With the Filmation Sub finally starting last month and so much hand wringing about the fate of Club Eternia for 2014, I’ve had MOTUC on the brain lately. As a result, the last time I was getting ready to ship my Pile of Loot from BBTS, I tossed in a few extra figures and one of them was Sy-Klone. He was definitely on my list of characters that I wanted on my shelf, but for whatever reason I wasn’t on hand to pick him up when he originally went up for sale. Luckily, he isn’t one of the ones that go for a premium nowadays, so I didn’t get beat up having to pick him up from a third-party retailer. In fact, I actually got him for less than he would have cost directly from Matty.

There’s the MOTUC packaging we’ve seen dozens of times here. I love it, and I’m happy that it hasn’t really changed at all since the line started. Sy-Klone is billed as the “Heroic Fist-Flinging Tornado” as a nod back to his vintage action gimmick where he would flip the hell out and start spinning around and punching anyone that got near him. He was kind of like Eternia’s answer to the Tasmanian Devil only with the added value of an evil-detecting radar screen grafted into his stomach. God, I love Masters of the Universe. It lets me type the weirdest shit and present it as stone cold fact.

The back of the package features his bio as well as other figures available in the line. And by available I mean mostly through scalpers on Ebay. Let’s see how I’m doing… Looks like the only one I’m missing out of these is Roboto. I passed on him because so many of the figures were assembled wrong.

Oddly enough, I’m going to start out with the coloring, because it’s one of my favorite things about this figure. In Eternia, you really need to go the extra mile to stand out and just having a radar screen in your stomach and a wearing a huge hoop on your back isn’t going to cut it. You need bright colors to get noticed and Sy-Klone gets that. The combo of yellow and blue plastic on this figure really works for me and the little bits of mauve tie the whole thing together.

But it’s not just the beautiful colors that make Sy-Klone unique. He also sports a nice mix of new sculpting and a reuse of some less obvious parts from other figures. Let’s face it, anyone in Eternia who doesn’t wear a furry diaper is a trend-setter and with his ringed gauntlets and boots, backpack, and stylish arm fins, Sy-Klone really gives off a cool futuristic vibe. The radar screen in his chest is a lenticular sticker, which causes the screen to move as you view it from different angles and I really dig how pixelated the graphic looks. Matty did a nice job recreating the one on the vintage toy very closely.

Sy-Klone comes with his huge hoop weapon, an homage to the 200x version, and a shield. I seem to recall a bit of collector backlash over the hoop, but I think it’s a great signature accessory. It clips onto his backpack for storage and he can hold it in either hand as well. It definitely takes up some extra room in the display case, but I love the way he looks. The shield was an unexpected surprise, as I didn’t remember the vintage character having one, but a little research proved my memory wrong. I guess he needs it to protect his radar screen. Those things are expensive to replace.

It seems unnecessary to discuss articulation at this point, since it’s been consistent throughout the line, but let’s rattle off the points anyway. You get a ball jointed neck, as well as ball joints in the shoulders and hips. The arms feature hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have hinges in the knees and ankles and swivels at the top of the boots. There’s a swivel in the waist, and Mattel still managed to get the ab crunch hinge into him, it’s just located below the radar screen.

Sy-Klone is definitely a cool figure and one I’m glad to finally have in my display. The flak he gets over the 200x nod is really unnecessary as you’re free to pull off his hoop and display him without it. Personally, I think it just adds even more character to an already distinctive looking figure. He’s readily available on the secondary market in the $20-25 range and when you’re not paying Matty’s ridiculous shipping, it works out to be less than he was when purchased from the source. He’ll probably spend most of his time on my shelf chilling with Zodak.