there are ways to play this guy effectively but he doesn't really seem up to
par with or as multidimensional as some other iron men (mans?)

no illumanati? sad day now we have no modern ironman ilumanati

I know man, and after I went to all that trouble to get the rest of the Illuminati...buuuut I'm going to guess (and hope) that the 10th anniversary modern representation will be an all singing, all dancing, bleeding edge suit Iron Man. That would be good. That said, I'm not a huge fan of this particular Iron Man, I already have so many better ones, and even in this set, I'd choose the gravity feed triple incap over this one any day of the week!

He might not stack up against some of the other ones but he's so cheap. 110 pts for Outwit, Running Shot, decent values and auto-knockback is respectable. It's nice to have a good range of point values for characters.

Map choice is a must with him. Lots of blocking terrain is good, lots of elevated is better. Note that his special reads "After Iron Man hits a character with a ranged combat attack..." No need for damage, so his first four clicks are all about throwing around any characters not immune to knockback. Add 1st and 4th click RS mobility, and there are very few safe spots to stand. If he had sharpshooter he'd make the jump to completely lethal.

Thinking this guy could become good buds with GSX Magneto for his debris-creating potential.

I agree with your sentiments completely, but this Iron Man serves his purposes. He's cheap, has good AV and damage, and he will be a king on indoor maps. The fact that he has 3 damage down the dial should tell you that he's meant to destroy walls more than anything else.

Team him up with WoL FF Saint Walker for sharpshooter to get rid of pesky basing attempts! Plus a 6 square knockback has serious potential on the right map (since you're going to want lots of blocking/walls anyway, put them to a bit more work by knocking your enemies into those walls for extra damage potential!).

kind of dissapointed in how the dial looks but i will have a better judgement after i play him

I like the sculpt and the bright paint colors, but he's too big in terms of scale when you compare him with other figures (even in this set).

Why do none of these new Iron Man figures have the Illuminati keyword? Am I forced to use only outdated ones?

I know how you feel. 3 New Iron Mans(?) None with Illuminati. I would of loved a low point Illuminati Iron man. At least this one compared to the other two bring something useful to the table.

So, if he double targets a character and an object, he would only be able to destroy the object if he alloted all three of his damage to the object, right? Which would mean that the character would take no damage and then could be possible knocked back with his sp, right?

from the 2012 rulebook

DESTROYING OBJECTS
Objects can be destroyed using the rules for destroying a square of blocking terrain (see p. 13). A character in the same square as an object does not take damage when the object is destroyed. An attacker can’t target both a character and an object with the same attack. A destroyed object is removed from the game and does not cause a debris marker to be placed.