Tag Archives: princess of power

Feb 26 2014

Masters of the Universe Classics: Glimmer by Mattel

It’s Matty Collector time again, and this month’s Sale Day came and went without me even noticing. Why? Because I have a subscription this year so I no longer have to fight to get my figures or try to order them with my phone under the table during staff meetings. It sure paid off in February as both Glimmer and Modulok were must-haves for me. Will I still think the Sub was justified at the end of the year? Well that remains to be seen, but so far I have no complaints. Both of these figures just landed on my door a couple of days ago and I decided to feature Glimmer first because exploring the possibilities of Modulok is going to take a lot more time.

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There’s the Greyskull inspired packaging and it is as awesome as ever. I don’t remember anything in particular about Glimmer from the She-Ra cartoon, but the package identifies her as “The Guide Who Lights the Way.” I was planning on queuing up an episode with her in it before doing this feature, but I’m currently out of Jameson and I can’t tackle Filmation cartoons without a some booze in me.

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The back of the package has the usual bio blurb on the bottom and a bunch of figures pictured. I’ve got a fair share of these, but I still need to go back and pick up Bubble Power She-Ra and Bow. I am also missing Shadow Weaver, but she sells for well over $100 so she can go f’ck herself.

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Out of the package and Glimmer certainly is the spitting image of her animated counterpart, as opposed to the vintage doll. Her outfit is pretty simple, which really conveys that unmistakable Filmation style with a bit more detail added to her belt and arm bracers. The bulk of her dress is layered onto the figure, which is something I’ve always loved about the MOTUC females. If there is a heavy reuse of parts here, I’m not picking up on it. I thought the skirt looked familiar at first, maybe it’s Adora’s but when you stand Glimmer beside her fellow sisters of The Rebellion she certainly holds her own.

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The head sculpt here is also quite good. Glimmer features an attractive portrait that leans a bit toward the exotic, although the nose and cheekbones remind me a lot of the She-Ra sculpt. Glimmer’s head piece is part of her head sculpt and behind it flows her copious mane of purple hair. The hair sculpt inhibits the neck articulation a bit, but you can still get some movement out of her noggin. The paint used for the face is all clean and crisp.

Speaking of paint, I really applaud Matty’s use of coloring on this figure. The combination of speckled metallic blue and matte purple certainly makes for a striking deco. The edge striping of the blue and purple areas with darker shades of those colors also adds a lot to the outfit. Glimmer’s skin tone is slightly darker than most of the other ladies in the line, except maybe Netossa, but I don’t have her in my collection yet to do a direct comparison.

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Glimmer offers no surprises in the articulation, at least where female MOTUC figures are concerned, but it’s been a little while since I’ve looked at a Princess of Power figure so let’s run it down. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms feature swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs feature hinges in the knees and ankles and also lateral rockers in the ankles. The rockers on my figure were painted shut, but a little finesse got them going. Glimmer can also swivel at the waist.

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You get two accessories with Glimmer. First off, you get her staff. You aren’t anyone in Etheria unless you have a staff! Glimmer’s is cast in metallic purple and features a yellow crystal in the center of the head. I really dig this piece as it feels more like a vintage PoP accessory than anything else I’ve seen with this line, probably because of the shimmery plastic or the flowery sculpt.

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You also get a crystal ball, which is as simple an accessory as it sounds, it’s just a clear marble, and yet so very cool. Glimmer can palm it in her left hand and she looks great holding it. Forget Hordak, Glimmer, you’re going to have to spend most of your time fighting my cat to keep him from taking this away from you.

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I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I absolutely love the Princess of Power figures in this line. It’s probably because they actually present these characters as proper action figures, rather than dolls, and they blend so seamlessly with the Masters characters. Glimmer is a great addition to my PoP shelf. Matty was pretty savvy to release her on the same month as they opened enrollment for the Club Etheria Add-On Sub. If I wasn’t already sold on it, playing around with Glimmer would probably have gotten me there.

Sep 3 2013

Masters of the Universe Classics: Castaspella by Mattel

Last month, I scheduled one of my work weeks around Matty Sale Day because I had convinced myself that I needed to be at the computer at precisely 12pm EST in order to get my mitts on Castaspella. Turns out, she was the ugly girl at the dance and hung around for quite a few days after. I really thought she was going to go fast, but I guess I’m not in tune with the ebb and flow of this fanbase’s interests. For the uninitiated, Casta is based off a character in the Princess of Power off-shoot line. The vintage toys were more akin to dolls than action figures, which meant if you were a young boy collecting the He-Mans and you wanted to expand into She-Ra territory you had to be extremely comfortable with your sexuality at a young age and have understanding parents or else you were just shit out of luck.

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Casta comes in the same style package as the regular Masters Classics, but she does have a “Princess of Power” sticker on the bubble, which is rather cool. I’ve said my piece about the great packaging for this line many times over, so let’s just move on.

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The flipside of the card has the usual bio, which I hardly ever read, and shots of other Princess of Power figures. I’m missing two of those: Netossa and Bow. One of these days, I’ll hunt them down.

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Out of the package, Casta is a delightfully colorful figure. The last time I remember being this pleased with a MOTUC figure’s coloring it was Sy-Klone, so obviously I have some innate love for blue and yellow decos. Casta has a blue top and blue leggings, which contrast beautifully with her yellow skirt and boots. Toss in some lightning bolts for good measure and she’s got major style. The orange for the high collar is a strange choice, but I guess it helps bridge the rift leading up to her red hair. Mmm… red heads… me likey. I have a very vague memory of her from the cartoon, but what I do remember was her voice was horrible and she was always macking on Prince Adam.

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I really like Casta’s head sculpt, although I don’t think it matches the artwork all that much. The likeness has a lot in common with the one used for Teela some time back, although it still works for me. T4H went all out on the hair sculpt, which is mounded up on top of her head and then cascades behind her. It’s very distinctive. The outfit’s sculpt seems to reuse some parts from She-Ra, most notably the skirt, although the boots have been re-sculpted to match her deco. All in all her outfit looks pretty fresh and original and it’s layered onto the figure as has been the case with many of the past females.

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Articulation appears standard for the females in the line. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips. The arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists and hinged elbows. The legs are hinged at the knees and ankles. Casta can swivel at the waist, but there is no ab-crunch.

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Casta comes with three accessories: You get a shield, an effect part, and a huge disc. I know that the disc is tied to her vintage counterpart’s gimmick, but I have no idea what the hell it’s supposed to be. You can clip it onto her waist, but I think it’s garish and ugly like it’s a piece of 70’s wall art and I will banish it to the darkest depths of one of my most miscellaneous totes. Mwahaha.

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The shield is pretty cool. Sure, it’s the same PoP shield sculpt we’ve seen before, but it’s cast in translucent plastic and some people will have you believe that translucent plastic makes everything better. Is it a magic shield? Yup, that sounds good to me.

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Last up is the effect part. If you know me, you know I am rarely impressed with effect parts. Casta’s is a large yellow magic beam that fits over either of her hands. It’s ok, I guess, but I doubt it will get much face time in my display case.

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So, needless to say I’m glad I was able to get this figure, even if I did wind up taking a morning off that I didn’t need to. It’s crazy to look at a figure that took a few days to sell out and wonder what went wrong, but that’s often the case with Matty’s bizarre business model. In any event, I’m a big fan of the Princess of Power figures in the MOTUC collection, mainly because it’s the first time we’ve seen these characters as action figures rather than dolls, and I’m hoping to see a lot more in the 2014 Sub. Casta is a nice, colorful figure and a great addition to my Masters shelf.

Apr 10 2013

Masters of the Universe Classics: Frosta by Mattel

It’s go out drinking night, which is only different from every other night because on this night I actually go out to do it. I’m told it’s good for me, or at least better than doing it home alone. As a result, today I’m going to try to exercise a little more brevity than usual.

I’m pretty sure I told ya that Ram Man wouldn’t be the last time we saw MOTUC around these parts. I’m actually thinking about picking up a few of the Early Access offerings for April, but today’s figure was actually a trade. A friend of mine bought two Frostas, because he was planning on fixing the reversed biceps and he wanted an extra in case he screwed it up. His operation was a success leaving him with an extra figure. I offered to trade, he looked at list of my dupes and to my surprise and delight, he took a white-costumed Mary Batson and Steppenwolf, both from the DCUC, in trade. Let’s see what we’ve got…

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After featuring more than 30 of the figures here, what more can I say about the MOTUC packaging? It’s awesome. I love it. The back features a bunch of figures based off the She-Ra side of the fence, including the three Star Sisters. I’ve turned down that set on clearance more times than I can count. One of these days I’m going to crumble, but $20 is my limit. Anyway, I don’t usually bother with the biographies on these figures, but there was something about Frosta’s bio that caught my eye. “With the exception of her magic powers, she is otherwise a normal human female.”  WTF is that supposed to mean? That’s like saying apart from his giant f’cking mechanical elephant head, Snout Spout is just a regular dude. I’m starting to regret not reading more of these. I can’t imagine what other nuggets of wisdom I may have missed out on. Anyway, let’s rip this babe open and check her out.

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Right off the bat, I need to applaud T4H on the head sculpt here. Frosta really sports that distinctive look that the Filmation chicks all seemed to have on She-Ra. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but I think it has a lot to do with the eyes and the high cheekbones. Either way, this is a fantastic job on the portrait, assuming Filmation is your bag and not the comics or vintage toy. I am, however, a bit more divided over the use of semi-translucent blue plastic for her hair. That sort of thing works ok when Kotobukiya does it, but it’s a little iffy here. Fortunately, you really need to get her in the light to notice it, so I’m fine with it the way it is.

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As with most of the MOTUC female figures, Frosta’s outfit consists of softer plastic layered over the female buck. There isn’t a huge amount of sculpted detail here, apart from her belt. I will applaud the fact that the skirt prevents her from suffering the indignity of the granny diapers seen on The Star Sisters. On the other hand, Frosta has garnered quite a bit of scorn from collectors because Mattel used grey plastic instead of white. I can see the issue, it looks rather dirty, and I think the figure would have looked spectacular with bright white plastic, but the grey doesn’t kill the figure for me. In fact, it kind of goes pretty well with the blue. The soft blue cape can pull easily away from Frosta’s body to prevent it from hindering her articulation.

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And speaking of articulation, Frosta features everything you’d expect to find in an MOTUC female, with one extra surprise. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges int he elbows. The legs have hinges in the knees and ankles. What’s the surprise? Holy hell, she can actually swivel at the waist!

Frosta comes with two accessories. You get her pinwheel-style frost wand and her shield. The wand will spin and I rather like the clear ice-like plastic used for the spokes in the wheel. The shield is also an especially nice piece, which uses a great combination of metallic blue and silver paint along with some clear plastic to give it an appropriately frosty look.

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Frosta’s a cool enough figure, in fact I like her a lot. She sold out before I could get to her on Matty, but that’s fine because it just means I didn’t have to plunk down the $30 for her with shipping from. Sure I had to wait a while to get her, but it was worth the wait to get her in exchange for a couple of duplicates that were taking up space in a storage tote. Truth is, I have a strange desire to pick up a lot of the Princess of Power figure, mainly because they’re part of the He-Man lore and it was simply unacceptable for me to buy the originals because, well you know, they were dolls for girls because they came with combs and stuff. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my Hot Toys Black Widow’s hair got a bit mussed and I have to fix it.

Jun 16 2011

Masters of the Universe Classics: She-Ra (Re-Issue) by Mattel

[Yesterday was a Matty Collector Sale Day and I realized I never did get around to looking at one of the figures I picked up last month, so today we’re going to take a look at a belated very belated look at last month’s release re-release of She-Ra. As for the Sale Day, it worked out really well this month, since I was actually home and at my computer at 12pm when the sale kicked off. This happens about as often as Halley’s Comet comes around. Anyway, it all went really smoothly and I was able to secure both Battleground Teela and The Faceless One, as well as the re-issue of Whiplash. Now I just have to wait for Matty’s slow-ass shipping to get me the goods. Ghostbuster Winston Zedemore and Horde member Grizzlor were my two backups, but as I got all my first choices, I had to leave them be. Ok… on to today’s feature…]

So, the first time around, She-Ra sold out in a flash and unlike a lot of the other MOTUC figures, there aren’t a ton of them on Ebay. When Matty offered her as a re-issue last month, I jumped on it, but this time she lasted quite a while. I’m guessing she wasn’t in such high demand because Matty has let it be widely known that she won’t work with the forthcoming Swiftwind figure and that a new verison of She-Ra would be released. I really have no intention of getting Swiftwind, so this one was just fine with me.

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She-Ra comes on the standard MOTUC card with a Princess of Power sticker on the bubble. The back panel of the card shows some photos of other figures in the line and a bio card for She-Ra. She-Ra comes with two heads and is packaged with the vintage style head and the Filmation style head on the bottom of the bubble. I thought this was an interesting choice since I think it’s the weaker portrait. Anyway, my figure actually came with the head just barely attached, which segueys into a little story on it’s own, so let’s get the two heads out of the way before moving on to the rest of the figure.

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She-Ra’s head fell off as soon as I took her off the tray. I wasn’t terribly concerned since I planned on popping off that head anyway. As it turns out, though, getting the vintage style head back on was quite the chore. I had to press so hard, I was all but certain that I was going to either snap the post or mangle the figure’s joints. Time after time, I thought I had it on and it just fell right off again. Eventually it went on and I hope that’s the last time I ever put it on. The Filmation style head snaps on easily, but it tends to flop about a lot. My guess is the vintage head socket is too small and the Filmation one is too big.

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As for the heads themselves, the vintage style noggin is the one that caused all the hub-bub with the first release because of the way the tiara/mask piece pegs into the forehead leaving a huge square socket when it’s removed. I never plan on using this head, so it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Apart from the huge hole, I think the sculpt is quite good as is the clever way the tiara/mask piece can be flipped. I just don’t think the mask looks very good on the figure. Still, I’ll give Matty points for trying something original here. The Filmation style head is excellent and remarkably close to the version of the character that I am more familiar with. The sculpt is beautiful and similar enough to the one used on Princess Adora. The paint apps are immaculate and the hair is sculpted nicely so as not to interfere too badly with the neck articulation. Nice job, guys.

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The rest of the figure is also quite good. As with Teela, She-Ra’s dress is sculpted from separate rubbery plastic and permanently attached to the figure’s body. It makes for a nice bit of depth to the figure’s sculpt, but it does have the drawback of hindering articulation, which we’ll get to in a minute. The gold paintwork on her bracers and boots is nice and vibrant and there’s very little slop or bleeding between her white outfit and the gold ornamentation. She-Ra has a separate cape sculpted from soft plastic that hangs around her neck. It’s easily removable by popping off the head, unless you’re in my situation and are too afraid to remove the head ever again.

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The articulation is standard for the female of the line, which is to say not as good as the male figures. She has universal movement in the shoulders and hips; hinged elbows, knees, and ankles; and swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists. What’s obviously missing is the torso swivel and ab crunch joint. As mentioned above, She-Ra’s skirt also severly inhibits her hip joints. My guess is the updated figure will have slits up the sides to rectify this. You can certainly get some poses out of her, but ultimately I find the articulation to be somewhat limiting.

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You get a fair number of accessories with She-Ra. Besides the bonus head, you get her sword and shield, and you get her comb which doubles as an axe (or is that an axe that doubles as a comb). The sword seems a bit lacking in quality compared to the one that came with Adora. It’s extra bendy and it floats around a bit in She-Ra’s hand, and really makes for the only other issue I have with the figure. The shield clips onto her arm in two places and holds pretty well. The axe is a clever little way to include the trademark combs that came with the original dolls, but I have little use for it.

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I’ll confess, I was never a big fan of She-Ra as a kid, although I’ve seen my fair share of the Filmation cartoon. That having been said, She-Ra was one figure that I desparately wanted to add to my MOTUC collection and I’m really thrilled that Matty offered her as a re-issue. I suppose it’s possible that the newer version will be great enough to make me buy it as well, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen. The biggest opportunity for a fix on this figure is the head hole for the tiara/mask piece, and while it would be nice to have the option to display the figure without any headgear, it’s not something that would make me buy another figure.

 

May 29 2011

Masters of the Universe Classics: Catra by Mattel

Today we’re looking at on one of this month’s MOTUC figures from Matty Collector. It’s Catra and the fact that I own this figure is proof that Mattel is making some awesome figures. [Need more proof? I bought She-Ra too, and we’ll probably be looking at her tomorrow. -FF] I have absolutely no recollection of or affinity for this character from the old Filmation cartoons, but then I never spent a lot of time watching She-Ra. Nonetheless, she looked pretty cool and I was just itching to get some new MOTUC figures this month. Besides, I’ve yet to be disappointed by an MOTUC purchase. So let’s see if that track record holds true.

When the Matty box showed up at my door this morning I had almost completely forgot that even ordered it. That’s a slightly less beligerent way of saying Matty’s shipping is pricey and slow. Ok, it’s only been 10 days since the sale, but it seems like most of the other retailers I deal with can get my goods to me faster and cheaper. But, I digress… let’s look at the packaging. It’s the same old Greyskull inspired green brick motif, and it’s just as magnificent looking as ever. Some may argue that Matty should have done more of a Princess of Power themed package for the figures from that property, but I’m not one of them. Besides, there’s a nice Evil Horde sticker right on the bubble to declare her affiliation.

In a universe populated by bat-shit crazy looking people and creatures, Catra looks pretty normal. Even more so when you consider that she’s totally obsessed with cats and can indeed turn into one herself. The head sculpt is positively gorgeous with some definite feline aspects to her facial structure, particularly in her eyes and her high cheekbones. Her hair is very nicely sculpted and doesn’t interfere with her neck articulation. The legs and boots seem to borrow from She-Ra, which is fine, but I’m not terribly thrilled with her useless and very soft left hand. The hand is sculpted to look like she’s going to scratch someone, and I’m guessing that safety protocols required the fingers to be bendy. But wait, isn’t this an Adult Collectors line? I dunno. It’s not such a big deal, if you plan on keeping her shield clipped to her left hand, but I would have rather had a functional hand. Her one-piece outfit is sculpted from rubbery plastic and permanently attached just like She-Ra and Teela and I really dig The Horde emblem sculpted into it. It’s a nice break from the cat motif of the rest of her gear. She also comes with a soft plastic cape that floats freely around her neck and can be removed by popping off her head.

Catra comes with a nice little assortment of accessories. You get her sword, shield, whip, tiara and cat mask. The sword and shield both have a cat motif. The shield is actually a resculpt of She-Ra’s. The whip has a comb sculpted into the handle, which seems to be the running gag with the MOTUC Princess of Power ladies. The tiara and mask are sculpted to fit snugly onto Catra’s face and either one holds on quite well, although I prefer displaying her with the tiara over the mask.

The articulation is standard for the females of the MOTUC line. You get a ball jointed neck, univeral movement in the shoulders and hips, hinged elbows, knees, and ankles, swivels in the wrists and boots. You don’t get any torso articulation, which is a bummer, but it seems to be par for the course with the ladies of the MOTUC line.

All things considered, I’m really happy with this figure. She looks great and helps to add a little to the ranks of the MOTUC ladies. I like the understated design and the quality of the sculpt and paintwork is certainly up to The Four Horseman’s excellent standards. I can even live with her floppy left hand. Plus, now my Hordak has someone to keep him company. I’ll probably have to break down and pick up Grizzlor now too, although I may wait until he makes another appearance on MattyCollector.