I was positively giddy when Super7 announced they were doing Silverhawks figures! While admittedly nowhere near as solid as its younger toon cousin, ThunderCats, Silverhawks was one of the last cartoons I really got into before succumbing to the “I’m too cool for cartoons” teenage years. And it’s rare that I have an excuse to gas on about this cartoon, so pardon me if I get a little longwinded. The series featured the same amazing level of animation as ThunderCats, some even more colorful and bizarre characters, and a lot of the same voice actors. Larry Kenney, Lion-O himself, even narrates the opening of the pilot episode and introduces us to the characters. It follows a very similar formula to its catcentric cartoon cousin, and I’ve even read somewhere that it was intended to take place in the same universe. I’ll get more into the Silverhawks themselves when I have a look at Bluegrass next week, but today we’re looking at the reason the Silverhawks have jobs, and that’s the evil Limbo Mob Kingpin, Mon-Star!

Technically, we’re starting with the second wave, because the planned first wave was delayed. Mon-Star comes in an elongated window box to house all his extras, but the package design is similar to what we saw for the ThunderCats Ultimates, with a slipcase that lifts off to reveal the goods. The slipcase and box have a beautiful crimson foil finish and the front of the slipcase has Mon-Star’s ugly mug in his powered-up form. Much like Mumm-Ra, Mon-Star had a regular form and a powered up form, which he attained by absorbing the power of the Moon Star and reciting the incantation… “Moon Star of Limbo, give me the might, the muscle, the menace of Mon-Star!” He’s also the leader of the Limbo Galaxy’s most notorious mob of gangsters. Today we’re looking at his regular form, which unlike Mumm-Ra is pretty damn impressive all by himself! Inside the box, you get the figure, two additional heads, no less than five pairs of hands, and two versions of his buddy Sky Shadow. Also included in this wave is his throne, which is packaged separately.

Here’s Mon-Star out of the box, and like I said, he’s pretty intimidating before he even gains that might and muscle of the Moon Star! This is also the very first time we’re getting an actual figure based on this form, as the original Kenner figure was based on his powered up form, with only a changeable face to show the transformation. Mon-Star is quite literally a beast of a figure, content with waring very little in the way of clothes. He has a furry diaper to protect his mon-star modesty, although, I suppose that could just be his natural hair, because has some similar fringe coming off his forearms. And if true, that’s kind of gross. He also has some armor on his upper chest, and two shoulder pieces with spikes angled outward. He’s a savage looking creature with some chiseled muscles, all brought out in what is a solid, albeit basic sculpt. He does, however, have some pretty good detail in them monster feets. His skin is mostly black with some maroon wash here and there, a maroon finish to his armor, and some flame red touches on his furry bits.

The portraits are huge, mainly because of his wild and copious coif of lion-like hair, and it is a glorious mane. The plastic pouf radiates outward from his face with alternating red and black strands. Mon-Star also has a long tuft of red hair protruding from his chin. He’s an ugly sonuvagun with a squished nose and jagged teeth protruding from his closed lips. One piercing eye gazes forward while his left eye is covered by a patch, and bares the Light Star, one of his fiercest weapons.

The second option gives us an even wilder hair sculpt and his mouth slightly parted. I never knew what was up with that middle tooth that looks like it’s growing up out of the top of his jaw, but it sure is faithful to the cartoon. There’s a sharper angle to his right brow on this head, showing that he is more than mildly displeased.

And finally you get his Oh, shit, he’s really pissed head. The hair is even wilder, and you get a little more black wash in the red areas. His mouth is further agape, his exposed eye is wide with range, and the Light Star on his patch is clearly active. In the cartoon, the Light Star was a beam weapon, which had the power to immobilize or even take control of his targets. All three of these heads are excellent, and with the bulk of the figure being a little plain, it’s nice to see Super7 poured the sculpted detail into these portraits. As for which one to display on the figure? That’s a tough one, but chances are I’ll mostly go with the second one.

The articulation here should hold no surprises if you’ve handled any of Super7’s Ultimates. It’s not exceptional, but it gets the job done. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows with the wrists on hinged pegs so you can swap out the hands. The legs are ball jointed up in the hips and have rotating hinges in the knees and ankles. There’s a ball joint under his chest and a ball joint in his neck. The joints all feel great and while it would have been nice to have a better range of motion in the elbows, I can still have plenty of fun with him.

The number of hands here is absolutely ridiculous! You get five sets: Fists, accessory holding hands, pointing finger hands, grasping hands, and somewhat relaxed hands. It’s pretty luxurious to get a full pair of pointing fingers, and I’m not entirely sure what the accessory holding hands are for, but it’s nice to cover all the bases. He also comes with a single right trigger hand. Again, he has no weapon, but I suppose he can borrow one from his cohorts, so that’s cool.

The only accessories here are the two versions of Sky Shadow. This companion beast was introduced in Episode 9, when Mon-Star asked one of his cronies, Hardware, to make himself a cyborg bird capable of thwarting the Silverhawks spy, Tallyhawk. In the toy line, and eventually the cartoon, each character had their own bird-buddy. Sky Shadow was a sort of space dragon that was captured by Hardware and converted into a cyborg, which is just a sample of the kind of body horror that this cartoon flippantly engages in. The first version depicts Sky Shadow before getting all borged up. He’s a little bit cuter here than he was in the cartoon and looks more like a baby dragon than a vicious bird creature. It’s a nice bonus, even though he was only seen in this form briefly before he had the horrific surgeries forced upon him.

The second version is Cyborg Sky Shadow, but he’s closed up in his perched mode. It’s not the Sky Shadow that everybody wants, but that one will be included with the powered up version of Mon-Star. Indeed, this isn’t much of an accessory, as it’s kind of just a jumble of cyborg bird parts all rolled up with two lobster claws showing through. And that brings us to the throne!

This throne comes in a window box without a slipcase cover. It’s called the Transformation Chamber Throne, but I don’t remember him having to be in it to change form. Indeed, I pulled out my DVD set and watched a bunch of episodes since these figues came in and I only recall seeing the throne a few times.

And it is indeed just a big chair, but a pretty nice one. The sculpt has some granite-like fissures throughout the surface with some cutouts running up the inside back and fronts of the armrests. The back has ribbed cable-like tubes coming off and ending on the floor, presumably connecting the chair to the Transformation Chamber. It’s a cool design with a very organic and almost HR Giger feel to it. The color has a nice stone and light blue swirly look to it.

Mon-Star fits in it pretty well, with his feet firmly planted on the ground and his hands stretched out to the arm rests looking like he’s ready to start berating Yes-Man or crying about how the cursed Silverhawks defeated him yet again. For some reason, I think he looks really good seated in it with his angry head and pointing hand. Is the chair worth it? Well, at $45, I’m kind of iffy about that. It’s not nearly as iconic to me as say Mumm-Ra’s tomb, and while it is a very solid piece and looks great, I’m not sure that there’s really $45 of value here. I mainly got mine because I just pre-ordered the whole wave, which I think knocked ten bucks off of it. I’m not sorry I got it, but I wouldn’t have hunted one down if it wasn’t included in the assortment.

And while the throne is simply OK, I couldn’t be happier with how Mon-Star turned out. I’m really thrilled to finally have a figure of this version of the character, since the cartoon features him like this a lot. Not having this Mon-Star seemed like a huge gap in the original figure line. This is a beautiful figure that comes close to rivaling powered up Mumm-Ra in size, which makes me extra excited to see how big his powered up version will be when the intended first wave actually ships in a month or so. So far this line is off to a great start! I’ll try to carve out a slot for next week to take a look at the first of the Silverhawks, starting with Bluegrass!