Draego-Man is one of those “fake” MOTU figures, created specifically for the 30^th Anniversary. Yes, Mattel’s way of celebrating the 30^thAnniversary of He-Man was to have a bunch of people create figures of characters that never existed before as a misguided nod back to the 1986 contest that let kids design their own character. The winner of the ’86 contest was supposed to get their character made into a figure, but it never happened until now when Matty finally made Fearless Photog as part of this celebration. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that finally creating that figure as part of the 30^th Anniversary was a pretty cool move on Mattel’s part, as this release was tied to a piece of the franchise’s history. However, when Mattel moved beyond that gesture, that’s where I think they missed the entire point.

You see, obviously, Mattel can’t tell the difference between kids entering a contest and having industry insiders sculpt bullshit figures and retcon them into the MOTU legacy. Not only is this one of the worst ideas on how to celebrate a milestone anniversary of the franchise, but it was the ultimate display of vanity and hubris, and a blatant excuse to let the brand manager get his own figure produced. Looking beyond the questionable motives, these “30^th Anniversary Figures” ranged from the laughably bad (Mighty Spector and Sir Laserlot) to today’s excellent Draego-Man. But then, Draego-Man was designed by The Four Horseman, so there’s no surprise he turned out great.  Ok, enough editorializing, let’s look at the figure.

There’s the MOTUC packaging that we all know and love. The last time I featured it was way back in March when I looked at the Sorceress. It hasn’t changed much, although this one has a little explosion on the bottom insert pointing out that this figure was “Created by The Four Horsemen.” Neat! Draego-Man is a beast of a figure (quite literally!) and they were just barely able to stuff him into a standard sized bubble. Seriously, look inside that package and you’ll see that even with his tail and wings detached and his head turned to the side, there’s barely any room for anything else inside that cramped bubble compartment. The back of the card features some shots of other figures. Holy crap, I actually have all of them except Webstor! You also get a biography retconning Draego-Man into the MOTU continuity and pointing out that he is most decidedly evil, although he seems to waffle on who’s side he’s really on. Let’s bust this guy open and check him out!

Out of the package, the first thing you need to do is attach Draego-Man’s wings and his tail and then he’s all set to go. Damn, that is a beauty of a figure. He’s teaming with brand new sculpting, which meshes perfectly with the recycled MOTUC parts. The traditional MOTU loincloth is pretty obvious, the tail should look familiar, and I think the head sculpt has a hint of Filmation look to it, but otherwise, Draego-Man is definitely all his own figure, and he’s a majestic one at that.

Getting back to the head sculpt, it’s easily one of my favorite things about the figure. He’s got an elegant triangular noggin that starts at the back of his ebony horns and runs down to a point at the tip of his snout. Every little scale is sculpted on, along with little dragon bumps on his nose and chin. His staggered teeth protrude haphazardly from his closed mouth, reminiscent of an alligator. He has a really cool duality to his expression. Point his nose down and the shadows fall over his eyes and he looks like a vicious bastard. Point his nose up and he has more of a noble visage. Either way, T4H did a marvelous job with Draego’s head.

The body of the figure is equally impressive, with heavy segmented rings on his arms and legs and some really cool sculpted armor. The crest on his chestplate is a dragon’s face set atop the crossbones that are reminiscent of Skeletor’s insignia. His leg armor even has little sculpted fasteners for where they would strap around his legs. But the wings are my favorite thing about Draego’s body. They’re quintessential dragon wings, sculpted with a rough, leathery pattern and culminating in two little ebony claws at the tops. The wings are partially unfurled so you can get a pretty good idea of how menacing they are, without him taking up too much space on your display shelf.

The coloring on Draego-Man is brilliant. The deep red of his skin is coupled with a bright orange used for his undercarriage and the insides of his wings. On the body itself, you can really only see the orange  under his neck and under his tail, but I presume it’s meant to run down his chest in typical dragon fashion. The red contrasts nicely with the dark blue and purple of his armor and I’m particularly fond of the metallic paint used for the collar of his breastplate and his bracers. Beautiful!

Possibly Draego-Man’s only drawback is that he’s light in the accessories department. Matty had to omit his whip in order to keep the cost down and so all he comes with is his flaming sword. Now the sword is certainly a beautiful piece all on its own. I’m not usually a big fan of plastic sculpted flame motifs, as they don’t often look terribly convincing, but this one pulls it off really well. As for only coming with one accessory, with the additional wings and the amount of unique sculpting here, I can certainly forgive him that.

If you’re familiar with the MOTUC line, than you should know what to expect from Draego’s articulation. He has a ball jointed neck; his arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. His legs are ball jointed and swivel at the hips, feature hinges in the knees and ankles, and he has rocker joints in the ankles. The only thing really new here are his wings, which rotate and feature hinges.

Draego-Man was the only figure of the bullshit 30^th Anniversary releases that tempted me when he was first offered. He’s not only beautifully designed and sculpted, but he’s so good he practically transcends the line and works as his own stand-alone figure. It’s crazy to think that while Matty was piecing out original tooling to see what real MOTU characters they can afford to make, T4H were allowed to go fucking nuts on this guy. Nevertheless, I’m glad they did, because in terms of sculpt, design, and coloring, I honestly think Draego-Man is easily the most impressive figure to come out of the line. That’s saying an awful lot when you consider that a) I have no nostalgic connection to this character, and b) most figures in the line are excellent, so he has some stiff competition. Nonetheless, I adore everything about this guy and I’m so very happy I was able to double back and pick him up. The fact that he was on sale was just icing on the cake.