It took a few years to happen, but the long-delayed Gentle Giant Iron Patriot Quarter-Scale statue finally arrived in collectors’ hands this fall! But as nice as this gorgeous 1/4 Iron Patriot statue with light-up features is, it’s also 19″ tall and $400, making it an item that many collectors simply can’t afford (in both shelf space and dollars). But wait! If you fall into that category and still want this piece, there’s still hope for you: the Gentle Giant Marvel Collectors Gallery 9″ Iron Patriot Statue is now up for order!

Iron Man 3 is pretty high-up on my list of all-time favorite movies (all movies–not just comic book movies), so I’ve got a fair amount of collectibles from the movie (including about two dozen Hot Toys Iron Man figures). That said, I had to draw the line at the enormous 1/4th scale Iron Patriot statue that Gentle Giant put up for order in 2013 (and which finally arrived this fall). After all, how many huge Iron Patriots does a guy need, right…?

Even so, I thought that Gentle Giant’s 19″ Iron Patriot statue was pretty exquisite, and I likely would have bought it if it was smaller and cheaper. And hey–looks like now I have the chance to do exactly that!

Following up last month’s inaugural entry in the Marvel Collectors Gallery 1/7th statue line–the ultra-popular Scarlett Johannson Black Widow statue–Gentle Giant is now opening up pre-orders for the second piece in the line: James Rhodes in his patriotic Iron Patriot armor!

As this statue is just a shrunken recreation of the 1/4 statue, this Iron Patriot statue was created using the same digital sculpt and scanned data files from the movie as the original version. While some minor details had to be left out due to the decreased size of this piece, it’s still downright incredibly detailed for its size. And the hand-painted paint job on this piece again looks like it will be simply gorgeous.

And there is one major aesthetic improvement: whereas the 18″ Iron Patriot statue came on one of GG’s trademark “clear disc” bases, this version comes on an intricately-detailed, steel-looking base. I think this actually improves the look of the figure immensely, even if it is just a base.

The MSRP on this statue is $150, which is about 37.5% the price of the original version of this statue. Considering that this statue is 1/7th scale and therefore slightly more than half the size of the quarter-scale original, I think that paying less than half the price for this piece is a pretty good deal all-around!

The one real con to this smaller iteration of Rhodey is the removable of the light-up electronic features, but I honestly light up my statues so rarely that it’s not really a loss for me personally. Your light-up mileage may vary.

The Marvel Collectors Gallery Iron Patriot 9″ statue is now up for pre-order, and is expected to be released in Q3 2015. I’ve heard that the orders have been very strong for the 1/7th Black Widow that GG Ltd. put up for order last month, and I would expect orders to be solid for this Iron Patriot 1/7 statue as well.

While I think Gentle Giant Ltd. has a bonafide hit on their hands with this 9″ Marvel statues line, what do you think of the Collectors Gallery, Marvel collectors? Is this a line that you’re interested in investing in, or is there no place in your collection for lower-priced, 1/7th scale statues?