Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor

Presenting Captain America's Stark Tech Assault Armor from the Avengers Movie Toyline.

You gotta love a good exoskeleton - yes, this is technically not Armor, this is a Powered Exoskeleton. While both Armor and an Exoskeleton may protect the wearer, enhance their natural abilities and increase mobility and firepower, an Exoskeleton has a more "vehiclular" feel to it than simply armor and has more akin to the APUs of the Matrix Movie, the Exosquad E-Frames, the G.I. Joe Steel Marauder, and the Avatar AMP Suit.

But unfortunately Marvel doesn't see the difference.

Anyway this is one of two Stark Tech Assault Armor released into the market. The two are virtually identical and vary only in color. This is Captain America's, the other one belongs to Iron Man and has that garish super pretentious gold and red paint-job. both came with action figures, this one came with Captain America.

The Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor came with spring-loaded weapons, but I think it looks better without the missiles jutting out, and such will be the case for the majority of this review.

I've often wondered if this was meant to be the movie version of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Mandroid Power Armor.



The Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor's blister pack reads: "When an Avengers mission looks like it might be too dangerous to accomplish without a little extra protection, Captain America suits up in his Stark Tech Assault Armor. It enhances his incredible combat skills with a collection of the world's most powerful weapons making the Super Soldier an unstoppable fighting force."

What's to like about Captain America's Stark Tech Assault Armor?



The simplicity of the armor: Open, slip inside, slip your hands into the controls and fire at will. The Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor comes with quite a plethora of weapons including:

• 7-Pack (7? Really? Whatever happened to even numbers?) Short Range Missile Launcher
• Two additional 3-Pack Short Range Missile Launchers
• One Repulsor Energy Based cannon
• One gattling-gun akin to the one used by War Machine. 

And to make things really interesting, these weapons are modular. You can pop them all off and place them in other location or find Transformer or G.I. Joe modular weapons that can slip into the mounting holes.

He're's Cap outside his Armor and him slipping into it. The Armor will work with any standard sized Marvel Universe or G.I. Joe character as long as the figure has joints that will allow him to spread his legs - which only a few Star Wars characters can do. His arms slip into the "Control arms" on each side of the Armor.

Articulation is so-so: No torso twisting, no knee bending though the feet are on ball joins to the exoskeleton is quite stable. The arms can be raise or lowered and the hands rotate. And his head turns - not sure why it even needs a head though. Perhaps it's a sensor suite. 

And lastly, Captain America is not as bad as the Captain America that accompanied the Goliath Assault Tank. While it's articulation is still sub-par to the conventional Marvel Universe figures - to be specific, it lacks feet joints and the ability to rotate his arms - it's still not so bad. It would be better though if he came with a shield.

What's NOT to like about Captain America's Stark Tech Assault Armor?

Personally I wish that there was more to his armor than what we have here. It comes across too much as nothing more than a re-paint of Iron Man's armor. New accessories would have been nice. A shield perhaps? Or a disc launcher. I think I have one somewhere and I should adapt it to this. 

This is actually related to the biggest problem that the Captain America Stark Tech Assault Armor has, it was built for Iron Man and not for Captain America. As such, anyone with a machine-gun who gets close enough to the front - or even rear of the armor - can end Captain America's assault simply by spraying blindly at the torso of the armor. Captain America wears kevlar, true, but a) It's still gotta hurt a lot, and b) that only stops small arms fire. He's not armored enough to walk around is something that says "Shoot me in the gut! I have a hole here!" or "Aim higher and you'll hit my head!" or simply aim for my exposed arms or upper thigh where you can severe an artery. 

Further, unless you shove Captain America into the armor he actually doesn't fit in the cockpit thanks to the wings on his head. You can have him as shown with his head slightly out so at least you know who's in there, but the armor cannot be fully locked while he's there. You have to shove him in to properly lock it.

Still an interesting piece to have for those who love armor and exoskeletons. Captain America's Stark Tech Assault Armor was purchased at retail for PhP 1,499.95 (Roughly US$ 34.88) at Toy Kingdom in Megamall. It's available on Amazon for US$ 19.98 (Roughly PhP 858 plus shipping). Interestingly enough, Iron Man's version of this armor is still worth US$ 38.99 on Amazon - probably because people do see the problem with Captain America trouncing around so... exposed.

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