in a couple of places: some of the black regions between armour plates are of different thicknesses, and others are painted over completely; you can see an example of this to the right side of the jetpack area in the first photo, in which the groove above the actual jet area has a little silver paint in it. These are very minor details, but I decided to talk about them to demonstrate that sculpt, paint and finish of this figure are not quite perfect. Shotgun certainly feels like a quality piece and the suit will look lovely displayed next to your other 1/12 figures, but if you are obsessive about details you probably won’t be satisfied.
Articulation and lighting
And that last sentence almost sums up my overall feelings about the toy: Shotgun is full of smart design and quality execution that should add up to a must-have figure for all Iron Man collectors—but it falls short in too many small ways for me recommend it without reservation. The articulation in particular left me quite confused, but before I explain why I want to give Comicave credit where it’s due. Let’s go back to those legs I mentioned earlier. They are, in a word, fantastic—Shotgun combines double-ball-jointed thighs that you can pull downward with a moveable metal skirt-region ripped straight from Hot Toys’ die-cast figures. In addition they've given Shotgun blockier, less human-looking legs with more room for the ball-joint to move inside the thigh, allowing the figure to do a full horizontal split. We see a similarly smart design choice in the ankles, which are attached to balls on the ends of two plastic columns that you can carefully extend by pulling down on the figure’s feet. This extension of the ankles lets you free up the foot joint a little, allowing for far more ankle-pivot and rotation. And, to make extending the feet easier, Comicave built a small moveable flap into the back of each leg, which carry the added bonus of making your action poses look a little more dynamic.
If you take a look at the second rear photograph of the toy, you’ll see these flaps opened up slightly to expose the ankle joints—what a clever touch, a detail that makes the figure both more fun to pose and more user-friendly. By extending and posing each leg separately, you can make Shotgun’s lower half look very dynamic and varied in action poses, like this midair position I tried out
I intentionally turned down the exposure and ISO for this photo to give an accurate impression of how bright the lighting feature is—Shotgun’s eyes really do shine quite powerfully through the visor, and the arc reactor on its chest is far brighter than the one on my 1/6-scale Silver Centurion figure. This is definitely some quality illumination, especially at such a small scale.
Shotgun’s shoulder armour is also well thought-out—the pauldrons are typically one of the most restrictive parts of an Iron Man figure, but these ones are poseable enough to allow for a good range of motion in the arms. For the photograph below, I removed one of the shoulder pieces to expose the joint underneath—it’s really a ball-joint which attaches to the shoulder piece on one end and a double-hinge on the other, allowing the arms to fully extend outward for repulsor-blast poses.
The joints underneath each pauldron were just tight enough, and that made moving Shotgun’s shoulders around very satisfying—again, an odd observation but a very sincere one. Of course, the ideal solution would have been rotating pauldrons like the ones Hot Toys used in their Silver Centurion figure, but Comicave’s solution is still pretty robust and allows Shotgun’s arm to extend outward about 90 degrees to the front or side. The pose I used for in this photo pretty much pushes Shotgun’s shoulders and knees to their limits:
The elbows were the first part of the figure I disliked, articulation-wise—despite incorporating a double-joint, the elbow can only just achieve a 90 degree bend, and at that angle the figure’s bicep and forearm clash. Both pieces seemed to be made of die-cast metal, so there’s definitely potential for paint-rub if you don’t take care when posing the arms. The actual elbow-joint seemed to be made of plastic that protested with a sharp ‘cracking’ sound each time I tried to bend Shotgun’s elbow. I encountered a similar situation when posing the figure’s knees—I couldn’t tell what material the double-jointed knees were made of, but they also gave way with a worrying crack, the upper knee-joint only extending after I applied enough force to make me nervous. All that said, the elbows and knees are functional and at this point I thought the figure had enough clever engineering behind it to allow for a really wide range of natural-looking dynamic poses. Sadly, I was wrong.
My first big issue with Shotgun was with its feet. They are simply too narrow at the base to let the figure hold a wide variety of standing poses—a basic wide-legged stance is fine, as you can see in my photos, but more adventurous poses that involve kneeling, leaning forward or distributing the figure’s weight unevenly between its legs are mostly off-limits. I’m aware that some YouTube reviewers have achieved serviceable ‘three-point landing’ poses with the figure, but even after watching all the available videos closely I could only get the toy to look good from a few angles, and it still wound up looking much more stilted than my Hot Toys Silver Centurion.
Even if the feet were more stable, the famous ‘landing’ pose and most flight poses remain off-limits because of Shotgun’s very poor range of motion at the neck. You’ll note that, in the sliding-kneel pose I attempted, the figure’s head is turned slightly to the left—that is as far as the head will rotate in either direction on this figure, and it cannot pitch to the sides (cocking its head) at all. As far as ‘yawing’ motion up or down goes, these two photos illustrate the limits of Comicave’s neck joint:
In the photo on the left, the neck is pushed as far back as it will go, and the head is tilted fully upward. On the right, the neck is fully extended downward. So while Comicave’s included flight stand will theoretically support lateral flying poses, they never really look natural. I believe the lighting feature is to blame here: the designers may have chosen to eschew a ball-jointed head and neck, instead having wires run from the battery pack in the figure’s abdomen to its head.
Shotgun’s abdominal articulation probably suffered for the same reason. For me, this was by far the weakest part of the figure because it severely impacted how natural I could make Shotgun look in most poses. Whether a human body is contorted sideways while throwing a punch, or arched into a long curve during an aerial dive, the core has to be able to twist, contract and extend pretty far in every direction. Start limiting core movement in an action figure, and you instantly begin limiting how natural it can look in any pose that isn’t completely upright. As it stands, Shotgun can crunch his abs less than 20 degrees—have another look at the two images above to see the difference between a full extension and complete contraction. I believe there is a waist swivel on this figure, but trying to use it produced so many sharp and uninviting noises that I never want to do it again for fear of the bottom half just snapping off.
Finally, I found Shotgun’s wrists frustrating at times, since they are not on true ball-joints. If you look at a YouTube review, you’ll notice that the hands attach to a ball, but that joint does not allow for any articulation. On the other side of the wrist-ball is a hinge, which does move from side to side. Getting a natural-looking tilt and angle for the hands ended up becoming an annoyance for me, as I had to keep removing the hands so I could grip the wrist-joint tightly enough to rotate it. The right wrist was so tight that I could only manipulate with a pair of pliers—yes, pliers gnashing around next to your beautifully-painted die-cast armour.
Accessories
If Comicave’s Studios’ ‘Shotgun’ figure were the first die-cast Iron Man in this scale, I would overlook most of these flaws, but that isn’t the case. Before Comicave came Play Imaginative, and on comparing my Shotgun figure to other people’s YouTube reviews of the Super Alloy line, I realised that both lines incorporate the same thoughtful engineering, the same high-quality finishes and the same slick lighting. It is indeed true that some of PI's figures suffered from poor quality control, and that several collectors have anecdotes regarding the company's poor customer service. I know you can't put a price on quality service and tight QC. Here's what bugs me: on comparing PI's 1/12-scale Iron Man figures to Comicave's first effort, it's PI that seems to come out on top. This most apparent when we look at Shotgun’s accessory package.
The figure comes with five pairs of hands, three flame effect-pieces, and a stand and clamp. I feel the hands are all individually useful and expressive enough to justify their inclusion—you get one pair of fists, one pair of semi-open hands that might be used to grip something, one pair of extended palms, one pair of angled repulsor-blast hands and, finally, another set of angled hands with cutouts in the palm to slot in the effect pieces. The third, larger jet of flame slots firmly into the figure’s jetpack and seems like it would be ideal for aerial poses. All in all it seems like a comprehensive and well-considered package. Except, when you consider the overall design of the figure and its issues with certain poses, a lot of the accessories begin to look superfluous.
Let’s look at those hands again. Each time I switched out Shotgun’s hands for a new pose, I worried about two things: first, if the hands were open palms I had a chance of deforming or breaking them, because quite a lot of force is needed to push each hand onto its stubby wrist-ball. Second, if the hands looked funny at the angle I posed them in, I would have to pull them off again and try to rotate the wrist, potentially scuffing the armour with my nails or a pair of pliers. The jetpack effect-piece certainly looks good when clipped on, but given the limited ab extension and head movement, the only good aerial poses are upright and don’t really show off the flame effect. The one accessory I really enjoy and can't fault are the repulsor-blast effects, which make my combat poses feel more lively and fill me with kiddish glee. Yeah, I know they're pieces of molded plastic candy-corn, but I enjoy them.
Shotgun's final accessory is his stand, which again seems really excellent at first. Comicave chose to include an two different arms for the stand: a clear plastic arm for standing poses and a Hot Toys-esque poseable metal bar. It's nice to have the option, but the limited head and ab articulation makes me wonder if the flexible stand is even necessary. On my Silver Centurion, the flexible arm allows for some very cool horizontal mid-air posing, but Shotgun can't hold such poses convincingly. Sure, you could make a case for the flight arm by saying it allows the figure to hover above the ground, and I would agree with you if the stand’s claw were padded and spring-loaded. It is neither of those things, so setting up an aerial pose involves pressing the hard plastic edges of the claw into Shotgun’s die-cast ab/chest section, and hoping the claw won’t loosen over time and drop your expensive toy on its face.
Market comparisons
And ‘expensive’ really is an important word here. Shotgun will run you $160 online and at Comicave’s flagship store in Dubai, where I bought my figure. Play Imaginative’s Mark 42 and War Machine figures are about $120 and $105 on Big Bad Toy Store right now. All of those figures have the same annoying hand pegs that I complained about, but in other respects the older PI offerings are better value. If you can, check out TheReviewSpot’s review of the 1/12-scale Super Alloy War Machine. Around the 7:25 mark, Spot begins an overview of the figure’s articulation: its head has more side-to-side movement than my Shotgun figure’s head, its elbows and knees bend far past 90 degrees, and its abdominal area features two crunch-points, one at the top and one at the waist. And, like War Machine, Shotgun stores its batteries inside its abdomen—so Shotgun’s more limited articulation can’t be solely down to the lighting feature. Look below for a photo of my post-Killian Shotgun figure, its battery compartment exposed.
War Machine’s selection of accessories is also more generous than Comicave’s offering. There is no poseable stand arm, but a look at the product specs indicates that the stand clamp was spring-loaded like a Hot Toys clamp, and the material on the inside of the clamp in Spot’s video is a lot darker than the surrounding plastic, indicating padding of some sort. War Machine also comes with a cardboard diorama background, a lighting feature in his stand, and a poseable back cannon. You can make the same argument when comparing Shotgun with PI’s Mark 42—that figure also came with the cardboard diorama and a full set of battle-damaged pieces, allowing for more display options. Both figures contain just as much die-cast as Shotgun, if PI’s promotional material is to be believed. Comparing the figure to other products in the same niche really changed my opinion of Comicave's figure, although I do still like it.
The bottom line
Overall, I feel quite conflicted passing judgement on this figure. Comicave has clearly put a lot of care effort into its individual parts, and they deserve praise for that—you can see greatness in the sparkle of Shotgun’s armour, in its aggressive sculpt, in some of the engineering. But all in all it feels like there was nobody looking at the whole thing with a critical eye and asking if the whole package gelled together into a cohesive and fun high-end collectible. The result is a figure with ultra-articulated legs that cannot stand on them, a well-made flight-stand whose clamp might scuff or drop the figure, and a rad jetpack effect piece that will never find its way into a good ‘flight’ pose. Shotgun is a good first showing in some respects, then, but there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement, especially at a market price of $160. If you’re a 1/12-scale collector with money to burn and a yearning for a beautiful desk-toy, try and see one of these in person. I think you’ll come away impressed. If you’re like me, and you prefer your toys to be robust with lots of options for play and display—I don’t think this is the best figure for you. But do keep an eye on Comicave Studios—worst case, you'll just see a lot more of that awesome Hulkbuster.
***
All photos in this review were taken by me and link to my personal Flickr account. All other linked pages are the property of their respective copyright holders, including Sean Long, Shartimus Prime and Comicave Studios.
A quick note on expectations: I really enjoy putting my figures in extreme poses and tend to expect a lot in terms of articulation. This may have coloured my impressions a little.
This is a long review, but I wanted to include my full impressions out of respect for both Comicave’s first product and for you, the collector. Our hobby isn’t cheap, and ideally we should have as much information as possible before making a purchase—so skim whatever bits you want; I hope some part of this review helps you make your mind up about this figure. This is also my first review, so I'm sorry in advance about any formatting jankiness.
Review: 1/12-scale Iron Man Mark XL, 'Shotgun', by Comicave Studios
Background
Since its initial PR push earlier this year, Singapore-based Comicave Studios has focused its promotional material on a colossal quarter-scale Hulkbuster with impressive animatronic features—a product whose scale and grandeur saw it exhibited at the red-carpet premiere for Age of Ultron. The almost unprecedented ambition of this first product sent a clear message: the new company has something to prove, and it intends to wow us.
But how ‘new’ is Comicave, really? Many collectors were initially suspicious of the unclear relationship between Comicave Studios and Play Imaginative, a company that developed a reputation for poor customer service and quality control with its Super Alloy line. Play Imaginative also frustrated many collectors with its inability to translate impressive showpieces into actual products: of the forty-two 1/12-scale Iron Man designs the company showed off at NYCC 2013, I can find only three available for purchase today. Comicave claims that Play Imaginative simply holds the license to produce Marvel figures in certain scales for certain regions, and that Comicave will now be producing toys under that same license—but some users on these forums claim that many Comicave employees are former PI staff, and that the Comicave label is an attempt to launch new products free from the stigma of the Play Imaginative name.
Whatever the truth is, Comicave needs to cultivate a reputation for producing high-quality collectibles with tight QC if it hopes to shed the PI name and compete with the likes of Hot Toys for our hearts and wallets. A few days ago, I walked out of Comicave's flagship store in Dubai clutching the company's first attempt at building that reputation: the Mark XL ‘Shotgun’ figure, in 1/12 scale.
Packaging
I’ve included pictures of the box above and below for the sake of thoroughness, but I don’t intend to talk about it for long. I am of course glad that everything is collector-friendly, but at a price-point of $160 it should be. The artwork on the front is nice to look at and the magnetic clasp holding the front window shut is classy—but anybody looking at details like that will surely notice the exposed paper on the right of the inner side of the flap, which lets the package down a little. If you’d like a look at the back of the box, which bears some memorable line-art of the Shotgun suit’s rear, check out one of the unboxing videos on YouTube. That box didn’t stay shut for long, as I was eager to put the Shotgun suit through its paces.
First impressions and breakages
With the figure sitting in-hand, the first thing that struck me was its weight—the box says that 75% of this suit is die-cast metal, and it certainly feels like that’s the case. With its heavier metal armour, the figure definitely feels more solid than a typical 1/12-scale item, which should give some comfort to most collectors that prefer more dynamic poses or simply want to find the limits of this toy’s articulation. Sadly, I was not one of those lucky collectors. While giving the figure an inspection, I noticed that the plastic on one of its soles looked a little warped and feared that the very thin plastic section connecting the two parts of the foot might break. I called Comicave immediately, described the issue and continued to mess around with the figure, thinking I should see if there were any other problems that might turn me off. Soon afterwards, I noticed that figure was starting to pitch forward from its standing position on my desk, and before I thought to do anything it fell over completely. The foot had snapped in half.
Luckily the staff at Comicave’s store were very understanding and helpful, and I managed to get a replacement the next day. Many shops in Dubai do not allow returns or exchanges for broken products, even ones which break out of the packaging, so when you consider the context it’s clear that the store staff went above and beyond the standard of service in this city to help me out. This was also one instance in which Comicave delivered a better experience than I might have expected from Play Imaginative, who didn’t even respond to Toy Haven’s emails regarding a broken 1/6-scale Iron Man figure. The photos in this review are of my replacement figure.
My word, it's a looker
The fit and finish of the figure impressed me when I first opened it in a dimly-lit room, but it was only next day, when I began taking photos of my replacement, that I realized how gorgeous this guy's paint- in daylight. The dark greyish blues and silver aren't ultra-bright; they're actually just muted enough to blend slightly in dim light, giving the figure a stealthy look. In full light it's a different story; the paint sparkles subtly, different regions contrasting enough to make the details of the sculpt ‘pop’. That marriage of paintwork and sculpting has honestly made Shotgun one of my favourite Iron Man armour designs. Reviewing this toy actually made me feel disappointed that the suit got so little screen-time and turned out to be embarrassingly ineffective against a super-powered Aldrich Killian, because Comicave’s Shotgun exudes a quiet, predatory kind of ‘cool’ that most of the other suits I’ve seen cannot match. Take a look at the very first image of the figure’s back—each groove between the armoured plates is sculpted in and painted black to highlight the many individual pieces of armour, and even subtler details, like the multiple levels on the triceps area, are very clearly visible.
In my early impressions on the toy's dedicated thread, I called the suit a sort of ‘Iron Man by way of stealth bomber’, and its many edges and sharp lines reinforce that impression. The moveable visor further adds to the figure’s aura of coolness and ferocity, strongly resembling a fighter pilot’s visor (which itself looks a little like a pair of oversized, too-cool-for-flight-school sunglasses). It’s an odd thing to pay special notice to, but I mean it. My favourite sculpted details are actually on the legs. If you look at this second rear shot of the figure, you’ll notice that I have its legs extended downward, a movement made possible by the double ball-joints attaching Shotgun’s upper thighs to his pelvic area. Those angular plates at the bottom of each buttock fit perfectly into the cut-out section at the top of the thigh, creating a bulky but still natural-looking leg that can still drop down for improved articulation.
The only region in which the sculpt falls short for me is the head area—I personally think the eyes are a little too square, and the lines on the face are a bit too deep. The paint-job, for all its lustre, also falls short in a couple of places: some of the black regions between armour plates are of different thicknesses, and others are painted over completely; you can see an example of this to the right side of the jetpack area in the first photo, in which the groove above the actual jet area has a little silver paint in it. These are very minor details, but I decided to talk about them to demonstrate that sculpt, paint and finish of this figure are not quite perfect. Shotgun certainly feels like a quality piece and the suit will look lovely displayed next to your other 1/12 figures, but if you are obsessive about details you probably won’t be satisfied.
Articulation and lighting
And that last sentence almost sums up my overall feelings about the toy: Shotgun is full of smart design and quality execution that should add up to a must-have figure for all Iron Man collectors—but it falls short in too many small ways for me recommend it without reservation. The articulation in particular left me quite confused, but before I explain why I want to give Comicave credit where it’s due. Let’s go back to those legs I mentioned earlier. They are, in a word, fantastic—Shotgun combines double-ball-jointed thighs that you can pull downward with a moveable metal skirt-region ripped straight from Hot Toys’ die-cast figures. In addition they've given Shotgun blockier, less human-looking legs with more room for the ball-joint to move inside the thigh, allowing the figure to do a full horizontal split. We see a similarly smart design choice in the ankles, which are attached to balls on the ends of two plastic columns that you can carefully extend by pulling down on the figure’s feet. This extension of the ankles lets you free up the foot joint a little, allowing for far more ankle-pivot and rotation. And, to make extending the feet easier, Comicave built a small moveable flap into the back of each leg, which carry the added bonus of making your action poses look a little more dynamic.
If you take a look at the second rear photograph of the toy, you’ll see these flaps opened up slightly to expose the ankle joints—what a clever touch, a detail that makes the figure both more fun to pose and more user-friendly. By extending and posing each leg separately, you can make Shotgun’s lower half look very dynamic and varied in action poses, like this midair position I tried out
I intentionally turned down the exposure and ISO for this photo to give an accurate impression of how bright the lighting feature is—Shotgun’s eyes really do shine quite powerfully through the visor, and the arc reactor on its chest is far brighter than the one on my 1/6-scale Silver Centurion figure. This is definitely some quality illumination, especially at such a small scale.
Shotgun’s shoulder armour is also well thought-out—the pauldrons are typically one of the most restrictive parts of an Iron Man figure, but these ones are poseable enough to allow for a good range of motion in the arms. For the photograph below, I removed one of the shoulder pieces to expose the joint underneath—it’s really a ball-joint which attaches to the shoulder piece on one end and a double-hinge on the other, allowing the arms to fully extend outward for repulsor-blast poses.
The joints underneath each pauldron were just tight enough, and that made moving Shotgun’s shoulders around very satisfying—again, an odd observation but a very sincere one. Of course, the ideal solution would have been rotating pauldrons like the ones Hot Toys used in their Silver Centurion figure, but Comicave’s solution is still pretty robust and allows Shotgun’s arm to extend outward about 90 degrees to the front or side. The pose I used for in this photo pretty much pushes Shotgun’s shoulders and knees to their limits:
The elbows were the first part of the figure I disliked, articulation-wise—despite incorporating a double-joint, the elbow can only just achieve a 90 degree bend, and at that angle the figure’s bicep and forearm clash. Both pieces seemed to be made of die-cast metal, so there’s definitely potential for paint-rub if you don’t take care when posing the arms. The actual elbow-joint seemed to be made of plastic that protested with a sharp ‘cracking’ sound each time I tried to bend Shotgun’s elbow. I encountered a similar situation when posing the figure’s knees—I couldn’t tell what material the double-jointed knees were made of, but they also gave way with a worrying crack, the upper knee-joint only extending after I applied enough force to make me nervous. All that said, the elbows and knees are functional and at this point I thought the figure had enough clever engineering behind it to allow for a really wide range of natural-looking dynamic poses. Sadly, I was wrong.
My first big issue with Shotgun was with its feet. They are simply too narrow at the base to let the figure hold a wide variety of standing poses—a basic wide-legged stance is fine, as you can see in my photos, but more adventurous poses that involve kneeling, leaning forward or distributing the figure’s weight unevenly between its legs are mostly off-limits. I’m aware that some YouTube reviewers have achieved serviceable ‘three-point landing’ poses with the figure, but even after watching all the available videos closely I could only get the toy to look good from a few angles, and it still wound up looking much more stilted than my Hot Toys Silver Centurion.
Even if the feet were more stable, the famous ‘landing’ pose and most flight poses remain off-limits because of Shotgun’s very poor range of motion at the neck. You’ll note that, in the sliding-kneel pose I attempted, the figure’s head is turned slightly to the left—that is as far as the head will rotate in either direction on this figure, and it cannot pitch to the sides (cocking its head) at all. As far as ‘yawing’ motion up or down goes, these two photos illustrate the limits of Comicave’s neck joint:
In the photo on the left, the neck is pushed as far back as it will go, and the head is tilted fully upward. On the right, the neck is fully extended downward. So while Comicave’s included flight stand will theoretically support lateral flying poses, they never really look natural. I believe the lighting feature is to blame here: the designers may have chosen to eschew a ball-jointed head and neck, instead having wires run from the battery pack in the figure’s abdomen to its head.
Shotgun’s abdominal articulation probably suffered for the same reason. For me, this was by far the weakest part of the figure because it severely impacted how natural I could make Shotgun look in most poses. Whether a human body is contorted sideways while throwing a punch, or arched into a long curve during an aerial dive, the core has to be able to twist, contract and extend pretty far in every direction. Start limiting core movement in an action figure, and you instantly begin limiting how natural it can look in any pose that isn’t completely upright. As it stands, Shotgun can crunch his abs less than 20 degrees—have another look at the two images above to see the difference between a full extension and complete contraction. I believe there is a waist swivel on this figure, but trying to use it produced so many sharp and uninviting noises that I never want to do it again for fear of the bottom half just snapping off.
Finally, I found Shotgun’s wrists frustrating at times, since they are not on true ball-joints. If you look at a YouTube review, you’ll notice that the hands attach to a ball, but that joint does not allow for any articulation. On the other side of the wrist-ball is a hinge, which does move from side to side. Getting a natural-looking tilt and angle for the hands ended up becoming an annoyance for me, as I had to keep removing the hands so I could grip the wrist-joint tightly enough to rotate it. The right wrist was so tight that I could only manipulate with a pair of pliers—yes, pliers gnashing around next to your beautifully-painted die-cast armour.
Accessories
If Comicave’s Studios’ ‘Shotgun’ figure were the first die-cast Iron Man in this scale, I would overlook most of these flaws, but that isn’t the case. Before Comicave came Play Imaginative, and on comparing my Shotgun figure to other people’s YouTube reviews of the Super Alloy line, I realised that both lines incorporate the same thoughtful engineering, the same high-quality finishes and the same slick lighting. It is indeed true that some of PI's figures suffered from poor quality control, and that several collectors have anecdotes regarding the company's poor customer service. I know you can't put a price on quality service and tight QC. Here's what bugs me: on comparing PI's 1/12-scale Iron Man figures to Comicave's first effort, it's PI that seems to come out on top. This most apparent when we look at Shotgun’s accessory package.
The figure comes with five pairs of hands, three flame effect-pieces, and a stand and clamp. I feel the hands are all individually useful and expressive enough to justify their inclusion—you get one pair of fists, one pair of semi-open hands that might be used to grip something, one pair of extended palms, one pair of angled repulsor-blast hands and, finally, another set of angled hands with cutouts in the palm to slot in the effect pieces. The third, larger jet of flame slots firmly into the figure’s jetpack and seems like it would be ideal for aerial poses. All in all it seems like a comprehensive and well-considered package. Except, when you consider the overall design of the figure and its issues with certain poses, a lot of the accessories begin to look superfluous.
Let’s look at those hands again. Each time I switched out Shotgun’s hands for a new pose, I worried about two things: first, if the hands were open palms I had a chance of deforming or breaking them, because quite a lot of force is needed to push each hand onto its stubby wrist-ball. Second, if the hands looked funny at the angle I posed them in, I would have to pull them off again and try to rotate the wrist, potentially scuffing the armour with my nails or a pair of pliers. The jetpack effect-piece certainly looks good when clipped on, but given the limited ab extension and head movement, the only good aerial poses are upright and don’t really show off the flame effect. The one accessory I really enjoy and can't fault are the repulsor-blast effects, which make my combat poses feel more lively and fill me with kiddish glee. Yeah, I know they're pieces of molded plastic candy-corn, but I enjoy them.
Shotgun's final accessory is his stand, which again seems really excellent at first. Comicave chose to include an two different arms for the stand: a clear plastic arm for standing poses and a Hot Toys-esque poseable metal bar. It's nice to have the option, but the limited head and ab articulation makes me wonder if the flexible stand is even necessary. On my Silver Centurion, the flexible arm allows for some very cool horizontal mid-air posing, but Shotgun can't hold such poses convincingly. Sure, you could make a case for the flight arm by saying it allows the figure to hover above the ground, and I would agree with you if the stand’s claw were padded and spring-loaded. It is neither of those things, so setting up an aerial pose involves pressing the hard plastic edges of the claw into Shotgun’s die-cast ab/chest section, and hoping the claw won’t loosen over time and drop your expensive toy on its face.
Market comparisons
And ‘expensive’ really is an important word here. Shotgun will run you $160 online and at Comicave’s flagship store in Dubai, where I bought my figure. Play Imaginative’s Mark 42 and War Machine figures are about $120 and $105 on Big Bad Toy Store right now. All of those figures have the same annoying hand pegs that I complained about, but in other respects the older PI offerings are better value. If you can, check out TheReviewSpot’s review of the 1/12-scale Super Alloy War Machine. Around the 7:25 mark, Spot begins an overview of the figure’s articulation: its head has more side-to-side movement than my Shotgun figure’s head, its elbows and knees bend far past 90 degrees, and its abdominal area features two crunch-points, one at the top and one at the waist. And, like War Machine, Shotgun stores its batteries inside its abdomen—so Shotgun’s more limited articulation can’t be solely down to the lighting feature. Look below for a photo of my post-Killian Shotgun figure, its battery compartment exposed.
War Machine’s selection of accessories is also more generous than Comicave’s offering. There is no poseable stand arm, but a look at the product specs indicates that the stand clamp was spring-loaded like a Hot Toys clamp, and the material on the inside of the clamp in Spot’s video is a lot darker than the surrounding plastic, indicating padding of some sort. War Machine also comes with a cardboard diorama background, a lighting feature in his stand, and a poseable back cannon. You can make the same argument when comparing Shotgun with PI’s Mark 42—that figure also came with the cardboard diorama and a full set of battle-damaged pieces, allowing for more display options. Both figures contain just as much die-cast as Shotgun, if PI’s promotional material is to be believed. Comparing the figure to other products in the same niche really changed my opinion of Comicave's figure, although I do still like it.
The bottom line
Overall, I feel quite conflicted passing judgement on this figure. Comicave has clearly put a lot of care effort into its individual parts, and they deserve praise for that—you can see greatness in the sparkle of Shotgun’s armour, in its aggressive sculpt, in some of the engineering. But all in all it feels like there was nobody looking at the whole thing with a critical eye and asking if the whole package gelled together into a cohesive and fun high-end collectible. The result is a figure with ultra-articulated legs that cannot stand on them, a well-made flight-stand whose clamp might scuff or drop the figure, and a rad jetpack effect piece that will never find its way into a good ‘flight’ pose. Shotgun is a good first showing in some respects, then, but there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement, especially at a market price of $160. If you’re a 1/12-scale collector with money to burn and a yearning for a beautiful desk-toy, try and see one of these in person. I think you’ll come away impressed. If you’re like me, and you prefer your toys to be robust with lots of options for play and display—I don’t think this is the best figure for you. But do keep an eye on Comicave Studios—worst case, you'll just see a lot more of that awesome Hulkbuster.
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All photos in this review were taken by me and link to my personal Flickr account. All other linked pages are the property of their respective copyright holders, including Sean Long, Shartimus Prime and Comicave Studios.
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