Sculpture: Tony Cipriano and the Sideshow Development team sculpted perhaps the most dynamic diorama ever produced by any statue company. Iron Man is captured in his original golden armor, as well as his classic golden Avenger armor, ready to battle an enraged Sub-Mariner. While surging atop a cresting wave of translucent water and wielding Neptune’s Trident, Prince Namor and Iron Man stand prepared to shake the foundations of the Marvel Universe in a classic battle of the ages.
This a remarkable piece, and completely faithful to artist Gene Colan’s celebrated run on both books during the late sixties and early seventies. While the diorama does take up a lot of space, it makes up for that by providing a visual splendor. There is so much to see. Every time I look at it, I see something I didn’t see before. Tony Cipriano and the Sideshow Development team went well above and beyond in putting this piece together. The dynamic movement and pitted desperation of the characters translated extremely well.
The exclusive diorama comes in 6 pieces: The original and classic silver age Iron Man armor statues, the Namor statue, Namor’s closed fist, Namor’s hand holding trident, and base. The Excusive here is original silver age Iron Man armor statue. A whole statue! When has that ever been done before or after? The artists clearly worked a long time putting this piece together and it shows. This truly was a labor of love.
The scale is slightly larger than the Bowen scale. You could probably display them together without it looking out of place.
Given the choice, I'd opt to display this piece with the original golden armor. It has this irresistible vintage silver age appeal. It's what originally drew me to the piece. I doubt we'll ever see another diorama featuring Iron Man's original golden armor.
Rating: 9/10
Paint/Mixed media: The paint applications on the polystone are quite good overall, although it doesn’t try to test new grounds, which is fine. It’s a safe paint application.
Namor’s facial features are excellent, as are all the areas in and around the base, shoreline, and wave. If there is a weak part to point out, it’s in the paint applications on Iron Man’s helmet, specifically around the eye sockets. Ultimately, I would have preferred more gloss used on the armor, or better yet, a chrome finish. However, given that there is so much to look at in this diorama, it’s hard to get stuck on one thing to pick on. This is delightful piece, and arguably one which looks much more striking in person than in pics.
Rating 8/10
Production and Build quality: Superb. This is a huge and heavyweight piece. Very easy to put together. While it displays well from most angles, rather than display it in that standard mortal combat Me-vs-You pose, angling it off to the side, gives the piece much more presence. This is a very solid piece. There’s no tilting or imbalance to it. Everything fits firm and tight.
Rating 8/10
Design: This gets top marks. This is a very impressive looking piece. It’s a shame that Sideshow Collectibles decided to drop this line of product. While I can appreciate the time and cost put into ambitious dioramas like this one, I’d like to believe there is a market for them. However, as this exclusive diorama, which came with a full size statue as the exclusive, had an edition run of only 200, I suspect we won’t be seeing these for a while. Too bad. This diorama might very well be the most underrated, if not forgotten piece every produced by Sidxeshow.
P.S. It just occurred to me as I was writing this review that I did not take any pics of the Namor with the switch-out fist piece. Honestly, the trident seem so obvious the choice piece for Namor, I completely forgot about the switch-out fist. I’d never display him with the fist anyway.
Rating: 9/10
Overall rating - 8.5/10
