Iron Man 3 Hot Toys Red Snapper Power Pose Series Figure Revealed!

The rapid-fire onslaught of Iron Man 3 merchandise continued today, as Hot Toys dropped the curtain and revealed the Iron Man 3 Red Snapper Power Pose Series sixth-scale figure today! Along with improved articulation, Hot Toys spotlighted a new feature of the Power Pose Series with this unveiling, which is cross-compatibility with their Movie Masterpiece Series! Is this feature enough to make the Iron Man Red Snapper armor a must-buy?

Not everyone can afford to drop $300+ every time Hot Toys makes a new Iron Man armor, and Hot Toys has seemingly come aware of that and created the Hot Toys Power Pose Series (PPS) as a result of that awareness. The new counterpart series to the Movie Masterpiece Series, the PPS gives you similar quality figures in the same sixth-scale at a lower price.

The catch is that the Power Pose Series figures have limited articulation. However, Hot Toys may have taken to heart criticism about the previous Iron Man 3 Power Pose figure, as the Red Snapper has a much wider assortment of articulation than that figure did, and is nowhere near as severely limited pose-wise. In total, the Red Snapper PPS has 20 points of articulation–that’s getting close to Movie Masterpiece level! The Red Snapper Iron Man Mark XXXV armor doesn’t necessarily need as much flexibility as other suits, and these Hot Toys PPS figures cost a lot less than regular Movie Masterpiece figures would–a savings of around $100 per figure. Sound like a good deal to me!

Is the Iron Man Red Snapper a good choice for the Iron Man 3 Power Pose series? That’s a tough thing to determine for certain, but the Iron Man Mark XXXV Red Snapper armor definitely seems like it’s going to be a niche armor rarely used in the upcoming “Iron Man 3” movie. It has highly-specialized extendable claw arm attachments that would probably raise the cost of the figure to $330-$350 if it was done in the regular Iron Man 3 Movie Masterpiece Diecast Series.

Reaction to the first Iron Man 3 Power Pose Series figure–another Iron Man Mark XLII–hasn’t exactly set the collecting world on fire. So I think Hot Toys was definitely right (and a little wily) to pick an armor unlikely to be made in the Movie Masterpiece Series for its second entry. Furthermore, they’re hyping that parts on the 1/6 Red Snapper Iron Man PPS will be cross-compatible with the regular Movie Masterpiece Series (MMS).

On the surface, making a connection between the PPS and MMS is pretty brilliant. In execution, though, I’m not so sure. Sticking the Tony Stark head from an Iron Man MMS onto the Iron Man Mark XXXV Red Snapper is awesome–but I don’t see the usefulness outside of that. While you can remove the arms attachments and put them onto an Iron Man MMS figure, that doesn’t mean you should. The whole idea of just sticking the rescue arms onto another armor and trying to pass it off as the Red Snapper armor feels pretty childish to me.

Regardless of the practicality of the cross-compatibility, I really like the Iron Man 3 Red Snapper armor, and I don’t mind dropping around $150 for a 1/6 scale figure of it. I’ll be pre-ordering the Iron Man Red Snapper PPS as soon as it’s available.