Behold the MOTUC packaging!!! Ok, so we’ve seen it before and it hasn’t changed. This is the re-issue of the figure, so you’ll note the sticker on the front of the bubble that says “The Original!” which is oddly enough Matty’s way of labeling the figure as not being the original. Anywho, the packaging is as brilliant and as beautiful as ever, and this remains one of the few lines of action figures that really makes me a little sad over tearing open. I was even more sad when I opened it, because boy does it stink. Moss Man would make an awesome Christmas present because right out of the package he smells like pure 100 percent concentrated Christmas shoved right up your nose.

So, in case you missed the whole flocking controversy, the unflocking of Moss Man’s ears was a running change during the production of the first issue Moss Man figure. As a result a small number of the figures had flocked ears before Matty changed it. As expected, the re-issue of Moss Man has the unflocked ears. I still can’t understand whether that whole hub-bub was because some insane collectors actually cared that much over the flocking of the ears, or just because they wanted a version of the figure that would later be rare. If I was a huge Moss Man fan, I guess I would care more, but such as it is, unflocked ears are fine with me.

Moss Man reuses a lot of Beast Man’s parts. With the mossy flocking it’s kind of hard to tell how much, but I’m guessing most of this body is Beast Man, including one of the two swappable heads. The Beast Man head is the one that’s attached in the package and it’s the one that pays homage to the vintage figure. This one is my least favorite of the heads, mainly because it just looks like Beast Man with a Chia Pet growing on his head. The other head pays more homage to the MYP/200x series and gives the figure a more serene and heroic look to him, and it’s this one that I prefer to display on my figure.

There’s not much to say about the rest of the body. The flocking is surprisingly well done. I seriously expected it to be coming off in my hands as I handled the figure, but so far it’s stayed in place, although it does have an annoying habit of attracting the buckets of hair that my cat leaves around the house. The area around Moss Man’s joints are left unflocked to prevent rubbing but the green paint of the plastic matches pretty well.

Moss Man is not exactly inundated with accessories, but I’m guessing that’s because the flocking ate up a lot of the figure’s production costs. He does come with a sash that holds a sculpted pouch and a sheath for his small removable dagger. He also comes with a mace that’s sculpted to look like he crafted it out of wood and vines and whatever else Swamp Thing Moss Man could find in the swamp forest.

I like this figure. It’s nice, but I think my original hesitation to buy him was still justified. I had little interest in Optikk or Carnivus, but getting those figures in hand really made me love them and love the characters. That isn’t really the case with Moss Man. I’m not disappointed in him. I’m not sorry I bought him. But I don’t think my collection would have suffered any for him being absent. The flocking is a cool novelty, although I really, really could have done without the smell. Seriously, it’s been on my shelf for almost a week now and it’s really starting to bug me.

As with all other MOTUC releases, the goods come in a big white mailer box that says Weapons Rack right on the front. Open that up and the rest of the whole shebang comes on a huge card with the weapons rack on the left and the accessories grouped into four separate bubbles on the right. The back of the card taunts you with a bunch of figures you can’t buy anymore. Ha! The card features the same type of deco we see on the figures. It’s a remarkably attractive presentation for something as utilitarian as this set.

The rack itself is really nicely done. I really didn’t know what to expect, but the wood grain is beautifully detailed and the pegs that hold the weapons protrude from both sides so you can store gear both front and back. There are also hooks on each end of the crossbar. The logs on the end of each of the supports allow you to clip shields onto there. It’s a very detailed sculpt with paint apps to separate the wood from the metal fixtures. It’s not all that heavy, but it is definitely sturdy and stands well.

You get nine accessories all together. They include a shield, three pole arms, a battle axe, a mace, two guns and a short sword. Some of these pieces I recognize from figures I own, for example the halberd from Scareglow, Man at Arms’ sword and pistol, and Buzz-Off’s battleaxe. The polearms are all cast in silver while the rest of the gear are metallic red. I would have rather had everything in silver, but at least there isn’t anything pink in here. Overall, I like the assortment of gear in here and I particularly like the way the rack is set up so that you can arrange the pieces any way you want, and there’s still plenty of room for more.

The Rack retailed at $12.99 on Matty. I can hardly believe I’m saying this about a Matty online item, but this is actually a pretty decent deal, so long as you’re buying another figure with it to defray the cost of shipping. It just seems like I got my money’s worth with it and while I love the MOTUC figures to death, good value isn’t something I usually attribute to this line.

Shadow Beast comes in a really big white mailer box. I guess if you bought Gygor you know what to expect, but I passed over the big Mellow Yellow Ape in favor of this guy, so I was suitably surprised by the size. Out of the mailer, the package is a large window box that is very much in keeping with the overall presentation of the smaller carded figures. A little patience can get him out of the box without mauling it, so the packaging is pretty collector friendly. I am glad, however, I’m not a MISB collector, because my Shadow Beast came with his massive club clanging around loose inside the box.

I’m really thrilled with the way this figure turned out. The head sculpt is superb and suitably menacing and I love the pupil-less red eyes and the horn that pokes up from the top of his head. We all know that Filmation original designs are off limites to Mattel and The Four Horseman, but this figure is pretty darn close to the design I remember from the cartoon. I’m guessing that’s because of the similarity between the cartoon version and the one in the comic. Either way, purists should be mighty happy with the way this guy looks. The paintwork isn’t as outlandish as Gygor, which may be good or bad, depending on how you see it. I like the traditional browns used here over the radioactive neon used on Gygor, but there’s no doubt that if you have both of these beasts on your shelf, Gygor is the one that’s going to stand out.

I wouldn’t say that Shadow Beast is super articulated, but he has a fair amount of poseability for what he is. His head is ball jointed, as are his shoulders. He has swivel cuts in his biceps and wrists and hinges in his elbows. His stubby little legs have swivels cuts at the hips, which give him a little bit of useful movement there, and allows you to put him in a really goofy seated position. Of course, if you already own Gygor than you know all of this.

Shadow Beast comes with one accessory: A honking big club! It really is massive and it’s sculpted to look like a tree limb (or trunk!) with leather straps wrapped around it for a grip and iron studs scattered around the head, because let’s face it, getting hit in the face with a tree isn’t bad enough, so you need to add iron studs to make your point. The figure can hold the club pretty well, although sometimes you need to jimmy it around in his hand so that he can get a good grip on it. His joints are also tight enough so that he can hold the club above his head, although I’m not sure how long that will be the case.

I’ll admit to being a little cautious about buying this figure. It’s sometimes hard enough for me to justify the $28 a pop for the regular MOTUCfigures and Shadow Beast set me back $41 with the shipping. Ultimately, I’m very happy with my decision to get him, although I am still glad that I just went with one of the two figures based on this body sculpt. Nothing against Gygor, he looks like a great figure and one of these days I may still pick him up, but the Shadow Beast fits in with my Masters of the Universe nostalgia much better. He’s a beautifully sculpted figure and I well deserved addition to my collection.

Since I’ve skipped a few figures here and there, it’s getting a little tougher for me to identify where some of the parts are being reused. Basically a good portion of Buzz-Off is new to me, but I’m guessing that some of these parts were used on maybe Whiplash or Webstor, two of the few figures I don’t own. Either way, Buzz-Off is refreshingly original looking and really stands out among my other figures in the collection. And any figure that can stand out in this crowd of circus freaks, well that’s really saying something.

There’s a lot of great texturing all over this figure. It’s on his feet, his shoulders and it’s on the darker segments of his torso. I love the fact that his bee-styled torso isn’t just striped with paint apps, but rather a brand new sculpt. The head sculpt is well done, again with some great texture work sculpted into the “hair” and an awesome shimmery green paint applied to the eyes. He even has little fangs protruding from his top lip. The claws were a bit of a surprise to me, but I like them as they further enhance his alien appearance. They aren’t articulated, but they still work very well in allowing him to hold his weapons.

Buzz-Off’s wings are absolutely fantastic. They’re translucent with a greenish-yellow tint and have sculpted details that resemble both the membranes in a real insect’s wings as well as circuitry. They’re attached to his back via ball joints, so they can be positioned up or down or in a variety of other ways. He also has two insect like legs coming off his back below the wings, and these are also ball jointed.

Buzz-Off comes with a nice collection of accessories. He has a pole-axe, a smaller one-handed fighting axe, and a helmet that slides over the top of his head. The pole axe is a cool trademark weapon for him, since the tip of it looks like a bees stinger. I believe the smaller hand axe may have been one of the weapons circulated in one of the weapons packs. The helmet is kind of silly looking, and I prefer to display him without it, but I think it may be growing on me.

Buzz-Off features standard MOTUC articulation, which includes: A ball jointed neck, Arms with ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. His legs feature ball jointed hips, and hinges in the knees and ankles. He can swivel at the waist, and while it doesn’t look like it, he does still have the ab crunch in his torso, just a lot lower and well disguised between his segments. He also has the aforementioned ball joints for his wings and his insect legs.

While I keep telling myself that I have most of the core characters I want, and won’t be buying as many of these figures in the next year, Matty keeps suckering me back in. Buzz-Off was certainly not on my list of must own figures in the line, and yet in the end, I couldn’t resist picking him up. He’s just a great example of everything that is fun and quirky about this toy line. Is he really worth the $30 he costs with tax and shipping? Well, let’s just say that some people’s mileage may vary.

Ok, I don’t have a lot to say about the figure himself, because he’s been out forever and I’m guessing that most anyone who wants one has one by now. Besides, everyone knows He-Man. He’s that big muscular dude in a furry diaper. The sculpt is excellent. The head is more or less the same as the one that came on my Battle Armor He-Man. His harness includes the loop on the back so that he can store his sword or battle axe. Thankfully, the shoulder snafu on the original figure was fixed for the releases. The paint apps on my figure are pretty much immaculate, but then that’s been the case with almost all my MOTUC figures, so by this point I expect nothing less.

He-Man comes with a lot of great accessories. You get his sword, along with the half of the Power Sword, a battle axe and a shield. The sword is an especially nice treat for me since I didn’t have a proper sword for my Battle Armor He-Man and he had to make do with the 200x style sword that came with Man-At-Arms. The battle axe is the same that came with my Battle Armor He-Man. The shield is pretty cool and clips onto his wrist.

As expected, the articulation on the figure is top notch. You get a ball jointed head. The arms have universal joins in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists and hinged elbows. His legs have universal movement in the hips, hinged knees and ankles, and swivels at the boots. He-Man swivels at the waist and has the ab-crunch hinge in the torso. He has no problems sitting on Battle Cat and looking awesome while doing it.

I’m really very happy to finally have this figure in my collection. Nothing against Battle Armor He-Man, he’s an awesome figure too, but he was always just a place holder to last until I was able to get the original style. Now I can bump him off my Battle Cat and display these guys as they were meant to be. I’m really content with the MOTU figures I have now. I’m still considering picking up a few of the interesting ones that come up, and I still need to get a She-Ra, Whiplash and Gygor, but with original He-Man in my collection, I can now say that any additional figures I get are just gravy. [Oh yeah, I forgot. Except for The Sorceress, she’s still pretty much essential! -FF]

It’s a testament to Mattel and The Four Horsemen that they can even get me to buy the figures based off of characters I don’t know. Not being a New Adventures fan, I didn’t know Optikk, but I still love the figure. Well, I didn’t watch many episodes of the more recent He-Man cartoon (although I still mean to), so Chief Carnivus is a stranger to me as well. Nonetheless, he looks awesome. It’s like someone got their Thundercats in my Masters of the Universe. And so, as with Optikk, I took the risk, and I’m glad I did. Carnivus is one cool cat. MEOW!

Carnivus may be a newer character, but the packaging remains classic and vintage to the core. Same green brick card, same nice big bubble to show off the figure. The back panel shows other figures in the collection (which you can no longer buy because they were all only available for about 30 seconds each), and it has a bio blurb, which in this case was very useful in helping me get to know my new figure.

Carnivus uses a number of Beast Man’s body parts, but there’s plenty new here to make him look fresh and unique. His armor and his pelvis are brand new, as are his lower legs. The head sculpt is magnificent with a noble feline visage. There’s a little bit of slop on the face paint apps, but nothing major. The gold and purple motif on his armor is really striking. The grieves are molded as part of his legs, but the chest and shoulder piece can come off easily. It’s also really easy to remove his cape. You don’t even have to pop off his head. I love this because as great as the cape looks on him, it can hinder some of his potential for action poses.

Articulation is standard for the MOTU Classics line. He has a ball jointed neck and shoulders. His arms have hinged elbows along with swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists. His hips have universal joints, his knees and ankles are hinged. Carnivus can swivel at the waist and he has a large hinge in the torso.

The Chief comes with a sword and a shield. The shield clips on to his arm and has a nice sculpted angry cat head with red eyes. His sword is slightly curved at the tip, almost like a saber and has a big red painted stone in the hilt. It would have been cool if Matty had given him some kind of loop on his belt to hang his sword from.

I give Carnivus the big thumbs up. He’s a great looking figure and a really nice fit for my MOTU collection. He costs the standard $20 plus about $8 shipping, which is certainly steep, especially for a figure based off a character I don’t know. But I can rationalize the price point because I’m not buying as many of these figures as I used to be, and I don’t see myself buying nearly as many next year either. Either way, I highly recommend him.