The MOTU Origins figures continue piling up, and I feel as if it’s been too long since I last visited with this delightful line. But, since one of the new Deluxe figures was just spat toward my doorstep via Amazon Toy-Drone, I bumped Clamp Champ to the head of the line, so let me pour another Jameson and sing him in on….

It’s Clamp Champ!
Who?
He’s the Champ of the Clamp!
What??
Not to be confused with Tramp Stamp!
What’s he called?
You deaf son? He’s CLAMP CHAMP… Yeeeeah!!!

How do you stand out in Eternia when you aren’t half-skunk, covered in moss, half robot-elephant, or have a telescoping neck? You get in the garage and build yourself a giant mechanical clamp! And that’s exactly what Clamp Champ did! As one of the Deluxe figures, he comes in a larger vintage-styled card for his extra goodies. The TechnoClamp has been renamed the Power Pincer, which leads me to question why he isn’t called Pincer Champ, but whatever. I love the larger card and bubbles. It makes it look like an old timey rack toy. Sadly, these are not collector friendly, so let me get with the ripping!

Naturally, Champ uses the standard MOTU hero buck, and as this line is modular, he can be pulled apart at all the usual points. My figure actually has a pretty weak connection at the waist, so he will sometimes pull in half when I’m messing around with him. Werid. Clampy has some nice silver paint on his wrist bracers and belt, and some red paint on his furry diaper and the fringe at the tops of his black boots. He wears a rubbery plastic vest, which makes him look rather swol, but also adds some blue to the costume deco, and his color is painted with more of that scrummy silver. He’s a great looking figure!

I was surprised to see that Clamp Man comes with two heads, one with a serious clamping expression and one smiling. I really dig them both, and it’s going to be a tough call on which one to go with for regular display. Maybe the smiling one, since all the other figures look so serious all the time. I’ll note here that Sir Clamp also comes with an extra accessory-holding left hand. I’ll likely go with this one all the time, since his relaxed hand has the fingers kind of warped. It’s like he was testing the clamp on this hand and things got out of control.

Wow, and that brings us to the clamp itself. Even in the batshit crazy world of Eternia, this is one of the most impractical and ungainly weapon I’ve ever seen. He can barely hold it comfortably, let alone wield it in any convincing fashion. And all that makes it so incredibly wonderful. He grips it from a simple peg underneath and there’s a switch on the top that deploys the fluorescent orange pincer claws. I’d like to think that Champ’s backstory is he had planned to get this thing as a cybernetic replacement for his right arm, but then didn’t want to cut his arm off, so he just carries it around.

The claw is perfectly sized to fit around the waist of your average Eternian ne’er-do-well. And since they’re spring loaded they stay put pretty well. I’d like to think Champ’s favorite one-liner is, “Looks like you brought a gun to a clamp fight.” Actually, I take that back. His catch-phrase should be, “You mess with the Champ, You get the Clamp!”

Clamp Champ also comes with a smaller clamp weapon, so it’s like he planned for the big thing getting too heavy to carry all day. This is a non-articulated accessory of a smaller and more lethal looking clamp, with serrated claws.

I’m a little surprised that they got to Clamp Champ so soon in the Origins line, but then again they are turning out these figures pretty damn fast. As I haven’t picked up the Battle Armor He-Man and Skeletor yet, this is the first of these Deluxe figures in my collection. At $19.99, these Deluxes are about five bucks more than the regular ones, which still feels like a pretty good value, as there’s a lot of extra plastic in here.