Sideshow Collectibles’ once rapidly-expanding lineup of 1/4 Premium Format X-Men statues has slowed to a glacial pace over the last two years, but Iron Studios is picking up the slack and popping out 1/10 X-Men statues at an unprecedented rate—including never-before-done-as-statues characters like Spiral and even Elsie-Dee/Albert! It seems with their smaller, more affordable Battle Diorama Series, Iron Studios has hit a sweet spot with modern collectors with limited space and disposable funds! As they captured my full attention long, long ago, I figured it was high time I review something from the X-Men line: focusing on the Deluxe Magneto Iron Studios BDS statue!

I dilly-dallied too much on this series and missed out on a few key pieces (I am condemned to spend crazy scalper fees for a Juggernaut now), but I wasn’t about to miss out on the Master of Magnetism at retail price as well. And so, as soon as I saw the deluxe Magneto statue had gone to Wait List on Sideshow, I immediately went to BBTS and placed an order for one of the remaining pieces they had at MSRP.

As I am exceptionally low on space from my many years of gluttonous collecting, so I was pleased to see this Magneto arrive in an outer box not much bigger than a Hot Toys box.

 

The inner art box fits perfectly inside the brown shipper without any excess space wasted, and has nice (but very basic) graphics of the statue emblazoned on it.

Inside of the box is the ubiquitous taped white styrofoam which every statue fan recognizes and can slice open in seconds, with the Magneto statue within in 5 pieces: Sentinel head base, lower body, upper body with cape and both Magneto heads separated to the side.

The assembly can be done almost instantly, as all the pieces are quite light and pop together perfectly. As I’m semi-blind following my strokes and didn’t want to risk damaging anything, my wife attached Magneto to the base for me with ease.

The assembled statue feels a bit wobbly on carpet and uneven surfaces, but safe and secure on hard, flat ground despite the large cape making it a tad top-heavy.

Once put together, I think this is a lovely $250-ish 1/10th Scale statue. It evokes the same X-Men #1 vibe as the classic Bowen Magneto action statue from over a decade ago.

The idea that Magneto is “floating” over the destroyed Sentinel head base is rather magical, and I always prefer hovering Magneto statues to ones where he is just standing around.

One of my favorite aspects of this statue is what’s not here: a lame soft goods cape. Mixed media is fine in some rare instances, but give me a resin cape over fabric any day!

Many collectors thought the wired fabric cape was the one major flaw in Sideshow’s 1/4 Magneto maquette from a few years ago, and I am delighted to see Iron Studios not repeat Sideshow’s misstep and give us a beautiful, flowing, full resin cape for X-Men BDS Magneto. They even spoiled us with “dirt” deco along the bottom edge of the cape, which really helps give a feeling that Magneto is out in battle rather than fresh from the laundromat.

Both helmeted and unhelmeted Magneto heads are included, and I think both are terrific. I don’t know if this is the best Erik Lehnsherr without helmet sculpt ever or anything, but I still think it’s an overall better portrait than Sideshow’s recent attempt.

I have no complaints about the head with Magneto helmet either, as it looks appropriately ruthless and intense with the whited-out eyes and metallic-painted helmet. The heads have magnets at the bottom of the necks to efficiently and securely be swapped in seconds.

Iron Studios has done an exquisite job with paint on all their finished statues that I’ve seen up close, and this is no exception. The paint apps and deco all look outstanding to my admittedly failing eyesight.

The wrecked Sentinel head as a base concept is getting rather tired, but it does look very nice here. I may be all Sentinel-ed out very soon though at this rate! (At least, until we see a Nimrod statue!)

Overall: From the powerful pose and design to the wonderful paint and top-notch quality, Iron Studios delivers another home run with Magneto. The only real gripe I can muster is that they are launching characters so quickly that it’s difficult for many X-Men fans to keep up! This may be the lineup that someday surpasses Bowen Designs as the best series of X-Men statues ever, so don’t sleep on this line, X-fans!

GRADE: A