Pre-orders for the hotly-anticipated Marvel Legends Moon Knight and Mr. Knight figures open up tomorrow, so while we wait, here’s a new entry in my continuing series of Iron Studios X-Men Statue reviews. This time it’s the steel-skinned Russian strongman himself: Iron Studios Colossus!

Given that one of the first two resin statues I ever purchased in my career as a gluttonous statue collector was the Bowen Designs Colossus mini bust, you might think that ol ‘ farmboy Piotr Rasputin holds a special place in my heart. He does not.

I had the original 5” Toybiz X-Men Colossus figure from the 1991 vintage series 1 (the one with the gigantic dumbbell for bodybuilding action!), but I never really liked it. Nor was Colossus a character I ever favored in the 90s X-Men arcade game (I only used Wolverine less), the Capcom Marvel fighting games or even Marvel Puzzle Quest.

But I am a crazed X-Men addict obsessed with “collecting them all”, so I knew as soon as this resin Colossus was announced that it would be mine, despite feeling conflicted about what I saw in the product solicitation images. Unfortunately, I don’t feel much more positive about Piotr now that he’s in my home. Here’s my review:

At a glance, this is a fine design to show off the strength of the X-Men’s steel-skinned powerhouse, as he mightily holds a no-doubt incredibly heavy chunk of decimated Sentinel above his head. The Sentinel slab and the Colossus figure are thankfully all one piece, so there’s no worry about it falling off and breaking.

 

It looks like Colossus is about to hurl the debris in combat, which makes this pose slightly fresher than similar ones where he’s just passively holding a momentous object aloft. It’s a minor change, but adds a degree of freshness to an idea I feel is getting stale.

 

What doesn’t seem typical about this sculpt to me is the proportions. Maybe I’m just used to a classic comic book Colossus, but this design looks way too bulky to me—to the point where Colossus seems kinda chonky. These proportions might work for Marvel vs Capcom Colossus or even the Age of Apocalypse version, but they feel noticeably out of place to me for a standard 616 Colossus.

The gritted teeth expression is fine to indicate Colossus is really straining under this massive weight, but it still looks a little awkward to me anyway.

The base and huge hunk of dead Sentinel are awesome as always, with impressive sculpted details and nicely-applied paintwork.

The paintwork on Colossus himself is not as good. I accept that chrome isn’t cheap or easy for factories to do on resin statues in this day and age, so the slightly shiny metallic silver used for Colossus’ exposed “skin” is fine.

But the way weathering had just been seemingly thrown on his leg in big splotches just looks plain bad. There are also areas in the body with other little paint errors and defects that it’s hard for me to ignore (even being half-blind). Iron Studios can and does usually do much better with paint.

Still, this is a reasonably large and well-priced statue of an essential character for sub-200 bucks. I’m definitely not “wow”-ed by this Colossus, but I concede he fits in well as part of the X-Men vs. Sentinels Battle Diorama Series, though I’d still prefer a more traditional-looking thinner Colossus.

Overall: I think the BDS Colossus Iron Studios statue had potential, but I’m just not impressed with the paint deco or proportions of his anatomy. The concept itself of Colossus holding a huge object aloft has been done several times now, and I’m past done with Sentinel debris-themed X-Men statues. He feels far too bulky to me for a comics-based Colossus, and I don’t think the paint apps have been applied nearly as well as on some other X-Men Battle Diorama Series statues.

What you see in the photos is what you get here. I wasn’t in love with the official photos of this piece and I only @sorta like it” now that it’s mine. A new batch of this Colossus statue will be arriving soon at Sideshow, so collectors keen for this still have a window to purchase it for non-inflated prices.

GRADE: C+