Toy Review: Iron Man 2 Undercover Assault

Overview:  Originally this pack was announced at SDCC 2010.  It was supposed to come in at the very end of the Iron Man 2 toy lines life.  They showed images of it and promised it would come out as a Target exclusive (hence the "Only At Target" image).  Then it was quietly cancelled.  It was cancelled so quietly that no one seemed to know that it was cancelled.  I went to Target on a weekly basis looking for this and I went to a lot of different Targets in my area all in the search of this item.  Mostly because I wanted a decent Black Widow (which is something I'm still looking for).  But it persisted in not showing up anywhere and the forums were no help.

  Going by One Per Case a bunch showed up on eBay in May of 2012, which I totally missed out on.  The War Machines were prolific on eBay, you can buy 5 of them for like $20 but there was nothing else out there.  Then finally I read this announcement and found out that the packs actually made it to retail in the UK.  Although it tells you the ACTUAL retail price which makes paying the outrageous prices on eBay THAT much harder to swallow.  But I was able to get it for the cheapest price I saw it for from a nice Irish person who was very nice to do business with.  So now I actually have it and it's okay.  I'm really glad I got it but after everything is said and done I'm probably only going to use the Stark head and kit bash a Tony Stark out of a Professor X.

The front of the box.  I like the mechanical hands holding the helmets.  I took all these pictures in a hurry in my living room.  I have to do a better job at the pictures but I'm usually in a hurry and I don't have the best lighting which is why very few of them turn out well.

Close up of Tony and Rhodey.

Close up of Black Widow.

The top of the box.

The Stark/Rhodey side of the box.

The Widow side of the box.  The whole box had really great artwork which is why I took pictures of everything.  The bottom of the box is the usual copyright text.

Back of the box.

Close up of Widow.

A close up of the interchangeable heads.

Close up of Stark and Rhodey.

Other things available from the line.  The car looks cool even though it doesn't match the movie.

Flavor text on the back.

First up is Widow since really the Black Widow is the main reason to get this.  All the different Widows on the market (excluding the Toys R Us exclusive which is just a repaint and a new head on the last buck).  The Undercover Assault one is clearly the shortest but also, when compared to the Avengers Widow, the sculpt isn't that accurate to Scarlet Johansen.  The biggest problem are the hip joints, they are ridiculously limited which really only allows for standing straight up.  Everything else is nice, the detail in the costume is really good, the detail in the face is good despite it not really resembling the actress.  If the legs had more motion this would be my favorite Widow as it's the one I like visually the most.

A comparison of Scar-Jo's Widows.  There is a definitely a size difference.

Stark compared to the regular release of what i believe is the Mark 4.  The only difference is the head sculpt.  The interchangeable head is better painted than the original retail release.  The head only kind of resembles Robert Downey Jr.  The weirdest thing is on both of these figures the right arm is locked in place with paint.  I've tried heating it to loosen it up but I haven't had much luck.  But they are jammed up in the exact same way.

A close up of RDJ with the interchangeable head.

From right to left: eBay "bootleg" Rhodey, Undercover Assault Rhodey and retail release War Machine.  There is a very slight difference between bootleg Rhodey and UA Rhodey, the paint deco on the UA Rhodey head is better but the colors are darker on bootleg.  There is the another very slight variation in paint tone on UA Rhodey and retail War Machine.  UA Rhodey has the superior missile rack.  The UA Rhodey is the best one of the 3 in my opinion.