It’s no secret that my interest in MOTUC petered out last year. I picked up a handful of figures (mostly second chances at older releases) and the Wind Raider, but there wasn’t anything new on the radar that I was interested in until Ram Man. I was also pretty sure I was going to get shut out on Ram Man. So much so, that I almost considered getting a sub, just because he was the last core character I really needed in my collection and I knew he was going to sell out fast. And so, Feb 15^th 2013 was like old times, as I found myself sitting on Matty Collector and hitting refresh over and over again at 11:59a. Well, it paid off, because I was able to order Ram Man without a single hitch. No screens of death, no endless spooling, Matty didn’t show up at my house and kick me in the nuts. Nope, everything went smoothly. And a good thing it did, because he sold out in about 6 minutes. The crazy thing is I’m pretty sure that’s by no means a record and he actually lasted a lot longer than I thought he would.

I half expected Rammy to come in a box similar to the giants and the beasts, but nope, he comes on a bigger version of the regular MOTUC card. I guess that’s a good thing because since he is just another one of the guys, MOC collectors will have some uniformity in their collection. The packaging looks as good as it always does, and we’ve seen it here plenty of times, so I won’t bother with it a lot. And quite frankly, I’m just really anxious to bust him out.

As one might expect, Ram Man is one mighty hefty slab of plastic. He is, after all, a human battering ram. He is an oversized figure, but he isn’t much taller than He-Man, so he’s more like an oversized figure crushed down to regular height. This boy’s got girth, and it really suits the character well. I’m probably not alone in that I was super curious how Matty was going to give him the “realistic” Classics makeover, but what we got here is quite well-executed. He retains all the iconic characteristics of the character, and yet he looks refreshed and a perfect fit for the Classics line. It’s also worth noting that in a line with as much parts borrowing as MOTUC, Ram Man’s unique tooling really makes him stand out.

For starters, you get two heads and I can’t get away from the fact that they both look exactly like the late, great character actor, Brad Sullivan.

Either someone at The Four Horseman really liked this guy, or this is one hell of a coincidence. Either way, I approve. The head that comes packaged on the figure is his full helmeted head, whereas the other one just has a metal skull cap, which i can’t help but imagine is permanently bolted to his skull. Both sculpts are fantastic, but the un-helmeted head really stands out because you can see more of it and just how much personality and crazy detail T4H put into it. Alas, I can’t see myself ever displaying him without the full helmet. The cheek guards are soft plastic, so they don’t get in the way of his neck articulation, and you can bend them out and see a lot of Rammy’s face behind it.

His armor and outfit are spot on and loaded with detail. He has a brown tunic belted with a huge belt and a sculpted skull belt buckle. The middle of the tunic has sculpted and painted ties and the shoulder armor is layered on top of it, which gives the figure’s sculpt a lot of depth and credibility. The massive chains are cool, as are the huge bolts and the tiny little rivets that run along the edges. I even like the way they reproduced his “spring” legs without making him look too goofy. I mean, c’mon, we can’t have a guy who rams thing with his head for a living looking goofy, can we? My figure has a few strokes of silver paint on the tunic, but it’s nothing I can’t live with.

Amazingly, Mattel managed to retain all the usual points of articulation for this guy. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. His legs have hinged knees and ankles, although not much of a rocker. He also has the ab-crunch hinge.  Granted, the hip articulation is inhibited by his tunic, but it’s still there.

For a guy who uses his head as a weapon, Ram Man doesn’t come with a lot of accessories. He does, however, have a pretty cool axe, which he can hold in his right hand. It’s a simple enough piece, but he looks great holding it. He can also store it on a clip on his back.

Honestly, it feels good to be excited about a MOTUC figure again. There were plenty of decent, but not essential, figures last year that I would have happily purchased if the cost on these with shipping wasn’t so high, but Matty has gradually priced them out of my market. I’m perfectly willing to pay a lot of money for good figures, but not when they’re characters I don’t care about. Ram Man was the last piece of my Masters Classics collection that I considered absolutely essential and now that he’s in hand he doesn’t disappoint. Even at $42 shipped, I’m perfectly satisfied with him and so very glad to have him filling that last void on my shelf. Seeing him lined up with all my heroes makes me so happy I stuck with this line, even if though I was selective about the figures I bought.

And yes, I did sub to the Filmation series. So Rammy will definitely not be the last MOTUC figure you see featured here on FigureFan Zero.