For those of you who might've been interested in what this looked like in hand, here goes...alright so my Iron Man Metropolis Variant came in yesterday. Just an awesome looking statue. Some might think the color of the armor would seem a little on the generic side with it being only silver and yellow-gold, but all the blue hues which add very nice highlights to his silver armor really make it pop. More so than their Iron Patriot. Right off the bat, this is the first GG piece I've ever received where one of the feet wouldn't line up with the pre-dilled holes on the base. It was a little annoying at first; however, the upside was that this IM can stand on his own without the acrylic base. Which pretty much means I didn't really need to line up the other hole anyway. I just fully secured one foot to the base.
When it comes to paint apps and staying within the lines, GG is almost always on point, and this statue is no exception. It's painted very well. The gold armor might not be what we all saw on the prototype, but this new yellow-gold color has grown a lot on me. It really stands out. Out of the box, I did notice some very minor rough spots of the sculpt on my copy. Mainly under his arc reactor (where his chest and abdomen armor meet) and on the bottom right corner of his gold face plate. It would take a very keen eye to spot it as it was painted very well in those two areas, but it's there if you look hard enough. The sculpt on their IP was as smooth as a baby's butt. All 8 light-up points look awesome when turned on. It might look as if his arc reactor isn't lit up in some of my pictures, but I assure you it is. There's just a lot of other natural light taking it away. All the light-up points have the same illumination, meaning, there isn't one light that's brighter than the other. His lights don't look like vehicle headlights either...they have a nice all around even glow to them. Their IP's lights were the same way. I especially like how Iron Man's eyes are a different color from the rest of the lights on his armor.
I think his pose is awesome and dominating. Looks as if he's saying, "Stop or you're dead." The armor might not be to everyone's liking as it's not what collectors are used to seeing Iron Man utilize, but lemme tell you, it looks so streamlined, unique as hell, and is a whole lot cooler to look at over GG's Iron Patriot, which he accents very well with by the way. Very heavy too...just about the same weight as IP. I'm really liking this Metropolis Iron Man...like a lot.