Paying $200-$300 each for a 1/6 Hot Toys 12″ Iron Man action figure was a pretty difficult thing transition for me to make. Getting me to pay $100+ for a 1/12 scale 6″ figure, however, is something I would have said is impossible. And yet–somehow, some way–Play Imaginative now has me contemplating purchasing not one, but four $100+ 1/12 Super Alloy Iron Man 2 Drones figures…

Let it be said that I am not the biggest fan of Iron Man 2. All that hate and loathing and revulsion that you hear people spewing about Iron Man 3 this summer? Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about the Iron Man 2 movie. But while I thought Iron Man 2 itself was utter garbage, what I did hands-down love above the movie was the new armors in the movie, including the Hammer Drones.

Technically, Hasbro did manage to release all four of these different types of branded Hammer Drones figures as part of the Hasbro 4″ Iron Man 2 action figure line, but collecting the four types of Drones took several years to accomplish and they were spread across impossible-to-find shortpacked single pack figures and retailer exclusive multipacks. Sound like fun? It wasn’t.

For their size and price, the Hasbro 4″ figures of the Iron Man 2 Drones were pretty decent, and I never expected to see those mechs upgraded to a higher quality figure by anybody. Enter Play Imaginative and their quickly-expanding Super Alloy Iron Man 1/12 figures line.

Composed of over 70% die-cast metal and scaled almost perfectly to fit in with regular 6″ action figure lines like Marvel Legends, the Play Imaginative Iron Man Super Alloy figure line looks very promising. The figures don’t come cheap–the twelfth-scale ones presently available for pre-order in the United States all cost a little over $100 each–but I’m highly impressed with the breadth and depth that Play Imaginative seems to be planning for the line.

To my wallet’s dismay, Play Imaginative will be taking pre-orders for four new Super Alloy Iron Man 1/12 figures at the 2013 Singapore Toy Game & Comic Convention this weekend: the Marine Drone, the Air Force Drone, the Army Drone and the Navy Drone. The four figures pre-orders will be for “Exclusive Edition” versions, but no details have been released at what the exclusive additions to the figures will be.

In addition to pre-orders being open for the four Super Alloy Hammer Drones from Iron Man 2, Play Imaginative has promised to have “Over 100 Super Alloy Prototypes on Display” during STGCC 2013. Yes, 100.

That sounds pretty ridiculous, but we know that they have prototypes cooked up for most (if not all now) of the House Party Protocol Iron Man 3 armors as 1/12 Super Alloy figures, and not all of the Super Alloy figures on display will be from Iron Man (Play Imaginative is planning a lot of DC Super Alloy figures too). So yes, Play Imaginative will likely have over 100 Super Alloy figure prototypes on display at the show, crazy as that may sound.

I’m teetering on the verge of ordering all four Iron Man 2 Drones from Play Imaginative when they go up for pre-order in the United States, and I’ll post an update once orders have opened up.

What do you think about Play Imaginative and their Super Alloy Iron Man 1/12 scale figures line, Marvel fans? Is $100+ just too much for a figure in this scale, or are you tempted by all of the die-cast and quality engineering present in these figures?