Hot Toys Reveals Seventy Billionth Iron Man Armor, the Gamma MK XXVI

You mean to tell me there was still an Iron Man armor Hot Toys hadn't released? I'm shocked. Shocked, I say. At this point, the only thing surprising about this release is how late in the game it was announced. There were a bajillion armors in Iron Man 3, and Hot Toys had been putting them out with some regularity up until all the Star Wars reveals. That's when the Stormtroopers became the new Iron Men, with all the slight variations on almost identical sculpts. For all the completionists out there though, the arrival of one of the few remaining armors from Shane Black's masterpiece (yeah, I said it) should be good news.

I know I like to give Hot Toys a lot of guff over the number of Iron Man armors, but reusing molds like they have with the Iron Man MK XXVI (a repaint of the MK XXV) is smart business. Molds are expensive, and anytime companies can reuse them for similar figures just makes it that much easier on them to give us long-running lines and more variation in other departments. It's a tactic every toy company uses, though when it's for $15-20 figures it's not that big a deal. When a figure costs nearly $300 and it's just a reskin of one that came out before (with a much nicer paint job, in my opinion) it's a little harder to swallow. Especially in the wallet.

I do like the idea of the deep-core drilling Iron Man, even if I think a suit built to protect him from gamma radiation seems a bit silly if it also isn't built to combat the Hulk. The Hulkbuster armor barely held together when taking on the green Goliath, and the MK XXVI is much, much smaller than that big machine. Additionally, that paint job is just not doing it for me. Where the MK XXV was painted up to be more appropriate for a construction zone, this one gets a green coat of paint because why exactly? Because the Hulk is green and he's gamma powered? That doesn't really make much sense, but Tony's never been all that concerned with color palettes that show any kind of creativity. He sure does love two-tone schemes though. So there's that.

There's no release date or pricing information just yet, but the MK XXV Striker is still available for pre-order for $279.99, so it's reasonable to assume this iteration will run you the same. We'll update this post when Sideshow Collectibles has more details.