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.

As promised, I’ve got lots of MOTUC figures to look at on my receivings pile and I just got shipping notice for the December figures. There’s no end in sight!!! I’ve been on a New Adventures kick lately, so rather than buck that trend, today we’re checking out the last of the Space Mutants that I have waiting to be opened. It’s Slush Head, which was coincidentally a term that my brother and I used to use when one of us drank our Slushee too fast and got a migraine. “Ha Ha! You have Slush Head!” Yeah. Anyway, this guy is joining he fellow evil Space Mutants, Optikk, Karatti and Flogg on my quickly expanding New Adventures shelf!

There he is filling out his package rather admirably. The bubble has the “Space Mutants” sticker on it and tag line is “Scaly Goon Squad Thug.” The bio on the back labels him as a swamp creature from Denebria’s dreaded Quagmire Swamp and points out that that head dome of his is indeed full of stinking swamp water. Fun! As with most of the Space Mutants, I know nothing about this character, but he looked like a rather fun fellow, so I picked him up during Matty’s Cyber Monday Sale. Let’s rip him open and see what he’s all about!

I have to confess, I love the idea of a reverse diving suit. That is to say, a suit that is full of water so that an aquatic creature can walk around on dry land. You don’t see it too often, and maybe that’s why I still find it bizarre and original. Slush Head is wearing just such an apparatus that allows him to keep breathing in that stanky swamp water while hob-nobbing with us air breathers. His suit consists of a vest with a metallic back pack and the clear dome. There’s even a removable plug on the back of the dome if you want to actually fill it with some kind of liquid. The side of the package even encourages you to do this because it’s fun. Well, you convinced me! I live in Florida, so it shouldn’t be hard to find some authentic swamp water. The suit is rounded out by a pair of lower leggings with fins and what appear to be propulsion jets.

I really dig the parts of Slush Head’s skin that are exposed. He’s got a reptilian texture to his torso and shoulders and the rest of his skin is just smooth and green. He has ridges on his thighs and forearms and webbed feet and claws. Off hand, I think I recognize Merman’s feet, but apart from that I’m not going to try to place the rest of the parts that Mattel used to make this guy. Maybe I see some Whiplash in there? Suffice it to say, whatever they cobbled together to make Slush Head works on every conceivable level. I also really dig the coloring on this figure. The green skin tone is rather muted, especially when compared to the day-glo color of Karatti’s skin. It mixes with the blue and silver quite nicely.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention his disgusting head, which is basically a dome of flesh within a dome. Slush Head’s got a pair of bulging eyes and a permanent snarl that makes him look half crazy with rage. He kind of reminds me of Acturus from the Doctor Who story “The Curse of Peladon.” No, he really does. That wasn’t just an excuse to throw in a hipster Doctor Who reference. As far as noggins go, this one oozes personality and probably a few other nasty things. I should also note that the head is permanently encased in the clear dome. You can take off Slush Head’s suit, but if you do the head goes with it and therefore head movement is excluded from the regular points of MOTUC articulation, which Slush Head otherwise conforms to.

Slush Head also sports a pair of mechanical claws that plug into the sides of his backpack, because this guy wasn’t crazy looking enough without metal tentacles coming out of him. One of the claws is articulated, the other is not, but both are suitable for grabbing other MOTUC figures. I haven’t decided if I’m going to display this guy with the mechanical limbs or not. They do take up a lot of space and I’m tempted to just imagine that they can be fully retracted and display him without them.

You still want more? OK, Slush Head also comes with a weapon that doubles as both a battleax and a trident gun. Yeah, I know… we just saw a gun-ax combo with Karatti, but I’m not complaining because this one is even cooler. Seriously, I love the design on this weapon. It’s crazy original and suits the character really well.

And so there you have it. Another day, another Space Mutant. I really have taken a liking to these guys. Their designs are all just so batshit crazy and Slush Head here really is the looney icing on that crazy cake. I think it’s great that Skeletor left Eternia, went into space, and found even weirder henchmen to do his bidding and I’m really starting to come to grips with the fact that I need to get a New Adventures He-Man to fight all these space bastards. Ugh! Anyway, there’s plenty more MOTUC figures for next week, although I’ll be taking a break from the New Adventures stuff to look at some more conventional characters.

It’s been something of a tradition around here at FFZ to do a Matty Collector Cyber Monday Week and just blow out reviews of all the MOTUC figures I picked up during the sale. I’m not doing that this year, because I’ve still got lots of other incoming goodies to look at, but I think it’s safe to say you’ll still be seeing more Masters figures than usual for at least the rest of the month and possibly into January too. Today I’m checking out another of the New Adventures themed figures and it is indeed the Space Mutant, Karatti. I passed on this guy when he was first offered, but given my new found appreciation for the Space Mutants, I grabbed him and a bunch of others when they went up for sale on Cyber Monday. I’m not entirely sure why I’m into these guys all of the sudden. Maybe it’s because they’re running out of villains from Snake Mountain and I wanted a new sub-line of evil freaks to collect. Yeah, that could be it. Anyway, let’s press on ahead and check out this ugly sum’bitch!

There’s the Classics Greyskull-themed packaging complete with a “Space Mutants” sticker on the bubble. Karatti fills out the bubble inside quite nicely and the insert in the proclaims him to be the “Bone Bashing Mutant!” His biography on the back tells us he’s both stupid and a coward, so I’m not sure why Skeletor keeps him on the payroll. I guess it’s because he sports a pretty mean karate chop.

Karatti design borrows a bit from Trap Jaw (and by extension, Optikk) and that’s probably why I get a strong “space pirate” vibe off of him. His gold cybernetic armor mixed with his day-glo green skin, orange dreadlocks, and purple accents look like the product of a poisoned fever dream brought on by eating a box of crayons. And I mean that in a good way. The aesthetics at work here are just so batshit crazy I don’t think there’s anywhere else they would work than in the world of Masters.

The torso armor fits onto the buck so well that it really looks like it’s just part of the body sculpt. That’s not something this line has always been able to achieve, but I was generally surprised that the whole torso rig could be easily removed. The little details in the armor are also quite impressive. The chest and shoulder pieces have some scrapes and gashes and general battle scarring. There are two craters under his left arm where it looks like a Galactic Protector got in a few lucky shots. There’s also a reinforcing band bolted over a crack in the left shoulder armor as a quick fix. I love when you get sculpted weathering in battle armor like this, it just gives the figure so much more character.

Karatti’s portrait is pure neon colored nightmare fuel. The lower half of his face is a cybernetic set of jaws. I’m not sure if it’s just armor or if he got the lower half of his face blown off like Trap Jaw did, but looks damn creepy along with those soulless black pits he has instead of eyes. Seriously, this guy is staring right through me from the desk right now and it’s creeping me the hell out.

There are no surprises to be found in Karatti’s articulation, as you get the standard MOTUC level of poseability. But, in case this is your first time to the dance, I’ll break it down. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and ankles, and have swivels at the hips and lower legs. Karatti can swivel at the waist and has a ball jointed neck. There is an ab crunch hinge, but the armor restricts it quite a bit.

While he’s famous for his ability to shatter bones with his karate skills, Karatti still comes with a pair of weapons, both of which are cast in simple black plastic. First, you get a simple sword with an enclosed hand guard. It’s a cool, functional little design, which would have been greatly improved by a little silver paint for the blade. The other weapon is a clever battleax and gun combo. I dig this weapon a lot, but it also could have used some paint hits. I’ll also grumble about how much I would have liked to see somewhere to hang his weapons. It feels like there should be some clips on his back or a hook on his belt.

And so, here’s another example of a Masters character I know nothing about, but I just dig his crazy design so much that I’m thrilled to add the figure to my collection. I love the green plastic they used for his flesh and all the little distressed detail on the armor goes above and beyond. Screw his bio, because I’ve already dubbed him a space pirate and he and Trap Jaw will go on adventures together, raping and pillaging, and if Optikk is really good they may let him come along too. MOTUC may be winding down, but for me it continues to be a toy line that keeps on giving and I can’t seem to shake the joy and excitement I get out of it, even when it comes to opening up lower tier nobodies like Karatti here.