Summer Movie Toys 2008: A Roundup and Review - Including Iron Man and Speed Racer Toys

The summer movie season has arrived early this year, and along with it comes a deluge of toys based on the summer's most anticipated films. Being an action figure collector, I anticipate the merchandise nearly as much as the movies, so imagine my excitement when I scoured my local Toys R Us and uncovered loads of brand new movie toys for 2008. Now I'm here to give you part one of the lowdown on what I found.

Iron Man

The season's first big blockbuster has arrived, and plenty of Iron Man toys have tagged along. Not surprisingly, the Iron Man toys are being handled by Hasbro, the owners of the Marvel Comics license. Similar to their handling of the Spider-Man 3 license last year, the line is heavily focused on the iconic title character. However, unlike the maligned, shrunken Spider-Man toys, the Iron Man action figures are in a 6" scale, and will fit in perfectly with the rest of your Marvel Legends collection.

The Iron Man action figures themselves are decently made- about the same quality of a Hasbro Marvel Legends figure, but they're nothing extraordinary. There are too many iterations of Iron Man himself- looking at the store shelf, all you see is red and gold. You've got battle action Iron Mans, huge talking Iron Mans, itsy bitsy Iron Mans...they all look pretty much the same. I would've loved to see more emphasis put on supporting characters. What could've been the most interesting figure- Tony Stark with a removable Iron Man helmet, in actuality looks more like a smoosh faced Jimmy Smits than Robert Downy Jr.

Biggest Disappointment: The blah factor is pretty strong here, with lots and lots of repetition. Also, a toy company has once again ignored the women, with a figure of Iron Man's female lead, Pepper Potts, nowhere to be found.