Iron Man Mask & Repulsor Gauntlet product reviews

Of all of the Iron Man toys I have seen and had a chance to play with, this was the most disappointing. A plain plastic mask with no special features at all, and a gauntlet that doesn't bear any likeness to Iron man's repulsor gloves at all. OK, I am not at all sure just HOW they could make something even close that actually launches things, but the point is that this unit was uncomfortable for my little nephew to wear and didn't fire the discs very far at all. He gave up on it pretty quickly and hasn't touched them since. All in all, a bit of a let down here. If the pricetag had been around the $30 mark, I would have been happier, because at that price you don't expect a lot.

I have always been a fan of Iron Man ever since I first came across his early stories in the comic store. The recent movie adaptation is another impressive example of converting a comic to a big-screen character, and only served to reinforce how it *can* be done right. So it was with great glee and pleasure I handed this to my 7 year old son and let him go nuts in the back yard.

He's quite a fan of Iron Man too... in his class arts-n-craft time a few months back he made himself a cardboard Iron Man mask, so I knew he would be a good tester for this product line... and sure enough... he was. This, combined with the Nerf Blaster made for some great games indeed.

Now, the thing is, I have often noticed on many Nerf products, that there are extra mounting-points that have trigger-mechanics installed, where it is obviously possible to attach extra bits... yet they are never mentioned in the manuals. This was similar, in that the actual disc-launcher on the gauntlet can be detached, and looks to be re-mountable elsewhere, or on some other unit somehow... yet I can not discover any such alternate mounting location... not even on any of my collection of other Nerf guns! This really gets under my skin... Mind you, I am not even 100% sure this *is* a Nerf product, so...

The mask is simple and light, affording your child a bit of protection from flying projectiles of almost any nature... except wind-blown sand. There are no lights, no sounds, no voice-changer circuits... it's quite a basic mask. A little disappointed by this for the price... would have been good to have taken a leaf out of the Spiderman franchise and had light-up eye-surrounds or something, so no points there I'm afraid.

Overall, not too bad a toy to get your sprog... don't expect much from it, but the kids will adore running around playing out escapist fantasies as a metal-clad superhero. I would love to see some extra Iron Man toys, such as the shoulder-mounted mini-rocket launchers, or the fore-arm mounted tank-killer... both of which would do well with Nerf-style foam darts as projectiles... and the shoulder-mounted stuff could perhaps join the trigger assembly in the gauntlet for that extra 'interconnectivity' that makes so many toys more than just the sum of their parts.