April is almost over and I’m getting in just before the end to feature this month’s Club Eternia subscription figure, Angella. Sadly, the other big item released for April was the 3-pack of Hover Robots, which were available only through Early Access the day before the regular sale. I say “sadly” because I really wanted these and I was tied up in a meeting at work and as much as I tried, I couldn’t even get five minutes on my phone to place the order. Naturally they sold out fast and are now selling for around $100 through scalpers secondary sources. I seriously don’t get why Mattel can’t include stuff like this in with the subscriptions. THE SUBSCRIBERS ARE THE ONES YOU SHOULD BE REWARDING! But then my Early Access would have netted me a set if only I wasn’t busy working so I could make disposable income to spend on toys. Wait… so what figure were we talking about again? Oh yeah… Angella. 
Angella is another one of them “Princess of Power” figures and it says so with a sticker right on the bubble. Mattel has been stacking the decks with the PoP releases lately and I have absolutely no problem with that. If there’s one thing about MOTUC that even the detractors have to admit its that this line delivers on female characters better than almost any other major action figure line out there. While poor Black Widow has to struggle to get any representation on the pegs, Matty leans back and says, “here have another chick from Etheria!” and then lights his cigar with a fifty dollar bill taken directly out of my wallet”. I know next to nothing about Angella (other than Glimmer is her daughter), but her tagline calls her the “Angelic Winged Guide.” The back of the package goes one step further and says she’s “The Queen Regent of Brightmoon.” The bio isn’t doing much for me here, so I guess I’ve got to go see her in an episode. BRB! 
Hoo boy! So I went with a painful little ditty called “Micah of Brightmoon” based on the good council that Angella was in it. It starts off with a guy in a spaceship escaping Red Squadron by jumping to light speed. Um? Did I pass out and wake up in a Star Wars Black review? It goes downhill from there with Glimmer imaginary dancing with her missing father right off the end of a cliff. She-Ra has to save her, which is about the only thing She-Ra does in this whole episode! Next we flip to a mother and daughter reunion (sans Paul Simon) between Queen Angella and Glimmer with a whole lot of reminiscing about King Micah who went off to fight The Horde and got captured. Nobody seems to be straining too hard to find him, but that’s OK because it turns out he’s the dude in the spaceship from the beginning (SPOILERS!!!) and conveniently flies overhead in full sight of She-Ra and with Hordak tracking him. At this point we get the best lines in the episode, “Does he have to use his tongue to push the buttons?” “Tung Lasher, how many times must I tell you no tongues on the equipment!” LOL! Micah gets captured by Harpies, who have the most grating voices ever (and for a Filmation production, that’s really saying something!) and inexplicably She-Ra lets Angella fly off to rescue him alone while she chills at the palace with Glimmer. Eventually Glimmer convinces She-Ra to go along too, they free the King and Queen, She-Ra gives her sword to Angella so she can fight the Harpies for her and only gets off her duff to do some dirty fighting by throwing a cloak over her when her back is turned. All is well and Micah says he’s going back to fight the Horde, probably because he has another wife somewhere on Horde World. That last nugget is my own assertion. Phew… enough Filmation Torture, let’s look at the figure. 
Here she is and she looks pretty great. Angella comes donning a pink and purple outfit with sculpted shoulders and a collar. I have to be honest and say that some of these PoP outfits are really starting to blur together for me. There’s only so many variations you can do on a top, skirt, tights, bracers, and boots. But that’s OK, because Angella is all about her magnificent set of wings. If you never collected Mattel’s other big line, DC Universe Classics, then you may miss that these are actually parts recycled from DCUC Hawkgirl. Is this the first instance of Mattel raiding the DCUC cupboard for MOTUC? Probably not, but it’s the only one I can think of off hand. Gripe if you must, but it’s a great repurposing of those wings and they look fantastic on the figure. Just like on Hawkgirl, they are attached to her back with a hinge and while it looks pretty mechanical, rather than organic it does allow the wings to be angled all the way back or face all th way front. Each wing is also hinged at the top so they can be spread out. The wings feature the same great, detailed feather sculpt and have a new coat of paint giving them a pearlescent white-blue look. 
Angella’s portrait is quite good, although with the high cheekbones it does suffer a bit from that “sameness” that I call out when I’m looking at a lot of these PoP figures. It’s not really a critiicm but more of an observation. The paintwork is clean and her bobbed hairstyle gives her a lot more head articulation than many of the PoP ladies tend to have. 
Apart from the wing articulation, everything else here falls right into line with most of the Princess of Power gals. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders, hinges at the elbows, and swivels at the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and ankles, and have swivels at the top of the thighs She can swivel at the waist and is ball jointed at the neck. 
The Queen of Brightmoon comes with two accessories. You get a short sword, which looks to me like a new design. It’s fairly simple and painted all in silver, but I tend to like generic looking swords so I’m happy to have it. Angella also comes with a translucent halo that pegs into the top of her wings hinge and hovers behind her head. It’s a nice homage to the vintage figure and pretty well executed too. I didn’t think I would bother with this piece, but I actually think I may wind up displaying her with it on. 
Angella is a solid figure and another great addition to my rapidly growing Princess of Power shelf. I’m not sure how popular she was or even if she sold out, but the nice thing about having a subscription is not having to worry about such things. Next month, we’ll be flipping back to the Eternian side of things with a figure that I’m really looking forward to: Blast Attak! The evil fighting robot of the Snake Men! YES!!!
Tag Archives: motuc
Masters of the Universe Classics: Oo-Larr (“Jungle He-Man”) by Mattel
I know what you’re thinking… It’s Transformers Thursday…. where are the eff’ing Change-bots? Why am I looking at a nearly naked dude in a furry diaper? Well, truth be told I’m fresh out of new Transformers to look at so I’m putting Transformers Thursday on a very brief hiatus. But don’t worry. The Transformers Will Return After These Messages! If not next week, TT will definitely be back the following week, depending on how soon it takes for my current Pile of Loot to arrive from BBTS. Yup, there be some robots in there! So instead, allow me to get caught up on my March Matty Collector figures, because it is April already and in just a week or so, I’ll have more figures shipping. I already checked out Huntara and so the figure for today is the 2015 Club Eternia Exclusive and it is Oo-Larr. Truth be told, I have very little to say about this guy, but that should by no means be interpreted as him being a bad figure. It’s just that as someone who is predominantly in this line for the figures and not so much the fiction, a lot of what this figure represents is admittedly lost on me.
As I understand it, Oo-Larr is one of the earliest expressions of the He-Man character in fiction form. That is to say, this was He-Man (often called “Jungle He-Man”) in the original vintage mini-comic. However, in an attempt to blend all corners and variations of the Masters mythos into one bubbling pot of consistency, the idea was put forth that He-Man is a mantle adopted by many different defenders of Eternia over the years. According to the bio on the back of the package, Oo-Larr was the last person to take up the title of He-Man before it passed to Prince Adam. Apparently, this concept has caused many die hard fans of the Masters Mythos to lose their shit. I have absolutely no problem with what Matty is doing here, but again, I’m pretty tough to offend when it comes to the Masters canon. Matty could print that Teela was actually the product of a drunken orgy between Orko, The Sorceress, and all three of Man-E-Faces’ faces and it really wouldn’t bother me at all. I came for the 80’s nostalgia and stayed for the figures. S’all good! But even to those fans that discard the character as Oo-Larr, this is an important release because it’s a version of He-Man that has never been given a figure before. In other words, there’s something in this release that should appeal to different fans on different levels. To me? It’s just a guy in a furry diaper.
With all that having been said, this is a great looking figure, at least for what it is, and Mattel certainly invested some love and new tooling into it. For the first time we get bare forearms and bare feet as well as what I believe to be a newly sculpted proto-fur-diaper. On the flipside, there’s not a lot more to talk about. Apart from the brown loin cloth there’s no paint apps to speak of. Just a whole lot of… gulp… man flesh. By the plain-ness of this figure alone, I suspect that it might make good fodder for customizers, but considering it did not go up for sale to the general public, it probably won’t be all that easy to get for such nefarious purposes.
Oo-Larr comes with a head that features the longer hair that characterized He-Man in the vintage comic. Again, it’s all about portraying that version of He-Man in figure form and it’s going to mean a lot to many fans. Just not to me. It is a great sculpt, though. There’s more of a savage aspect to it, and if you like that version of the character, you can do a little simple kit-bashing to make the He-Man figure of your dreams.
Speaking of swapping parts, the figure also comes with an alternate head and this one does interest me. It’s a Classics take on the vintage He-Man figure’s head and it’s glorious. I am actually so glad that Mattel included this piece, I’m seriously considering picking up a second He-Man figure from their Essentials Sale just so I can display one with this noggin. It just looks fantastic mounted on top of the regular Classics He-Man.
Articulation here is the same as any male buck in the line. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and again at the ankles. Oo-Larr can swivel at the waist, has an ab-crunch hinge in the torso and a ball jointed neck. It’s solid articulation, but the sculpted muscles do impede some of that poseability.
In addition to the extra noggin, Oo-Larr comes with two accessories. First off, you get a really cool looking primitive spear. The head of the weapon is sculpted to look like it was actually fashioned with pressure flaking. I really like this piece a lot and it compliments the prehistoric look of the figure beautifully.
Next up is a sword, which looks pretty advanced when compared to the spear. Nonetheless, It’s a simple, trusty broadsword design with a utilitarian bronze colored handle. I really like getting generic sword designs like this one because I can share it between a whole bunch of different figures. I’m pretty sure Oo-Lar isn’t going to keep this one for long. It just looks too anachronistic in his hands.
Oh yeah, and remember that Ax I mentioned that came with Huntara. Well, that really belongs to Oo-Larr and I think it compliments his spear far better than the sword does. It’s also a wonderfully sculpted piece with weathering on the ax-head and an angled wooden shaft handle.
So, I can’t say I was terribly excited to get this figure, certainly not as much as some fans were, but there’s still some great stuff here if you know the history and are willing to appreciate it. I will say that “Jungle He-Man” is exactly the kind of figure that belongs in a Subscription Exclusive slot like this (far more than a figure like Shadow Weaver with more mass appeal) and it’s nice to see Matty paying tribute to the hardcore fans in what may very well be the last year of the Sub as we know it. While the figure may be a bit bland, both head sculpts are excellent, as are the weapons. As is usually the case, I came into this release no caring very much and came away happy to have it in my collection. I think I’ll probably wind up displaying Oo-Larr along with Vikor, Battleground Teela, and Battle Lion off on their own little section of the shelf.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Huntara by Mattel
I gotta admit, Matty Collector really upped their game this month and got me my March figures only three days after Sale Day. That’s about a week better than they usually do. Unfortunately, this month amounted to an odd pair. There was Oo-Larr, who I believe was the Subscription Exclusive, and I say that because I don’t remember ordering a figure of a nearly totally naked dude, and Huntara, who I recall hails from the She-Ra cartoon. Guess which one I’m opening first? Yeah, I know it’s in the title, but I’ll bet you could have guessed even if it weren’t.
There’s the packaging. Not much new to say here, other than they forgot to slap a “Princess of Power” sticker on the bubble. Bastards! Huntara’s tag line is “Courageous Silaxian Warrior.” Like I said, I vaguely remember her from an episode of the cartoon, but not terribly well. What’s that? It’s long overdue that I subject myself to more Filmation torture and familiarize myself with the character by watching the episode? FIIIIINE! Be right back…
Aaaaand back! Ugh, I forgot how terrible Scorpia’s Barney Rubble voice was. I could saddle up to her at a bar and think. Mmmm, not bad. Yeah, she’s got scorpion parts, but still pretty hawt. Then as soon as she opens her mouth, I’m gone. And I wonder if Catra buries her own poop… Anyway, Hordak summons Huntara from the planet Silax to do away with She-Ra because none of the freaks on his payroll can get the job done. And speaking of bad voices, holy shit, Huntara sounds like she smokes thirty packs of Etherian Pall Malls a day. Seriously, I kept expecting her to say, “Inspector Gadget will return after these messages.” Anyway, this is one of those cases where she’s really a good person tricked into believing that She-Ra is evil so she’ll try to kill her. I’m positive Skeletor pulled this crap at least a couple of dozen times. Once Hordak convinces Huntara that She-Ra was responsible for the Etherian equivalent of the My Lai Massacre, it’s GAME ON! Of course after a lame fight (and a surprising number of up-skirt shots) Huntara learns she’s been tricked and teams up with She-Ra to give The Horde their comeuppance before flying her Colonial Viper back to Silax. Satisfied? Now let’s open at the damn figure…
If you like your chicks with pale purple skin and mohawked, than Huntara is the girl for you! I really dig the character design here because it feels totally at odds with the wholesome look of so many of the Princess of Power figures. With her exposed midriff and itty-bitty skirt, she shows a lot more skin than most of the gals from Etheria. There isn’t a lot of sculpted detail in her outfit, but what’s here is pretty good. I like the segmented armor on her shoulders and skirt, complete with tiny rivets. What little there is of her outfit is a vibrant blue with black and gold. I like the coloring a lot, but the paint on my figure is bit rough. She’s got some gold slop from her bracer on the skin on her left arm and some more blue slop on her back. It’s not god-awful, but when I’m dropping $30+ on a figure with shipping I like my paintwork clean.
It’s the portrait here that really scores a lot of personality points. Her white mohawk and ponytail combo is quite distinctive as are the tattoos on the sides of her shaven head. Huntara was from another planet, so I like the fact that her style is so alien to Etheria, even if it is pretty typical for the 80’s punk circle. The face sculpt is pretty, but has that same flat look to her that so many of the MOTUC ladies seem to share. She does have this weird thing going on where it looks like her eyes are uneven at some angles, when they’re really not.
Huntara’s articulation is typical for the female bucks in the line. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed in the hips, hinged at the elbows and ankles, and have swivels up near the hips. Huntara can swivel at the waist and has a ball jointed neck, but no ab-crunch. It’s worth noting that her joints feel a little more gummy than most of my MOTUC figures, but nothing too bad. She’s actually a lot of fun to play with.
As far as accessories go, Huntara comes with her two Not-Lightsabers. I think they were called Stun-Swords in the cartoon. These can clip onto her back and she can comfortably hold them in her hands. It’s a bit of a shame that the blades aren’t removable like with most of Hasbro’s lightsabers. She also comes with an axe, which is actually intended for Oo-Lar, so I’m not even going to cover it here. I’ll talk about it more when I get to that figure.
I really dig this figure, despite some of the minor QC flaws. Huntara sports a very distinctive design and she really stands out on my Princess of Power shelf. While it’s hard for me to imagine myself not collecting this line, if I weren’t, I would still probably like to have this figure as a stand alone for my collection. There’s just something simple and cool about her that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe I’m getting a little bad ass Jedi feel off of her, but either way she was a mighty nice pick up for this month.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Snake Armor He-Man and Battle Armor King Hssss
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.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Ninja Warrior by Mattel
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.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Lizard Man by Mattel
Oh, happy day! I’m finally caught up on my Masters Classics figures! Sure, I’m opening last month’s figure today, but I’m doing it before this month’s figures have shipped out and I call that progress! Today’s offering is actually the first release for the 2015 Club Eternia Sub and it is Lizard Man. I have very little memory of the episodes this guy appeared in, but back in 2011 that once great site Topless Robot (I miss ya Rob) gave him 1-20 Odds that he’d ever get an action figure. It was a good call and the author’s reasoning was certainly sound. Lizard Man just didn’t conform to the standard Matty Buck and his release would be contrary to the entire MOTUC money-saving business model. And afterall, it did take almost four years to happen, who even could have guessed the Matty Collector Train would still be chugging along for such a long while?
The only thing I have to say about the packaging is DAMN YOU MEKANECK FOR BEING THE ONLY FIGURE ON THE BACK THAT I DON’T HAVE!!! There’s also an intriguing sticker on the top corner of the cardback that tries to teach me how to get the best performance out of my glow-in-the-dark accessory. GITD? I had no idea! Anyway, Lizard Man’s tagline is “Heroic Cold Blooded Ally” and the bio laments the fact that being a good lizard causes him to deal with discrimination, because most of the lizard people on Eternia are assholes. Maybe it would help if people didn’t call him “Lizard Man” because that right there is some racist shit. That’s it. I got nothing else… let’s pop this guy out and take a look at him.
Holy crap, I love this guy! Everything about him really shouts the Filmation aesthetic. Yeah, he’s just a lizard guy in a blue two-piece, but for a C-level character, T4H did a beautiful job on him. His lean stature makes him stand out in a sea of MOTUC bucks and I do believe most everything on this figure is brand new. Liz is mostly cast in a pleasing, deep green plastic and his belt and clothes are all sculpted right onto his body. There’s no real flexibility to the tail, but it is positioned to help the figure stand more easily, although he’s well balanced enough that he doesn’t need to rely on it. And check out the awesome webbing between his fingers! It’s done with a really thin plastic that’s semi-transparent and looks amazing.
The head sculpt is chock full of personality. Lizard Man is sort of wearing a smile, although its hard to tell whether he’s happy or just being a lizard. The eyes are painted yellow with black slits for pupils and he has a blue hood sculpted on his head. It’s definitely Filmation through and through, maybe with a little bit of Don Bluth mixed in and that ain’t a bad thing at all. I think if I had one gripe about the figure as a whole it’s that he seems a little too tall. What little memory I have of him makes me think he should be significantly shorter than He-Man, but maybe that’s because he’s often seen hunched over.
Despite the new buck, the articulation here remains pretty close to what we usually see in the line. Lizard Man’s arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels at the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have rotating hinges at the knees, hinges in the ankles and swivels at the hips. The neck is ball jointed and the figure can swivel at the waist, but there is no ab-crunch hinge. So we lose an ab-crunch but gain a little extra movement in the knees. What’s really fun about Lizard Man’s articulation is not so much found in the individual points, but rather that the lean body allows for a wider range of motion than the bulky, beefed-out MOTUC bucks. He’s certainly fun to play with!
You get two accessories with Lizard Man, both of which are just random Filmation pieces bundled with the figure. Matty promised they were going to be doing this whenever possible and they have indeed delivered some neat stuff. The Diamond Ray of Disappearance comes from the very first episode of the series that bears the same name. It’s a permanently opened box with a GITD diamond inside that exiles your figures to another dimension. Actually, you may need to use your imagination for that to work. The bottom of the box has intended room for Skeletor’s fingers to help him hold it, which was a good idea in theory but has mixed results.
The other piece is the Filmation version of Skeletor’s sword with the crossed bone hilt. It’s a nicely sculpted piece, but the fact that it’s left unpainted in bare gray plastic really makes it uninteresting to me. Why not cast the thing in purple? I think it would have looked better. As it is it just looks like an unfinished, prototype accessory. Still, I give Matty props for continuing to get us the Filmation accessories and so far the good have far outweighed the flubs. If I had some customizing skills, I’d probably try to paint it, but that’s never going to happen.
As a character, I don’t know how many people were clamoring for a Lizard Man figure, but keep in mind, I collect MOTUC for the figures themselves and not so much the fiction or the characters. Yes, I started collecting the line largely based off of nostalgia for characters like He-Man and Skeletor, but the majority of the figures I get could have no fiction at all behind them and I’d still love them. Taking that into consideration, I couldn’t be happier with how Mattel has kicked off the final year for Club Eternia because Lizard Man is just a great figure. 2015 is going to be interesting as they’ll be bringing in a lot of lesser known names to the table, but again seeing as how the characters are secondary to me, I think I’m going to find a lot to love this year, possibly more so than most.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Bow and Arrow by Mattel, Part 2
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.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Bow and Arrow by Mattel, Part 1
Yeah, I started this week with MOTUC love and I’m ending it that way too. It’s necessary as these are the last two figures I have backlogged from last year and I gotta get them open and out on the display shelves. Bow was released way back in the annals of Club Eternia, I want to say 2011 but I could be wrong. I didn’t get him when he was first offered and I’ve been watching him on the secondary market ever since, but at around $40-45, I was never willing to pull the trigger. When his trusty steed Arrow was announced as part of 2014 Club Eternia, I was hoping that they would bring Bow back and they sure did. I’m going to take a look at Bow today and Arrow tomorrow.
There’s the packaging and all I have to say is, “Special Friend Who Helps She-Ra???” What the hell is that? It’s weird and wrong on so many levels. And if he’s secretly in love with Adora, then why does his heart frantically beat when She-Ra’s in danger? So many questions, so many answers I really don’t care to know. You’ll also note my figure’s package states, “The Original!” which is Matty’s bizarre way of distinguishing this reissue from the original release. Yeah, I still don’t get that. Anyway, I have little memory of Bow from the She-Ra cartoon, although I do remember him as being an Errol Flynn type. I didn’t pick him up when he was first offered because I honestly didn’t think Matty would release enough Princess of Power figures to make collecting them worthwhile. Looks like I was wrong about that because now I have an entire shelf of them. With Arrow coming my way, it seemed only natural I should pick up Bow.
Bow is a rather dashing looking archer with a predilection for gold flare. His costume consists of a set of shoulders and chest armor with a short red cape. It’s all fashioned in one piece and the whole ensemble can be easily removed simply by popping off Bow’s head. The gold and bronze paint looks really nice and there’s even some beautiful scrollwork sculpted into the tops of the shoulders. I’m not entirely sure why, but Bow’s costume reminds me of El Dorado’s from DC’s Super Friends. Maybe it’s just all the gold, but I think Bow’s outfit is a lot more ostentatious and not as Aztec-y.
His quiver is also permanently attached to this piece and is rather ornate and includes a horse motif (only the first example of Bow’s unsettlingly rampant horse fetish) and a number of arrows sculpted into it. The quiver also has a flexible plastic cord that fits around Bow’s neck and under his chin. The costume is rounded out by a pair of blue pants, gold bracers, and gold boots. There’s certainly nothing understated about Bow’s fashion choices and one might say that he looks FABULOUS!
You do get one display option with Bow’s costume and that’s whether to go with the simple red circle in the middle of his chest or swap it out with the heart (which is accurate for both the vintage figure and the Filmation look). Wait? So why is the circle even an option and why is it the one packaged on the figure? I haven’t got a clue. Either way, it’s a fairly subtle difference and swapping them out is as simple as removing one plug and putting in another. Seeing as how the heart is both vintage and Filmation accurate, that’s likely the one I’ll go with.
The chest piece is not the only way this figure gives you the best of both worlds, you also get a choice between a vintage style or Filmation style head. The vintage style noggin is the one that the figure is packaged with and it’s certainly a nice sculpt. He’s clean shaven and he has a rather elaborate gold head piece. There are a few blemishes on this head. I’m not sure if it’s part of the molding process or something caught under the paint when they slathered it on.
The Filmation head is quite similar but features a mustache, heavier eyebrows, and the headpiece is gone. I haven’t decided yet which one will be the default look for my display. The mustache gives him a little more character, but I like the way the headpiece goes with the rest of his costume. In the end, I’ll probably lean toward this one because the sculpt is cleaner and the skin has a less waxy finish to it.
Articulation is exactly what we’ve all come to expect from the standard MOTUC male buck. Or is it??? The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and ankles, and have swivels near the hips. There’s a swivel in the waist, an ab-crunch hinge in the torso and a ball joint in the neck. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows, and… what’s this? Hinges and swivels in the wrists? Ok, that’s something you don’t see in a lot of the MOTUC figures! It helps a little bit with posing, but it’s still tough to get some truly convincing poses of him knocking an arrow.
Moving on to accessories… well, they don’t call him Bow for nothing… surprise! He comes with a bow! Bow’s bow is a great looking piece. It’s pretty sizeable and cast in gold to match the rest of his blinged out costume. It has a sculpted grip and the top ends in a horsehead to match the one on his quiver. Once again, Bow really loves the horsies! The bow also has loops on the top and bottom in case you want to string it and it comes with a loose arrow.
Lastly, Bow comes with a harp. Naturally, it’s gold it has a red jewel in it and carries on Bow’s horse obsession with a horsehead sculpted into the top. I think that’s the top. Truth is, I have no idea if that’s how you hold a harp, or if this is truly a harp. It could be a lyre. I’m pretty sure it’s not a lute. Anyway, the harp is a nicely sculpted piece and I think it’s a rather cool and unique accessory that gives the character some added personality and it’s an important tool in Bow’s attempt to get out of Adora’s Friend Zone. Although frankly, Bow, Etheria seems to be lousy with hot chicks and not a lot of dudes, so you might be narrowing your options a little too much there. Play the field, bro. That’s all I’m saying.
Bow has been one of those few MOTUC figures that has been conspicuously absent from my collection for a while now. I’ve had him on my Amazon Wish List and as a Saved Search on Ebay, but I’ve never seen him at a price I was willing to pay. You can imagine how happy I was to see him go on the block again at Matty Collector and in the same month that Arrow was shipping. It was one of those times that Matty Collector did the right thing for collectors, and I didn’t even have to pay a premium for him. He’s a really great figure and considering how few dudes there are in the Great Rebellion, I consider him a pretty important figure in my collection. Not to mention that having Arrow and not Bow would have been unacceptable. And so tomorrow I’ll be back to check out Bow’s mighty winged steed and finally get this pair together.
Masters of the Universe Classics: Spinnerella by Mattel
Once again I find myself receiving the current month’s Matty figures before I’ve gotten around to looking at all that last month had to offer. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. After today’s feature I’ll only be one figure and one beast behind and then I can look at the first figure of 2015. Hopefully I can do all of that before the February figures ship. Anyway, today I’m here to check out what I believe was the last figure in the Club Etheria Mini-Subscription, but I’m so confused as to which figures go with which subs, I could be totally wrong about that. Let’s just say that Spinnerella is one of She-Ra’s BFFs and that puts her firmly in the Princess of Power camp. Holy crap, Spinnerella? Really? I’m a 42 year old man and I’ve chosen to go down this path, huh? I suppose once I’ve delved into the depths of Sweet Bee and Flutterina there was no turning back. Alright, let’s do it…
Spinnerella’s real name is Cynthia. I’m going to call her that because every time I type Spinnerella it comes out Spinerella, which is probably the name of Brent Spiner’s sister and not germane to this feature. Cindy’s tag line is “Dizzying Defender” and man I gotta think at this point the creators of the She-Ra line were really phoning stuff in. Cynthia is basically Etheria’s hot chick equivalent of the Tasmanian Devil. She literally travels by spinning like a whirlwind and the members of The Rebellion give her mail to deliver to their distant friends. Not making it up… it’s in the bio. I got nothing, so let’s move on to the figures on the back of the package. Hey… clean sweep! All are present and accounted for, although it’s worth noting that I still have not opened my Star Sisters 3-pack. One of these days, I’ll get to those gals.
Cynthia’s outfit is designed in line with her gimmick by having a skirt made of lots of strands that are supposed to fly up around her when she spins and hitting the likes of Grizzlor in the eye when he tries to attack her. Doesn’t have to be Grizzlor it could be anyone. Spinning and whipping people with her skirt strands is literally her method of attack and defense. All kidding aside, her outfit exhibits some really nice work, including beautiful scrollwork carved into her arm bracers and belt as well as the sculpted ornamentation on her booberz. The blue, lavender, and purple deco is fairly reminiscent with what we saw with Glimmer. The colors all look great and with the exception of a little stray silver paint on her right arm streamers, the paintwork is clean and sharp.
It seems like T4H are getting a little more diverse with their female portraits lately. I used to complain about most of the Princess of Power figures having a certain sameness about their face structures. The last couple have been pleasant changes and Spinnerella follows that trend. There’s something about this portrait that I like a lot. The paint is clean and she’s certainly pretty. She does have an absolutely huge purple mound of hair going on, though. It seems as if spinning around really fast would cause that mop to fan out just like her dress. I guess she has it pinned down pretty well. Or maybe not, as you can remove the top two layers if you think it’s too much and even stylize it with the top layer off and the pony tail reattached. I think I actually prefer her without the extra lump of hair on top.
Spinny’s articulation is right in line with what I’ve come to expect from the PoP figures. The arms feature 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 feature swivels at the hips and lateral rockers in the ankles. She’s ball jointed at the neck and can swivel at the waist. Her rather large hair does inhibit some of her shoulder articulation and restricts her neck movement, but otherwise it’s all good.
Cynthia comes with two accessories: Her spear and shield. The shield is a pinkish-lavender repaint of the same old PoP shield, this time with a matching pink crystal in the center. It’s worth noting that the streamers on her arm bracers prevent the shield from clipping on in the natural fashion, so she has to wear it clipped on to the top of her forearm, rather than the side. The spear isn’t much to write home about either. It has a blue shaft and a metallic pink tip.
Long ago, Mattel promised no actual gimmicks in these Classics figures and yet they have managed to translate most of the vintage figures’ gimmicks in one way or another. That’s not really the case with Spinnerella here. There’s no spinning to be had and even if there were, the design of the dress wouldn’t allow all those strands to fly up and whip around. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been much for such gimmicks and aesthetically, she’s a great modern update to the vintage figure. Indeed, I like her a lot and get a really cool Grecco-Roman Goddess vibe off of her, which may or may not be justified. She’ll make a fine addition to my PoP shelf and I suspect she’ll be hanging around with Glimmer because they both seem to like purple an awful lot!
Masters of the Universe Classics: Griffin by Mattel
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!
FigureFan Zero 