I had all but given up on getting my Jet Sled as it was lost in the mail for the better part of two weeks. The tracking said it was delivered, while reality proved otherwise. The nice people at the USPS continued to claim that the carrier placed the box in my post box, but after making a pest of myself and insisting that I would have noticed a huge parcel in my post box if it had been in there, the package eventually arrived on my doorstep. I’m not going to dwell on it, because quite frankly the USPS has a pretty good track record with me and besides, alls well that ends well. Anywho…

It’s been almost a year since Matty released the first, and what seemed like maybe the only, vehicle in the MOTUC lineup, but now it’s finally time to make some extra room in my Masters garage because the Jet Sled has arrived! I always thought this would be the first vehicle release of the line, because it’s so much easier to produce than the Wind Raider. It’s also a bit more iconic to me, because for whatever reason I just remember He-Man jumping on this thing and flying off more often than he did in the Wind Raider. Ok, honestly it’s really because I used to like checking out Teela’s tushie when she flew it. The fact that this vehicle is very reminiscent of the jet sleds used in Flash Gordon doesn’t hurt either.  I love Flash Gordon! Of course, the Wind Raider turned out to be an amazing toy in and of itself, and now that I’ve got a Jet Sled in hand, I won’t quibble over Matty’s strategies here.

The set comes in a window box, not unlike what has been used for most of the MOTUC multi-figure sets. It’s nice that you can see what you’re getting inside, but I’ll say straightaway that I wish Matty had put this set in a regular box like they did with the Wind Raider. The decision to use a window box for something that will never be sold in a store (unless it’s on clearance at a Big Lots) escapes me. Actually it doesn’t, because a regular box would need cool box art and that costs money. But the real reason I would have preferred a regular box is because it’s just easier to store it and chances are, the Jet Sled may wind up in storage until I can expand my display room a bit. I guess I’ll just save the white mailer box.

Anyway, the package certainly looks great, but all the artsy-fartsy angles make it a challenge to get everything out and still keep the box intact. Nonetheless, it can be done, so we’ll call it collector friendly.

Let’s kick things off with Sky High. He was not the main attraction for me here, but I do kind of dig Matty including him with the release. I’m not a He-Mans expert, but I believe this guy is based off artwork for the Wind Raider pilot? If I’m wrong, send your “You don’t know shit about the He-Mans” hate messages to me in the comments below. Some have accused him of being a kitbash release, but this is MOTUC, so I don’t know why we need to single this guy out for what the line has been doing all along. To be honest, the only thing that struck me right away as obvious were the legs being a straight repaint from Trapjaw. Who cares? They work well on the figure. The vest is a separate and removable piece with some nice tooling on the front. It does bulk out the figure’s top quite a bit and limits how far down his arms can go, but all in all, I still dig it. Sky High doesn’t have a face, just a sculpted helmet that is delightfully reminiscent of an old Greek or Roman helm. Since Sky High is basically a dude in a flight suit, you can swap his head with another figure. I’ll finally have a use for that spare He-Man head that I have rattling around in a tote somewhere!

While I like the overall look of the figure a lot, it seems to me like Sky High took a couple steps back in overall quality. The plastic looks and feels a little rougher than what we usually get and the paintwork is especially rough. There’s slop all over the place, albeit most of it is behind his legs so at least it isn’t all that apparent until you inspect the figure more closely. I’m guessing Mattel took some shortcuts here because he is a pack-in figure, but I have no confirmation of that. It could just be I drew an unlucky figure. I’ve had very few QC issues on any of my MOTUC figures, so what’s here just tends to stand out a bit more.

Sky High has standard MOTUC articulation. Considering that I still have the vehicle to get to, let’s just leave it at that. He does, however come with a set of wings that clips to his back. I really like this piece as it’s designed to be multi-functional. It could serve as a gliding device in case our buddy gets shot down and needs to glide to the ground. Think about it, the Jet Sled is a death trap just waiting to toss you off of it so you will plummet to your death. No, the wings don’t look aerodynamically sound, so call it magic if you want! If Orko can perpetually levitate, I’ll grant it that this guy can glide back to the ground on these wings. Why not just use a parachute? Oh, for godsakes, it’s the He-Man universe, folks, where people put out fires with their robot elephant heads. Let’s just move on. The wings can also serve very nicely as a bladed weapon. Several other reviewers have also pointed out that it’s designed to look like the wings of the Wind Raider and if you sit Sky High in the Raider, it looks like another set of wings. That’s cool! I do think he should have come with a blaster pistol or something, but I have enough extra MOTUC weapons kicking around that I can lend him something.

Moving on to the main attraction is the Jet Sled. As one might have expected, this thing is just a hollow piece of plastic, but that’s really all it needs to be. And I might add that it is a beautifully sculpted and painted hollow piece of plastic. I think what impresses me most about this piece is that Matty resisted the temptation to cheap out and go with stickers. There are no stickers. Everything on this toy is sculpted and painted. That means the dragons on the sides have a nice 3D feel to them and even all the little knobs and switches on the dash board are all part of the sculpt. Every little rivet is sculpted and painted, and there’s even some decent detail work on the undercarriage. It’s kind of cool that they even left the clips on the side where this thing would plug into the non-existent Battle Ram. There are some great looking guns on this piece too!

The fit for the figure is serviceable enough. You can’t quite get the feet planted squarely on the foot pedals, but you can get it close enough that most MOTUC figure (male or female) will look credible while riding it. Once the hands are in the grips, you can woooosh it all over the place and he ain’t gonna fall off.

So, what’s here is really good, but it’s what’s not here that gives me pause. The stand you see in the pictures was borrowed from my Wind Raider. The Jet Sled is made to work with it, but you don’t get one. Wait, what? At a $50 price point, that stand really needed to be included with this set to make it cost out for me. Mattel already has the molds for the stand, they should have just stamped out a bunch more of them for the Jet Sled. It was a missed opportunity to throw a little extra value to the fans for dealing with the rest of the Matty bullshit all year round.

Nonetheless, I’m not going to let a missing stand put a damper on my enjoyment of this set. It really is a nice release and I’m kind of surprised it happened at all, considering Matty’s claims that they were disappointed with the sales performance of the Wind Raider. The price point isn’t too bad and I do like the Sky High figure. On the other hand, had Matty released the vehicle alone with a stand for ten bucks less, I probably would have bought two. But who am I to quibble with success, because the Jet Sled still sold out after just a couple of days.