Who are these guys?

[Digifiend]

Rawlingstones on Reddit wants to know who these guys are.


Replies seem to have identified five of the six - Mandarin, Titanium Man, Controller, Spymaster, Kara Kilgrave... but who's the robot?

[Mike_Murdock]

I'm not sure Kara Killgrave makes a ton of sense. The rest are all Iron Man villains and silver age, while she's more bronze age and I have no idea if she ever fought him (she's mostly an Alpha Flight character). My first thought is that it's a miscolored Madame Masque. But, if that's the case, she's not wearing her iconic outfit.

No clue on the robot. He looks like he's almost wearing Iron Man's symbol on the chest. My first guess was Ultimo, but the head is certainly all wrong.

[MajorHoy]

Are these based on the comic books or possibly on an animated series that took some liberties with any characters?

[Digifiend]

There's a common thread... the first four are Iron Man villains who were used in the late 80s, and apparently that Mandarin costume was shortlived. Could the other two also be from Tony's rogues gallery?

[Digifiend]

I'm not sure Kara Killgrave makes a ton of sense. The rest are all Iron Man villains and silver age, while she's more bronze age and I have no idea if she ever fought him (she's mostly an Alpha Flight character). My first thought is that it's a miscolored Madame Masque. But, if that's the case, she's not wearing her iconic outfit.

Yeah, she's missing her belt and has a different neck line if that's her.

[MajorHoy]

Yeah, she's missing her belt and has a different neck line if that's her.

Not only that, but what's Madame Masque without that severe metal face-masque?!?

[Lee Stone]

Ooooh...
I love these!

I'll do some digging and see if I can help.

[L.R Johansson]

My immediate thought was that it was from the animated series - however, that's NOT the Mandarin design from that show.

http://animatedviews.com/2010/iron-m...vision-series/

The design is slightly reminiscent of the one Mandarin used in the Kurt Busiek -penned Heroes Return run, but the stylings is distinctly more 80's. Hmm... The artist on the blue woman looks a LOT like Mike Allred's style... has anybody considered asking him? The time-frame of the 80's makes no sense though, since Allred didn't break through until the 90's...

[MajorHoy]

Were these cardboard pieces for some kids game or something?

[Lee Stone]

So far...

My guess was that it was from an Iron Man cartoon, as well...

The stickers appear to have no copyright date on them, which doesn't help.

Mandarin, Titanium Man, Controller and Spymaster are all pretty easy to identify. But with the exception of Mandarin, they almost always appeared the same, which makes it hard to pin a time frame down.

Mandarin appeared in both Iron Man cartoon series and the '60s cartoon that was part of Marvel's animated anthology.
But none of them match the image's style.

Titanium Man also appeared in all three cartoons.

Controller appeared in the two Iron Man cartoon series, but looks like he didn't appear in the '60s cartoon.

There's not much information on Spymaster appearing in a cartoon ever, except for once on Incredible Hulk without a costume.
However... Spymaster does help a bit on dating the collection, as his first appearance in comics was in Iron Man #33, cover dated January 1971, which was on sale in October 1970.

The robot is still a mystery. I've come up with several possibilities, including Ultimo, but the design doesn't match any of them.

The woman definitely can't be Kara Killgrave, as she doesn't have the right hair and she wasn't an Iron Man character.
However... the art does give a clue...
Looking at her hair...
That looks like a '90s cut.
And Madame Masque is a possibility.

Can anyone give a definite time frame for that Mandarin costume?
Maybe with an image?

[Lee Stone]

Were these cardboard pieces for some kids game or something?

Just did a quick search for Iron Man at Boardgamegeek and found nothing that resembles those.

What about those vinyl playset things where you have a large image and little vinyl stickers you can move about on it?

[Lee Stone]

I cleaned up the woman image and tried an image search, but still nothing as of yet.



My guess would've been Mystique.
But Mystique would fit with the rest only marginally better than Persuasion.

[Lee Stone]

Robot cleaned up a bit:

[Lee Stone]

Were these cardboard pieces for some kids game or something?

I finally clicked on the reddit link to see what others had come up with so far, and it appears they were magnets.
Probably originating at a Hot Topics type store.

Also, the op posted an additional piece of information:

I should provide additional context, it’s a pretty large set with 35 magnets. They’ve also got Baron Zemo, Loki, Magneto... these are just the ones I couldn’t recognize.

So they may not all be Iron Man characters, after all.
In that case, I'd propose that with Magneto listed that the blue woman may very well be Mystique.

And for the robot, I'm currently leaning towards Mandroid.

[Digifiend]

If it is Mystique, it's badly miscoloured, as her hair should be red, and her costume is usually white.