When it comes to the resin statue collecting world, the popular opinion of the masses is generally that bigger is better. But one company who’s defying that mentality is Iron Studios, who introduced their popular 1:10 scale Battle Diorama Series last year. I’ve been a fan since the first time I saw the MCU BDS statues in person, but I’ve never written a review for one… until now. The Iron Studios Spider-Man Homecoming Iron Man Statue is now starting to ship—is this low-priced piece worth your cash?

The Spider-Man Homecoming Iron Studios BDS is a bit of a weird one in that it consists of three characters who never appear in battle at the same time in the movie. In fact, the subject of today’s review never battles anybody in the movie: Iron Man Mark 47.

While a lot of people groaned about this recolored Civil War Iron Man (Mark 46) when it was first shown, its popularity has increased sharply with collectors since they got toys of it in-hand and realized just how snazzy the armor looks. Does this statue look as slick? In a word: Yes.

The graphics for the Iron Studios Homecoming Iron Man BDS packaging are nice, but my favorite characteristic of the packaging is its size.

The box for this piece is just a little guy—only 13” tall on its greatest dimension. Considering that I have Sideshow boxes that are greater than four feet tall taking up copious amounts of space, I breathed a little sigh of relief when I saw how small the box is for this 1/10 Iron Man.

Inside the box, the statue comes in just two pieces: full figure and base. This is a welcome change from the many pieces (and seams) of the Kotobukiya ARTFX+ Statues in the same scale.

Note that there’s no edition number on the underside of the base, as these statues aren’t strictly limited and numbered in the manner of most (much more expensive) resin statue are these days. If you’re only interested in extremely low editions, Iron Studios probably isn’t for you. Luckily, all I really care about is how cool the statue itself if.

The Iron Man Mark XLVII statue itself easily slides into the base, where it fits nice and tight. This feel very sturdy, and not tipsy at all. I don’t foresee leaning being an issue with that piece.

Some folks have said they thought the base for this was boring, but I dig it. The matte paint on the steel wreckage is a nice contrast to the glossy metallic paint on the figure itself, and I think the aesthetic of this terrain is actually quite different from what we see normally.

The main event here is the Spider-Man Homecoming Iron Man Statue itself, though, of course. Iron Studios has nailed the proportions and colors of the Mark 47 armor, with this easily being the best piece of merch for this armor permutation released by any company other than Hot Toys.

It’s always difficult to capture a superhero in flight without a tacky flight stand pole, but I think the subtle connection between Iron Man’s foot the base works well—Homecoming Iron Man still looks like he’s taking to the air, despite the connection point.

As much as I love what Diamond Select toys has been doing with their statue lines the last few years, they’ve struggled a bit with getting the paint right on some of their Iron Man statues.

That’s not a problem for Iron Studios in this instance, though—the shiny metallic paints that they selected for this statue are gorgeous. Without actually being made of die-cast metal like the Hot Toys version is, this is as good as a resin statue painted to simulate metal can look.

Overall: While the Marvel BDS statues aren’t widely collected yet, Iron Studios is off to a hot start with a multitude of impressive pieces like this one (and a drop-dead amazing Thanos on the way). To me, this is an excellent piece with no real drawbacks for collectors who are space or money conscious.

For those who can’t afford the Hot Toys Iron Man Mark 47 figure—which has become astronomically expensive since selling out—this is the next best thing. Unless you’re dead-set against statues in the 1/10 scale, this Iron Man—and Iron Studios’ Marvel Battle Diorama Series as a whole—are definitely worth checking out. Great stuff.

GRADE: A-