The episode, Victory of the Daleks was definitely not one of Season 5’s high points, but it did have its moments. Most of those moments was getting to see the Daleks acting as subserviant soldiers to Churchill and the British armed forces in World War II. Of course, this was all a ruse and one that was revealed pretty early on in the episode, but it was all worthwhile just to get a figure of this unusual variant WWII style Dalek known as an Ironside.
This is the first of the new series of figures I’m looking at, so we finally have all new packaging. The artwork is similar to the style used on the 11th Doctor Crash Set with the blue background and the new logo introduced in Series 5. The big difference here is that CO finally gave up the use of a full plastic clamshell and went back to mounting the figure in a bubble on a simple card. The package is wider and appears more squat than the previous designs, but overall I like it. It looks pleasing and its much easier to get into than the clamshells. Although, I imagine if you’re a mint on card collector this might be a setback, since these cards are more easily damaged. On the other hand, the logo insert in the bubble does obscure the bottom third of the figure.
A large portion of this figure is a reuse and repaint of the 2005-2010 Daleks we’ve been seeing all along. In fact, the only new sculpting here is the equipment belt that’s covering up the Dalek’s shoulder slats. The belt is very nicely sculpted and textured and includes several pouches, a canteen and an unkown silver container. The new paint job is a solid olive green with some silver accents to the belt and a tiny British flag painted right under the eyestalk.
The Ironside has the same articulation as previous Dalek figures. The sucker arm and gun are both on ball joints, and both arms can be removed from their sockets. The head rotates 360 degrees and the eye stalk can raise and also be removed from its socket.
On initial offering, these Series 5 figures have been far more expensive than previous releases. The Ironside set me back $20 and while its possible some e-tailers will price drop somewhere down the line, I didn’t want to risk missing out on him. He’s a striking looking figure and a very cool design concept, even if his role in the story turned out to be fairly short lived and forgettable. The only thing that would have really improved this figure would be if it had a voice chip that screamed, “WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA????” Who knows, maybe CO will grace us with a 12″ talking RC version. Yeah, pretty doubtful, but I’d be on board if they did.
FigureFan Zero 