I’m beginning to wind down on my Masters Origins collecting, which some may say is a no-brainer since the line itself is beginning to wind down quite a bit. But in my case, I’m just not really following the releases too closely now that the the line is less of a general retailer thing and more like exclusives all over the place. I love this line to death, but I’m done with stressing over missing a release or going back and paying extra to get one that I did miss. Still, I’ve got more than a few figures left to look at, and I will be dipping my toe into the Filmation-style releases to see how deep I want to go there. Anyway, today I’m checking out two of the Snake Men… Rattlor and Kobra Khan!

The figures come in the usual glorious retro-style card and bubble, but now with the Snake Men branding encroaching on the top and Snake Men stickers on the bubbles. We first saw this new bit of packaging flair when I had a look at Dragon Blaster Skeletor, only the figures are actual Snake Men for reals this time. I have very little experience with this faction, since I never owned the toys as a kid and my only real exposure to MOTU was through the Filmation cartoon. I think the first time I knew anything about the Snake Men faction was watching the MYP 200x series and eventually first owned figures based on them from Mattel’s MOTU Classics line. Let’s start with Rattlor!

By now it’s a given that the figure is based closely on the original vintage release with some minor updates to include the added articulation and whatnot. With that being said, this is an absolutely gorgeous figure with a lot more unique sculpting than I’m used to seeing in this line. You get some crazy detail in his scaly chest and some softer scales sculpted elsewhere on his body, and more defined ridges running down his arms and legs. The tail piece is cast in softer plastic and pegs into his back making a nearly seamless extension of the body with more sharp detail. The undercarriage of the tail is still left hollow, which may disappoint some, but it is at least faithful to the original toy.

And in addition to all that lovely sculpting, it’s the coloring on this figure that helps to really makes it shine. Rattlor has sort of a ketchup and mustard motif going on with some vibrant yellow and red with some added electric blue to make the whole toy a feast for the eyes. I especially love the way the edge of the tail has that gradual shift from red to orange. A little additional green for the sculpted snake emblem on the belt is the icing on the top of this gorgeous snake cake.

Rattlor’s head features an open mouth with yellow eyes and stubby white fangs and more of those sculpted scales. The original toy had a gimmick where the neck would extend, and here that same effect is achieved by adding an extended neck piece, which connects to the ball joint in the neck hole and another in the head itself. It’s not as fun as the neck actually extending, but it’s still a decent way to portray one of Rattlor’s unique skills. His other is the rattle itself, which you get when you shake the body. It’s not exactly high end engineering, as there’s just a bit of plastic in there banging around, but it works.

Finally, Rattlor comes with a snake staff, which I think was common with several of the Snake Men. The red accessory features a snake winding its way around a central staff with its mouth agape and it’s rattlor erect. The weapon looks great, but it’s kind of a weird flex, like if humans walked around carrying staffs with little sculpted humans hugging them. OK… on to Kobra Khan!

Kobra Khan is a lot less flashy than his buddy Rattlor, and he doesn’t feature as much new sculpting, but he still makes for a faithful update to the vintage figure. The bulk of the new stuff here is in his torso, which has some rather softly detailed scales and two maroon stripes running like suspenders from his shoulders down to his belt, and three similar set of ridges running down his back. His recycled arms have tufts of fur on the forearms, which… um OK, and he has maroon scaled undies and boots. There’s a some variance between the flat olive green of his limbs and the glossier olive of his torso, which may not have been all that intentional, but it does make for a nice bit of variety in the deco.

Kobra Khan’s head is is a disgusting puckered maw, which slightly resembles a pitted olive with eyes. There’s some nice paint flairs found around the eyes and edges of the mouth, and the whole thing is extremely similar to the vintage figure’s head, which was designed to spit water.

Mattel nixed this gimmick here in favor of an effect part that plugs into his gob. The neon green loogie is cast in semi-transparent plastic and it looks really cool. I was a bit surprised that the water spray gimmick wasn’t included since we just saw something similar in the Dragon Blaster Skeletor, but the effect part looks so good, I think this was the right way to go!

Kobra Khan also comes with an orange pistol, which isn’t one of my favorite designs, but at least it gives him an extra way to attack when the spit dries up.

No doubt about it, the first Snake Men in my Origins collection get my seal of approval. Rattlor is certainly the winner here as he’s just flashy as all hell and so damn unique. I’m actually surprised Mattel didn’t release him as a Deluxe and just spread out the tail and neck on a larger card. But Kobra Khan is no slouch either and I think his spit effect is a great addition to this updated version of the figure. I’ll have some more Snake Men to look at when I next visit with this line, but I guess I already missed out on King Hiss and Snake Armor He-Man. I never saw either at retail and they sold out at most online places I shop. I did get the variant of Snake Armor He-Man in a recent multipack, and maybe I’ll pony up some extra dollars to get Hiss, but that’s a great example of why I’m about ready to put this line to bed.