I tried to get this one in before the month ended, but alas, no such luck. But, at the very least I’m getting it in before March’s Sale Day. This 2-pack seemed to come out of nowhere and I certainly wouldn’t have expected to see anything like it in the final year of the line (as we know it). Of course, after Toy Fair it makes a lot more sense. Matty has since revealed their MYP-based Mini Sub, which opened up for sale last Monday (Yup, I already subbed!), so it’s probably no coincidence that they gave us a little taste of MYP He-Man goodness to help push us into getting out our credit cards and subbing up like the good little He-Fans that we are.

The package is that familiar trapezoid shaped window box that has been used for Masters multi-packs in the past. In this case it feels a lot more compact with not a lot of wasted space. The window bears the “Snake Men” sticker on the front and proclaims He-Man to be “The Most Powerful Snake Hunter in the Universe” and Hssss the “Slithering Leader of the Snake Men.” At this point I might as well mention that the MYP version of He-Man is by far my favorite aspect of the Masters fiction and yeah, that’s coming from a 42 year old who grew up with the original Filmation cartoon. Despite never seeing the new series when it originally aired, I picked up the DVD box set on the cheap. It sat unopened on my shelf for months until one weekend when I was sick in bed I gorged myself on practically the whole thing and really loved it. The figures, on the other hand were another matter. I remember having to shuffle through piles of the 200x figures at the KB Toy Outlet just to get to something I actually wanted. A lot of fans blame the 200x era for Masters’ decline and disappearance from the toy aisles. It makes me wonder whether Mattel isn’t opening an old wound by revisiting this stuff, but that’s an argument for another day. Let’s kick it off with He-Man…

As someone who was not a big fan of the whole themed variants concept that ran amok in the 200x line I still have to say that I am in love with this armor. Snake Armor? Pfft… don’t care what kind of armor it is, it just looks absolutely bitchin’. I get a little medieval vibe off of it in the legs, and a major gladiator feeling off the shoulder piece. I also really dig that it keeps the He crest and at least one of the cross straps to maintain the flavor of He-Man’s iconic design. And yeah, you also get the snake and sword emblem just in case the whole Snake Armor thing is something that you do care about. Besides the overall design, the sculpt is just packed with detail. The “skirt” strips are textured to look like leather, the shoulder guard has a great hammered finish to it, and there are little cracks and dings here and here to make it all look a little battle weathered. Everything about the execution of the armor from sculpt to paint is just solid work. I also love what they did with the colors. The red, gold, and green really make the figure pop.

The portrait, on the other hand, I’m a little iffy on. Don’t get me wrong, it looks great by itself, but there’s something a little off about it as an MYP style He-Man and yet I can’t really call out any one specific thing. It seems petty to gripe about something like that on what is a really amazing looking figure, so I’m not going to dwell on it.

He-Man comes with two accessories: A pincer claw for his right gauntlet and his Power Sword. The sword is the same basic piece that came packed with Man-At-Arms waaaay back when. It may have a different paint job, but it looks quite similar to me. I was never a huge fan of this sword design, it’s probably one of my least favorite things about the MYP series, but I’m still glad he came with it and he can sling it on his back thanks to a carry strap in the armor.

As for the pincer claw, assuming that’s what it is, I’m not all that into it, so I’m especially glad that it’s removable. Although in the short time I’ve spent playing around with these figures it is starting to grow on me a bit, so he may eventually wind up displayed with the piece attached.

And that brings us to King Hssss. I can’t even begin to recount how much more I like his MYP design over the more Classic one. Is that sacrilege? I don’t know, nor do I care. This new version has more of a regal look to it, like an ancient Babylonian King and I think it really suits the character well. The segmented armor and scaled sash drive the snake motif home really well and man do I dig that gold belt with the sculpted snake face and fangs coming down over the red sash. Even the paintwork on his gorget, with the gold fringe and green snake emblem, is just beautifully done. Oh yeah, he also has Predator feet and sandals! As with He-Man, I really dig the coloring on this figure as well, particularly that gorgeous crimson paint they used on his sash.

The portrait features a very stylized face and it’s the face of a man with a very bad temper. The gray skin and piercing red eyes serve to make him look all that more monstrous and intimidating. The paintwork on the helmet features both gold and copper paint.

This version of Hssss was originally shown off with a newly sculpted snake torso and that is conspicuously missing from the box. Disappointing? Yes, especially since it looked really good, but I’m not counting it out yet. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing it bundled in somewhere down the line. Of course, if you were wondering, you can still pull him apart and slap on the old Classics Hssss snake torso as something to tide you over.

Hssss does come with his staff and shield. Suprise! We’ve seen these two molds before. I will, however, say that this is my absolute favorite version of the Snake Men staff. The shield is painted in a dark chocolate brown with a slight metallic twinge to it and it ain’t bad either.

Articulation on both of these figures is what we’ve seen all along in the line’s male bucks. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and again at the ankles. Because of the sculpt, Hssss doesn’t have a lot of movement in the ankle hinges. Both figures have ab crunches hinges, can swivel at the waist, and have ball jointed necks.

This two pack was a welcome treat, not only for being delightfully unexpected but for the simple fact that it contains two really solid figures. The He-Man is quite stunning and while I didn’t think I needed another version of Hssss, I have to say that he’s easily my favorite of the two Classics versions. The set certainly performed well for Matty and did indeed sell through, even at the non-subber price of $55. I could have seen myself paying a lot to get this He-Man on the secondary market if I had to. He’s just that good. Now the only problem is that I have absolutely no idea which of my Masters shelves to display them on.

Well, it is mighty nice to be all caught up and looking at a Matty Subscription figure in the same month that I received it. And that’s even with Matty’s slow shipping combined with February’s fewer days working against me. There were actually three figures for us Subbers in February, the first was Ninjor here and the other two were the Snake Armor He-Man and King Hssss 2-pack, which I’ll be holding over for next week. I gotta admit, I had absolutely no idea that Ninjor was a thing from the vintage line, but then I’ve never made my ignorance of all things MOTU to be a big secret. Another thing about me that isn’t a secret is I got tired real fast of what I like to call the “Ninja Saturation” of all the 80’s and 90’s toy lines. That shit practically took over GI Joe and can’t we all agree that straight up Teenage Mutant Turtles was so much better before Ninjas got involved? Wait, what?

There’s the packaging and it’s the same old awesome deco we’ve been seeing all along. There are, however, two things worth noting. First, it doesn’t say Ninjor on the front of the package, just “Ninja Warrior.” At first, I thought Ninjor just ran afoul of copyright law, but then I noticed he is referred to as Ninjor in the bio. What the hell, Matty? Of course, it concerns me not, as this package will be in the garbage two minutes after I bust this guy out. The other odd thing is the explosion of text that declares, “Uses special Ninja weapons to chop down foes!” Hey, Matty, I thought that exposition explosion was reserved for when you call reissued figures “The Original!” I just feel like up is down today. Anyway, I suppose one lone Ninja swimming in my Masters Classics soup can’t be all that bad. Let’s check him out…

Aww, yeah! This dude is bad ass! The black, red, silver and gold deco is so strikingly beautiful and that sculpted dragon and dagger emblem on his chest is superb. It almost looks like the dagger could be pulled out even though it can’t. Ninjor comes out of the package wearing one of those standard He-Man furry barbarian diapers, but he has a far more ornate belt and sash that you can attach around his waist. I think sans-belt sash is more of a vintage look, but there’s no way I’m ever displaying this guy without the sash. It’s gorgeously sculpted and painted and looks like the décor right out of a Chinese Restaurant lobby. Other finer points worth mentioning include the different texturing used for his shoulder straps and the little painted pins that are supposed to be securing his shoulder pads down. I wasn’t sure I was going to be sold on the creature feet, but in person I don’t mind them at all. They just make him look all the more freaky and intimidating. Yup, in the end, it’s obvious that a lot of love and attention was put into Ninjor’s costume and it surely paid off.

Ninjor includes two portraits. The stock head is masked allowing you to only see his narrow red pupil-less eyes and the bridge of his nose. With a quick head pop-and-swap, you also can display him with his unmasked head and might I say it is quite a phenomenal sculpt. Ninjor is sporting a fiendish looking stache and goatee and a pair of eyebrows that would make Peter Capaldi jealous. He also features some unfortunate male pattern baldness, but he compensates with a ponytail laced up and sticking straight out the back of his noggin. Toss in those gritting teeth and creepy red eyes and you’ve got one formidable looking foe wih loads of personality!

Despite his line of work, Ninjor isn’t any more nimble than any of the other male folk from Eternia. In other words, you get standard articulation here. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders, swivels at biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and hinged at the knees. There are swivels at the tops of the boots and the ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. Ninjor can swivel at the waist, he has a ball joint at the neck, and despite his bulky vest, he can still make use of his ab crunch hinge.

Ninjor comes with a nice array of weapons to help him kill the good guys. You get a bow and arrow, a quiver of arrows, a katana sword, and a set of nunchuks. The bow and arrow is nothing special. It’s all sculpted in one piece and painted silver, so it doesn’t look particularly great and with Ninjor’s bulkiness and articulation being what it is, good luck getting him to hold it convincingly. I almost wish they had just sculpted it without the arrow knocked.

The sword and nunchuks on the other hand are both very cool. More then a few MOTUC accessories these days feel like they’ve been lacking paint apps, like… for example… oh, hey, the bow that I just looked at! That’s certainly not the case with the katana and chuks. The katana has a silver painted blade and the hilt and pommel are actually painted separately from the black braided grip making it a very impressive little piece of work. Even the simplistic paint job on the chuks, with the silver chain and black ends is a welcome treat.

Lastly, you have the quiver. It’s brown and textured to look like leather with silver painted arrows sculpted to look like they’re sticking out of the top. The coolest thing about the quiver is that it has clips for the bow and either the sword or chuks, so Ninjor can wield one weapon and comfortably wear the rest on his back. I always respect a figure that can carry all of their gear.

And so, Ninjor turned out to be the little Ninja that could. He won my heart over thanks to his great coloring, fantastic sculpt, and his fun little arsenal of killing tools. I’m going to be hard pressed to decide which head to display him with, as I love the work that went into the unmasked head, but the masked head looks great too. I’d be tempted to pick up a couple more and leave them masked as his goons, but Ninjor was a popular fella and he sold out. The only other downside of Ninjor is that he makes me wish I had picked up Jitsu back before he hit $75 on the secondary market. It would be cool to have a nemesis for Ninjor to fight, but even I have my limits on what I’m willing to spend on these figures. Too bad, Matty didn’t roll him out again for the February Sale. It seems like a missed opportunity.

Well, it was a long and hard-fought struggle, but I’m finally ready to open my last backlogged MOTUC figure. That will give me plenty of time to get to Lizard Man next week and then I can just sit back and wait for February’s Sub to roll in. Yeah, I know, I still have the unopened Star Sisters kicking around somewhere, but they don’t count. I’ve had them forever and I’m saving them for a rainy day. Today I’m tackling the second half of the Bow and Arrow duo with Bow’s winged steed, Arrow.

We don’t get to see the MOTUC beast box all that often, but here it is again. This one is taller than the one that housed The Griffin, but it’s still just a large window box with the same Greyskull deco that we see on the carded figures. For some reason I expected Arrow’s bio to be replete with wackiness, but it’s actually one of the most sane and pedestrian bio’s I’ve read in the entire line. Turns out he’s just a horse named Arrow that can fly. A lot of collectors seemed to be unhappy about Arrow being included in the Sub. Maybe they felt he belonged in the Club Etheria Mini-Sub? Maybe they just didn’t think that Bow was important enough to get his own ride? Or maybe they’re just a surly bunch that seem to nitpick everything that Matty does with this marvelous line of action figures? I don’t know, but I can’t blame Matty for wanting to reuse the Swiftwind mold, and since I don’t own Swiftwind, this toy is completely fresh and new to me. Anyway, Arrow comes packaged with his wings wrapped in plastic and tethered to the bottom of the tray, so let’s start with a look at the un-winged version of this stallion.

With Arrow out of the box I have to say this is one beautifully sculpted horse. There are a lot of nice little details, like the contours of the muscles, the veins, and even the folds in the skin at the crook of his neck. The proportions seem really good too. He’s got a glorious, flowing tail that cascades out of his hinder and a mane of bristles that gives him a certain Grecco-Roman warlike quality. Most of the bridal and fixtures are part of the sculpt or permanently attached, although the reins and saddle are both separate pieces and the saddle can be removed simply by unclasping it down near Arrow’s belly. The reigns are cast in soft plastic, which make them easy to work with when trying to get a rider to hold on.

Speaking of which, I was a little concerned about how well Bow was going to be able to sit on Arrow. We all remember Matty having to release an entirely new She-Ra figure in order to have her sit on Swiftwind. Well, the truth is that Bow, or most other MOTUC male bucks, is a comfy fit and looks pretty damn good riding on top of Arrow. The only issue is the stirrups, which don’t seem to work all that well with the position of the figure’s legs, so I just let them hang loose and ignore them.

If you’re up for Arrow in all his winged glory, you need only remove the two “shoulder” pieces, which are plugged into hexagonal sockets. I make it sound easy, but holy hell it ain’t. I had to resort to prying these sum’bitches out of the horse with the handle of a box cutter. Once out, you just plug the wings into the sockets just like on The Griffin.

Arrow does sport some wild coloring. The horse itself is a kind of odd tanish-white that makes him look like a white horse that’s gone jaundice. It seems like a strange choice considering the blue coloring on the artwork used for the bio. The horse itself does, however, have a pleasing and subtle pearlescent sheen to it. The wings feature a brightly colored plumage consisting of orange, mauve, and blue. The orange matches Arrow’s mane, tail, and hooves, while the mauve matches most of his fixturing. I don’t really find these to be super appealing colors, but the deco certainly makes Arrow stand out on the shelf.

Arrow’s articulation consists of a lot of good points, but none of them have a wide enough range of motion to really make a big difference. You The legs all rotate a bit at the “shoulders” and they have hinges at the “knees” and again down near the “ankles.” The tail can swivel at the connection point, and there’s a hinge at the base of Arrow’s neck and again near the head. The result is you can do a little bit of tweaking, but not much in the way of action poses. In the end Arrow is mostly still going to be standing there.

Why aren’t there more horses in action figure lines? The last one I picked up was probably the one for Hasbro’s 3 3/4” Indiana Jones figure. Whatever the reason, I’d love to see more because Arrow is a great figure and offers a really unique way to display Bow. Having him in hand makes me regret not picking up Swiftwind when I had the chance, but again… I really didn’t think Mattel was going to go all out for the Princess of Power line. I don’t know, maybe if I already had Swiftwind, I’d feel that Arrow was too redundant and unwarranted, but as things stand I’m glad to have a horse represented in my MOTUC display shelves. And NECA… if you’re listening, we sure could use some horses for those Gorilla Soldiers from your Classic Planet of the Apes line. Just saying.

I’m still working my way through opening the Masters Classics figures that I got from Matty’s Cyber Monday Week last year and today I’m ripping open this magnificent beast! I’ve had my eye on the Griffin for a long time, probably ever since it was first released, but I’ve hesitated due to his size and my problems finding new display space. Turns out if you discount something enough I forget about the whole display space problem and buy it anyway. I’m wacky that way!

The packaging is pretty standard stuff for the larger beast figures, but we see it rather infrequently so it’s still kind of novel. The Griffin comes in an oddly shaped window box with the same Greyskull-inspired deco as the regular figure cards. The huge window certainly offers a great look at the figure inside. Be sure to take note of the tagline, “Evil Flying Beasts.” That’s “beasts” plural, which is Matty’s subliminal way of saying, “dudes, you all totally need to army build this guy!” Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Anyway, the box is sorta, kinda collector friendly if you worked at it hard enough, but I will likely be trashing it because… you know… display space problems.

The back of the box has a whole bunch of figures pictured. How’s my score? Well, I’m only missing two of them: Webstor and Kobra Khan. Both of those are creeping up there in price, so I may have to just live without them. Anyway, the Griffin’s bio isn’t terribly interesting, although it does declare them not natives of Eternia. Considering what a bizarre place Eternia is, I’m kind of surprised the planet was Griffon-free until some “Star Merchants” imported them. Well, let’s open this beast up and get him out.

Back when we got Battle Cat, we all knew that the body would be re-purposed as Panthor and since then we also got Battle Lion, a figure I certainly wasn’t asking for, but it turned out to be pretty good nonetheless. In between all those releases came this Griffin and I think he’s one of the finest examples that Matty can really work magic with parts recycling when they want to. With Battle Cat’s beastly buck repainted a lush chocolate brown, a couple of added sockets for a set of majestic wings, and some exceptionally finely sculpted new parts, I fell in love with this thing the moment I got him out of the box and all set up.

There’s plenty of great work to be seen on this big guy, but I find my eyes are instantly drawn to his wings. The sculpted texture on the feathers is dang near breathtaking and the contours make them look great in a number of different poses, whether tucked to the sides or spread for flight.

In addition to those wonderful wings, the new parts include a forked tail, a pair of bird talons on the back legs, and a reculpted neck with a mohawk of sculpted hair running from the head and disappearing under the saddle. Of course, the most impressive new piece of sculpting on this guy is the superb head. With four sinister looking eyes and a viscious hinged beak, this beast is just dripping with character right down to the feathers sticking out of his fur and his pointed bat-like ears. The detail in the beak includes some weathering, cracks and chips that make him look well battle worn.

Being built off the Battle Cat buck, The Griffin shares the same excellent articulation. The hind legs rotate at the hips, are hinged at the knees and again at that second knee (for lack of a better term), and they are ball jointed at the ankles. The front legs rotate at the shoulders and have ball joints at the knees and ankles. The head can raise and lower and twist side to side and there’s a swivel in the body, just behind the shoulders. As already mentioned, the tail is on a ball joint. The wings are attached using rotating hinges, giving them a nice range of motion and the joints are strong enough to hold them up. Indeed, all the joints on this guy feel a little tighter than on my Battle Cat.

The Griffin is one damn fine looking toy and a wonderfully creative reuse of the Battle Cat buck. Chances are he is going to wind up on my MOTUC shelf with Beast Man riding him, but I’m equally tempted to loan him out to my LJN Advanced Dungeons & Dragons display. He looks like he would fit in with those guys quite well. I may have one of the Titan-sized figures riding him, or I may have my entire party of good guys fighting him off. Either way, he’s a welcome piece for my collection!

Heya, Toyhounds, and welcome back! Before the week of insufferable lists, I ended things with a MOTUC feature and promised another one when I returned. I was going to open up one of the Beasts, but then I saw that I had specifically mentioned Gwildor, so I guess that’s who I’m opening today. The Masters of the Universe is a crazy film. It seems as if Masters fanboys should hate it, and yet I encounter a lot more love for it than I would have ever expected. As someone who was never a rabid part of the fandom as a kid, I didn’t see this movie until it first hit HBO or Showtime, but I remember watching at least some of it whenever I found that it was on. It’s a troubled movie full of budgeting problems (both planned and unforeseen) and I have to say that all things considered, I think they did a respectable job with it. It’s certainly not what fans wanted, but I can still gleen a certain amount of kitchy enjoyment from it. I know, back when I reviewed Blade I said that if Matty did one more movie figure I would watch the film for that feature. Well, I’m going to renege on that because I don’t have easy access to the movie. Maybe next time.

And there he is in his rather larger than normal packaging. Strange how such a little figure needed a bigger package, especially when they were able to cram all of Mermista’s girl and fish parts into a normal package. Well, what Gwildor lacks in length he makes up for in girth (right, ladies?)  and he also has one pretty damn big accessory (right, ladies?). This was the “Holiday Figure” for Club Eternia and I honestly have no idea what it means, only that I was contractually obligated to buy it as part of my subscription and I’m perfectly OK with that. His biography on the back of the card does not say anything about his love for buckets of chicken, ability to converse with bovines, or his advanced certificate in auto mechanic customization, but it does make some references to the Cosmic Key that was featured so prominantly in the 1987 film.

And here’s the little guy out of the package. If you aren’t familiar with the film, Gwildor served as comic relief and the all important Keeper of the Mcguffin, and if not, that’s OK because, as I think is often the case with this line, you don’t need to know the character to enjoy the figure. The first thing that impresses me about Gwildor is the wonderful job T4H did on his portrait. Keeping in mind that the overwhelming majority of these figures are based on concept art or vintage figures, it’s quite a stretch designing a figure based on a character in a live action film. Sure, Gwildor had a vintage figure but it obviously looked nothing like this one. T4H really nailed the likeness beautifully. And by that I mean, he’s ugly as sin. Gwildor’s giant noggin is framed by a spectacular mane of sculpted orange hair with two pointed ears poking out the top and a haggard face nestled in the middle. His face features all the wrinkles and blemishes of the make up used in the film. He even has that slightly wonky right eye.

Gwildor’s body is clad in sculpted soft plastic robes. Again, there’s some splendid detail in the sculpt, including the scrollwork surrounding the buttons on his coat and the embossed ornamentation on his inner garment. The trim around his sleeves and shoulders is painted with red and gold fringe and you can see some more beautiful scrollwork and gold fringe on the back of his coat. He has an intricate system of chains, what appear to be pocketwatches, sculpted and neatly painted in gold, and his coat is loaded with pockets, some of which have sculpted and painted contents peeking out the tops. I can’t really find anything about the sculpt or paintwork to fault on this little figure,. He’s just a fine example of loving design and craft all around.

The drawback on a figure like Gwildor is found in the articulation. Between the diminished size and the sculpted teepee-style costume, poseability has to take a hit, but what’s here is still certainly passable. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, ball joints in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs appear to be set in a T-crotch and have swivels just above the boots, but the only reason to mess with the legs is to get him to a comfortable standing position, which rarely seems necessary as he’s stands just fine. Lastly, you get a ball joint in the neck, which is understandably limited by all that sculpted hair.

Gwildor comes with three accessories: You get his staff and two versions of The Cosmic Key. The staff is a pretty simple brown piece with a white crystal on the top and a fine representation of the staff he carried in the movie. It’s a cool steampunk design with a shaft sculpted to represent wood and some technological doo-dads sculpted on the top. Some paint hits to the electronics would have been cool, but this line has never been big about paint apps on the accessories.

The smaller Cosmic Key is designed to be held and features some fairly intricate sculpting. The tuning forks on the top are cast in soft plastic so it was necessary for me to do a little bending to get them straight, but all in all, not bad.

The last accessory is the activated Key, which is notably larger than the hand held accessory. Again, there’s some excellent sculpting on this piece and even some great weathered silver paintwork. The base and central part are painted gold and the tuning forks are cast in a harder red plastic this time around. They can also rotate around the Key, which is a nice little touch.

I’ll confess that I would have been a lot more excited about Gwildor if we had (or were getting) more figures from the film for him to go with. Don’t get me wrong, he fits in fine with the diverse population of my Eternian shelves, but other than hanging out with Blade, he still looks kind of lonely. I know Matty is focused right now on just getting out new versions of the vintage figures to wrap up the line in 2015, but I’d love to see another mini-sub offering the movie-style versions of the main characters. Matty supposedly has plans for rebranding the line in 2016, so I guess anything is possible. Either way, Gwildor certainly represents one of the most impressive sculpts in this line, which is kind of ironic for such a goofy little guy.

So, my December box from Matty Collector arrived yesterday dramatically increasing the already large stack of unopened MOTUC figures in the corner. Damn, and I was just starting to make a dent in it too! Better get on those. Today I’m opening one of the figures that Matty re-issued for sale in November and it is Snake Face. Hmm… I wonder what he’s all about!

Looking at him through the bubble, I can just about get a taste of the nightmares that this unholy thing is going to induce. The package consists of the usual Greyskull inspired deco and the bubble features a “Snake Men” sticker, just in case you were unsure about the faction of a guy named Snake Face who is a snake man with snakes coming out of every orifice on his head. SNAKES!!! This guy makes Serpentor from GI JOE look subtle by comparison. The bio is mostly uninteresting to me, although it does declare that he has been enchanted with the power to turn people to stone. I’m also guessing he has the power to make me shit myself if I ever saw him in real life. Because he looks like this…

Christ almighty! Matty really dialed up the disturbing factor to about an eleven on this figure. Since MOTUC is technically an adult collector line, I went back to find a picture of the vintage figure to see if the Mattel of yesteryear had inflicted this same level of horror on kids and I was pretty shocked to see that they had. The vintage figure is possibly made even a tad more disturbing by his functioning action feature and the fact that he’s aimed at eight year old kids. I looked in vain to find an actual commercial featuring this guy, but I did unearth this disturbing slice of nightmare fuel made all the worse by its poor quality.  Anywho, let’s back up and check out the figure.

Even in his basic form, Snake Face gives me the creeps and a lot of it has to do with his open fangy maw. It looks like he’s dislocated his jaw and is about to attempt to eat something his own size. All of the Snake Men have been pretty solid figures, but there’s just something about this dude’s portrait that just oozes character. His helmet kind of reminds me of the ones worn by the Palace Guard, which makes me want to throw out his bio and just pretend this guy was once a human guard who got all snaked up, just like poor Duncan. One of the cool things about his helmet is all those snakes actually have their tails hanging down the back to form a ghastly pony tail.

The rest of Snake Face is somewhat low key. I do really dig the the extra scaly texturing on his arms and the snakes that wrap around his fore arms. His purple scaled undies are a questionable choice, but his vest has a really nice black finish and some decent sculpted detail. The vest is a bit chunky on him and Snake Face has a bit of a problem getting his arms down to his sides… Yes, I mean even more so than most MOTUC figures. That’s not such a big deal for me because this guy is going to be posed on my shelf with his arms held up in an “oogity boogity” fashion and in full snake deployment mode.

And that brings us back to Snake Face when he’s all snaked out, which is primarily achieved with a swappable head. If it isn’t enough that he has blood red snakes pouring out of his mouth, eye holes and from behind his ears, he also has two removable straps on his vest that allow you to plug in two additional snakes pouring out of his belly. I don’t care if I was the most powerful man in the universe, if this guy was coming at me, I’d drop my sword and run for the hills. Seriously, f’ck that shit!

Snake Face comes with a pretty cool shield with a very distinctive design. Can you guess what it is? SNAKES! Yeah, you got it. And just to make sure his chosen theme isn’t too subtle, he also comes with a snake staff. It’s the same one we’ve seen a whole bunch of times now, only this time it’s molded in green plastic, which I find a lot more appropriate than the black one that came with Tung Lashor. Obviously these snake staffs are handed out at Snake Men Orientation.

In a world where misguided parents are fighting to get Heisenberg figures off the pegs, it’s probably a good thing Snake Face here is by online subscription only. While the Walter White figure might promote kids to play meth dealer, Snake Face here will straight up give kids a glimpse into a Meth fueled hell ride. They should have just called him Methamphetamine Psychosis-or. Hmm… on second thought, maybe they should sell this guy on the pegs as some kind of misguided PSA. Either way, I absolutely love this figure. He’s easily one of the creepiest pieces in my collection and he’s given me a new appreciation for my little Snake Men army.