Tag Archives: thundercats

Sep 20 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: WilyKat by Super7

I’m finally up to the most recently released wave of ThunderCats Ultimates. Yeah, there are some older ones I haven’t looked at yet and I’ll swing back to them, but right now I’m just excited to be caught up to a current wave! This is also the first wave released in a while where I did not buy all four of the figures. I’m not doing the LJN color versions, so that got me off the hook for Jaga and Grune. But since I didn’t review the original Grune yet, maybe I’ll toss him in after I’m done with the two Wave 9 figures I did buy. And those were WilyKat and the Lunatak, Chilla. I just reviewed a Lunatak last time, and WilyKit is anxious to be reunited with her brother, so let’s go with him!

The packaging still looks great, even with the outer sleeve no longer being included. You get a great look at the figure and accessories through the front window and the back panel has some character art and a little bio about the older ThunderKitten sibling. Everything is collector friendly, but since I don’t feel like renting a storage unit for empty figure boxes, these packages are being recycled. As I mentioned last time with WilyKit, these are brand new versions of the figures that were released as part of Mattel’s ThunderCats line as an SDCC Exclusive! I was very pleased with most of the changes Super7 made to WilyKit, so I have high hopes for her brother.

And a lot of what I said about WilyKit will hold true here. Even without a direct comparison yet, this WilyKat figure looks cleaner and crisper to me. The colors are less drab and more toony, with the orange a lot brighter and the brown closer to the orange in tone. Even the sculpt is smoothed out to give him more of an animated look. Matty’s figure had more gloss to the paint and the matte finish here is also more in line with the cartoon vibe. The boots here have less color to them, so the detail like the sculpted wraps pop less, but again, more screen accurate. Finally, the skin tones on both of Mattel’s kittens were a lot darker than they should have been, and that’s resolved here too. The one big downer for me with Super7’s figure is the clip on lasso, which is essentially the same as his sister’s. The tab is super soft and it does not want to stay pegged in. I also liked the sculpt better on Matty’s version of this accessory as well. Otherwise, I think everything else here is a huge improvement.

You get two head sculpts, and both are excellent. The first is a neutral expression and the second offers a open mouthed grin, which is very charming and I think suits the character perfectly. The facial features are super clean and the eye printing is perfect. I had a some issues with the paint on my Matty WilyKat, and while there’s still a bit of minor gaffs here and there in the hair, this is a big improvement. S7’s portrait looks more youthful and toon accurate, whereas Matty’s had sharper detail in the hair sculpt.

And here’s a quick shot of the Matty and Super7 figures together! Matty’s is taller and a tad beefier. I think the proportions and size on the new one are perfect.

WilyKat’s articulation is identical to Kit’s, which in turn is pretty close to what we saw on Matty’s figures. The elbows can at least do a 90-degree bend and the waist is a ball joint, as opposed to Matty’s which just had a swivel. There are slits up the sides of his tunic’s skirt that allow for a little more range in the hips, but the knees don’t have as much range as I would like. The quality of the joints all feel great, although there’s some paint chipping inside the hinge of my figure’s right shoulder, which needs to be cleaned up. WilyKat comes with four pairs of hands and surprisingly no fists. But you do get pairs of relaxed, splayed finger, accessory holding, smoke bomb throwing, and an extra right hand about to throw one of his little mischief pills. I really dig the effects on the bomb throwing hands.

I already pointed out the coiled version of the lasso that doesn’t like to stay pegged into his belt. You also get the unfurled version and this is just a recolor of the one we saw with his sister. It looks good, but his accessory holding hands are not tight enough to hold it unless you thread it between the fingers. It works and looks fine, but probably not how it was intended. The accessory is cast in a soft and pliable plastic, but unfortunately it isn’t posable. I would have preferred an actual wire.

And finally, you get the Hover Board, which is a recolor of the one that came with WilyKit. This one is fatter and an overall better sculpt than the one included with the Matty figure. My Matty board also had some terrible paint scuffs, whereas this one is super crisp and clean. There’s one foot peg up near the front and while I was worried it was too shallow, it does seem to hold the figure pretty well. The stand is transparent with a sculpted smoke base. It pegs into the bottom of the board and has a ball joint to allow for some tilting of the board. The stand’s sculpt is identical to Wilykit’s but hers looks more yellow while this one is closer to white.

Matty’s WilyKat was by no means a bad figure. I liked it a lot then and I still do, but i do greatly prefer Super7’s offering. I think the choice here will come down to personal preference. If you were more a fan of the LJN toys, maybe Matty’s will be more to your liking. If you lean toward the cartoon, I think Super7’s is the clear winner. Naturally, I had the Matty kittens standing in my Super7 display up until now, but I’ll be retiring them back to their packaging. I may wind up selling them off, but the packaging is quite nice, so maybe I’ll hang on to them so I can have one packaged example of that line in my collection. And with WilyKat in the mix, My core Ultimates ThunderCats team is now complete! Next time, we’ll cool things off and have a look at the second Lunatak in the line, Chilla!

Sep 13 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Alluro by Super7

It’s been a couple of months since I checked in with Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates. Where does the time go? If you’re keeping score, I’ve been looking at Wave 8 and so far I’ve covered WilyKit, Captain Shiner, and Hachiman. So let’s wrap up the wave today with the first of the Lunataks, Alluro! The Lunataks showed up in Season Two, to give the ThunderCats all kinds of grief and they were pretty prominent characters going forward. Nonetheless, LJN never cashed in on them by putting any Lunatak action figures in stores. It’s a pretty crazy omission, but to be fair the line only lasted three years. As a result, I was really excited to see that Super7 was digging into this particular team next. Sure, if given the choice I may have gone with the Berserkers, but this was still a major win.

I don’t have much new to say about the packaging. It looks great despite Super7 nixing the slipcovers. The window shows off the goods and you get some character art and a brief character blurb on the back panel. Everything is collector friendly, but I’ve begun purging these boxes because I have to make space for a giant Cat’s Lair before the end of the year. Alluro was the Lunatak’s super creepy master of psy-ops. He could control people’s minds, making him a pretty powerful force to be reckoned with. And, I have to just say how much I loved Doug Preis’ voice work for the character. The voice work in ThunderCats often annoys me because there are so few actors voicing so many characters, and to be brutally honest, a lot of them don’t do a great job distinguishing between the multiple characters they do. I believe Alluro was the only character voiced by Preis in the series, which made him stand out. He did a great job giving Alluro a smug and creepy affect with a bit of Peter Lorre thrown in. Superb!

Alluro manages to stand out, even among a group of freaks like the Lunataks. He’s tall, with a broad and muscular chest, and arms that seem a bit too long for his frame. He goes topless, exposing his lavender skin. There’s a wide belt with a sculpted eye motif in the middle, and a loin cloth hanging below it. This rig is held up by a pair of brown suspenders and a couple of thin crossed belts underneath. Despite the modesty skirt, he actually has a pair of sculpted brown slacks, which give way to orange boots with some sculpted decorations and a pinched toe at the tips. For a pretty simple outfit, the layering here works well. The colors look great and this guy looks like he just stepped off of one of Rankin-Bass’ animation cells!

You get two heads to choose from: One is offering an evil smile and the other an even more evil-er laugh. I don’t know where the inspiration came from for Alluro’s features, but it’s really imaginative. He’s got a bald pate with a crescent moon symbol on his forehead. There’s a gray, mask-like coloring around his eyes and brow ridge. He’s got prominent cheek bones, a set of balls for a chin and big pointed ears. Meanwhile a mop of gray straggly hair cascades down his front and back. The whole portrait is rounded out by his yellow eyes with some mesmerizing rings for pupils. Both heads suit the character beautifully, and while I usually go for the more neutral expression for every day display, I may go for the laughing one here, because it just looks amazing.

If you’ve been on board with any of Super7’s Ultimates lines, you should know what to expect from the articulation here. The rotating hinges in the elbows and knees aren’t going to win any awards for extreme posability, but I’m OK with it. I will say that Alluro’s elbows feel like they have slightly less range than some of the other figures, as he can’t quite even do a 90-degree bend. Otherwise, the joints all feel great and he’s still plenty of fun to play with. You get four sets of hands: Fists, two sets of accessory holding hands, one pointing right hand, and one wide open right hand.

Alluro’s primary accessory is his Psych Club, which he uses to bend the minds of his adversaries. The club has a hooked end, which can be used to hang off his belt and the head is shaped like a crescent moon. There are two crystal orbs that can be plugged into the top, either blue or yellow, and these are ridiculously hard to install. There’s no give in the moon emblem and the sockets on the orbs feel like they are a little too far apart. I was able to get each one in after a lot of cursing and frustration, and now I’ll be leaving the blue one in there for all of time. Some heat would have probably helped. The rest of the included accessories are all from the Season Two episode Psych-Out.

First up is this scroll that Mumm-Ra gave Alluro to find the Egora Talisman, an artifact that gives whomever possesses it so much confidence that it makes them nearly invincible. Personally, I always thought over confidence was a weakness to be exploited, but whatever. The scroll is just a piece of plastic with a map printed on it. Which is odd, because in the episode, the scroll just seemed to have hints written in rhyme that directed him where to find it. As luck would have it, it was in a cave near Cat’s Lair, which alerted Lion-O and the team that something was up.

And then you get the Egora Talisman itself, which includes the cool little chest it was stored in. The chest has a skull motif sculpted into it, along with gold painted reinforced bands and corners. It opens and the Talisman can be stored inside. For such a tiny accessory, the Talisman is nicely sculpted and painted. In the episode, Snarf was the only one not crippled by Alluro’s mind control so he stole the chest out of the glovebox in Alluro’s ride and used the Talisman’s power to defeat him. Of course, we later learn that the Talisman inside was smashed and powerless and that Old Snarf beat him all on his own. Never underestimate a Snarf! Here endeth the lesson!

Alluro is another fantastic addition to the ThunderCats villains line up and I really love the accessories included from Psych-Out. It’s so exciting to see the Lunataks show up in Ultimates and embark on assembling a team that have never had figures before. Especially when we’re talking about characters that became regulars in the second season of the cartoon. I’ll admit I had my doubts as to whether we would see these guys in Ultimates, because are they really going to ever do Luna and Amok? But we got the answer to that right quick, as they are already in production. Of course, Chilla turned up in the next wave, but before I get to her, I’m going to round out the Thunderkittens with Wilykat… hopefully next week!

Jul 12 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Captain Shiner by Super7

Even as I push my way through my look at ThunderCats Ultimates Wave 8 and try to get current, Wave 9 has already arrived! Fortunately, I only picked up half of that assortment so it doesn’t set me back quite so far, but I’m still doing all I can to get caught up with ThunderCats, so I can get back into Silverhawks. If you’re just joining me, I’ve already had a look at WilyKit and Hachiman from this wave, and today I’m checking out the nefarious Captain Shiner!

As we saw last time, we are no longer getting the sleeves on these boxes, which is disappointing, but has also convinced me to not keep these packages any longer. That’s not me being petty, just looking for any excuse I can get to get rid of empty boxes and conserve space. Nonetheless, the window box shows off the figure quite nicely and you get some character art and a blurb about him on the back. We first encountered the spacefaring mercenary, Captain Shiner, in the episode Sword in a Hole where he acquires the Sword of Omens for Mumm-Ra and throws it into what appears to be a Black Hole. This was a stand out episode to me when I was a kid, because I can remember honestly wondering how the hell they were ever going to get the sword back.. and in about twenty minutes, no less! By the end of the episode it seems like Shiner going to be another one of those adversary-turned-ally situations, like Hachiman or Snowman of Hook Mountain, but nope when we see him again in the ThunderCats, Ho! mini-series, he’s still an asshole!

Shiner always struck me as being based off an old 19th Century Austrian army officer, and I dig that! I mean, why not? We’ve had pirates and samurai and ninjas. Third Earth is just a melting pot for historical analogies. His uniform is not the most exciting thing around, as it’s mainly a gray suit with red striping on the trousers and an orange baldric across his chest. He does, however, have some really snazzy space boots and the purple and blue go a long way to make his coloring more interesting. What’s also interesting is Shiner comes out of the box with static arms that are sculpted crossed over his chest. I’m not usually a big fan of swapping out parts to make up for shortcomings in articulation, but I have to admit it looks good here, even if it is a dirty cheat.

Of course, you can pop the crossed arms piece off at the shoulders and give him his regular articulated arms and these work just as you might expect, with rotating hinges at the shoulders and elbows, swivels in the biceps and hinged pegs for the wrists. You get three pairs of hands, which include fists, accessory gripping hands, a relaxed right hand and a pointing left hand. The hands seem rather undersized to me, especially the tiny fists, which I found kind of weird and off-putting. The rest of the articulation is standard Super7 Ultimates stuff, although my figure’s right hip can be problematic. Sometimes it feels like it locks up and I have to fiddle with it to get it to move again. I’m not sure what’s goin on up there, but heat doesn’t seem to help and I just have to be patient and careful with it.

You get three different heads to choose from. These include a somewhat passive expression, an evil smile expression, and a maniacal laughter head. The later two are very expressive and all three are excellent likenesses for the character. The face is so lumpy and weird, and just full of personality. The monocle in his left eye is a permanent fixture, cast in a smoked translucent plastic so you can still see his painted eye behind it. The cord is attached to the monocle and plugs into the orange sash, so you have to unplug it every time you change the head. It’s not a big deal and it pegs in fairly easily, but if you turn the head too far, particularly to his left it will tend to pull out.

Shiner comes with three accessories, the first of which comes from his first appearance and it’s the captured Sword of Omens. This represents the sword in its dagger form with the Eye of Thundera wrapped up to contain its power. It’s actually the second time we got a Sword of Omens with the Eye wrapped up, the first one came with Pumm-Ra. And kudos to S7 for doing an entirely new sculpt for this accessory.

Next up, you get an energy pistol. I can’t remember if we saw these in his first episode, but I know his crew carried these in ThunderCats, Ho! As far as laser gun designs go, this one is pretty low effort and the accessory reflects that. There’s no real detail on it at all, just a painted orange screen for the energy emitter.

And finally, you get a set of shackles, which I presume are supposed to be one of the sets used to chain up the captive ThunderCats, in ThunderCats, Ho! This accessory is very well done with an actual chain and the cuffs can open and close. They are a bit big, even on the dudes, but fun nonetheless.

Captain Shiner is a solid enough figure, and yet this one leaves me a little underwhelmed. Maybe it’s because his outfit design is rather simple, but then I think the head sculpts make up for it. Maybe it’s because he feels rather light on the accessories, but that’s probably because of the crossed arms piece taking up a chunk of the extras budget. And sure, that looks good as a display option, but where do we draw the line between just substituting parts instead of making the articulation work better. The tiny hands do bother me quite a bit, and the wonky right hip joint is a nuisance. Part of me wonders if I should have waited for Shiner to turn up on discount, but then I didn’t want to risk not having him in my collection. Really good figures often get a week or so playtime on my desk for me to have fun messing around with before going up on display, but that won’t be the case for Shiner. Although he does look good on the shelf!

Jul 3 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Hachiman by Super7

Last week I embarked on a look at the eighth wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates with a look at Wilykit, and today I’m pushing forward with the Samurai from The Red Sun Planet! Hachiman first showed up well into the first season of the cartoon, when he was summoned by Mumm-Ra and tricked into fighting the ThunderCats, but he and Lion-O eventually became allies… until many episodes later Mumm-Ra summoned him again, put a spell on him, and made him fight the ThunderCats… again! One of the recurring themes in the cartoon was making friends out of potential adversaries, and I think that was a good message to send kids, but maybe the writers hit that well a few too many times at the expense of Hachiman’s gullibility. Either way, Hachiman would turn up in a total of maybe a half-dozen or so episodes, enough for LJN to give him a figure back in the day.

Here he is in the package, and just like last time, we no longer get an outer mailer box or a slipcover. I don’t mind the mailer going away, as I always pitched them, but the fact that we’re not getting the slipcovers anymore has just about convinced me to not keep these boxes. The presentation is still really nice, but at this point I’m just looking for excuses to get rid of action figure boxes in storage and recover some space. The back panel still has some character art and you get a little blurb about Hachiman as well.

Out of the box, Hachiman is looking pretty faithful to his animated counterpart. He has blue Samurai armor with a little black and red trim, worn over a sculpted brown bodysuit. The armor is confined to the front, which I’d like to think is because a brave warrior like Hachiman does not turn his back on the enemy. From the back you can see the sculpted red cords that hold his chest piece on and just more of his sculpted brown undersuit. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the plates on his hips and shoulders are not too restrictive of his articulation. His chest armor has a swap out panel, one with an emblem on it and one without. I don’t remember him ever having that emblem on his chest in the cartoon and the LJN figure didn’t have it either, so I’m not sure the source of that piece. I can’t say as I remember every episode he was in, so maybe it appeared in one of the later ones. Despite being more cartoon accurate without it, I have to say I kind of dig what it adds to the look of the armor.

You get two head sculpts, one with the helmet and one without. The helmeted head looks great with some pretty nice depth of sculpt between the mask and his underlying face and he’s depicted as gritting his teeth in the heat of battle. The gold leaf paint on the trim and crest looks good, but could have had some sharper paint lines. I like that they went with two heads, rather than a removable helmet, because I don’t think this design would have worked as well had it been an accessory.

The sculpting for the unmasked head also looks pretty good and offers a more stoic and determined expression. His brow is furled and his tightly drawn lips are slightly downturned. The hair sculpt is rather soft and the paint on the head band shows some slop. My figure also has a stray black mark on the left side of his face, which I will try to wipe off at some point. Overall, I think the paint could have been a lot better on this head, but I’ll concede that the flubs are amplified by the camera close ups and it’s not as egregious with the naked eye. On the other hand, it is a $55 collector figure so, it should have been better. Do better, Super7!

Hachiman has a scabbard for his mighty sword, Thunder-Cutter, which pegs into his belt sash with a key-type tab. If I peg it in and put the figure on the shelf, it’ll stay put, but as soon as I start fiddling with him, the scabbard pops off, so I find it’s best to just leave it off until I’m done posing him and then attach it. It’s rather annoying, but I can’t really think of a better way to do it and still have the scabbard be removable. The scabbard has a gold handle and some sculpted with wraps and it fits the sword blade pretty well. Hachiman has hands for holding both the sword and the scabbard, along with relaxed hands, fists, and a pointing finger hand.

Released from its scabbard, Thunder-Cutter has a painted silver blade, black sculpted wrap on the handle, and the pommel and tsuba are both painted gold. It may not be as flashy as the Sword of Omens, but it’s still an attractive and elegant looking sword.

You also get a second version of Thunder-Cutter with a semi-translucent energy webbing effect piece wrapped around the blade. It’s actually the exact same sword and the effect piece is removable, so I’m not sure why they didn’t just include the effect piece, but hey… extra sword! The effect piece also has a hole for the pointing finger hand so you can recreate the scene where Hachiman asked Thunder-Cutter which way to go and it acted like a compass to point him in the right direction, while balancing on his finger.

I’m glad they finally worked Hachiman into one of these waves, because he was a great recurring character on the cartoon and he makes for a fun action figure. Yes, I would have appreciated a bit more care on the paintwork, especially the unhelmeted head, but what we got isn’t so bad that it ruins the figure for me. Getting him in hand does make me extra sad that we don’t yet have Nadya, the Warrior Maiden that he sort of bonded with and referred to as Little Sister in the cartoon, but the line does appear to still be going strong, so I have hope!

Jun 24 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: WilyKit by Super7

I’m trying to space out the Super7 stuff as much as possible, but with me trying to get caught up on GI JOE Ultimates and new waves of ThunderCats and Silverhawks, it’s just a lot of stuff to try to squeeze into each week and still offer some variety. Anyway, just to refresh everyone’s memory, Matty Collector started ThunderCats and Super7 took it over. And while Super7 technically finished the main ThunderCats team a while ago, the Thunder Kittens were released by Mattel as SDCC Exclusives and were not easy to get. Naturally fans who missed them have been waiting for Super7 to do them, and now they have! WilyKit arrived as part of Wave 8 and WilyKat has already shipped as part of Wave 9. Since I already reviewed Matty’s set, I’ll be focusing on comparisons for today’s look!

I’m usually not a fan of cartoons inserting the young characters for kids to relate to, but I really do love the Thunder Kittens. They’re fun, they’re not too annoying, and their mischief works well as the inciting incident for a lot of episodes. Matty’s Kittens came in some really cool packaging, but that’s to be expected for a special SDCC release. Here we get the standard S7 ThunderCats Ultimates packaging after all the cost cutting. So, no more outer mailer and no more slipcover. You do still get some nice character art on the back panel as well as a little blurb about the character. Even with the cut backs, the presentation here is still gorgeous and everything is collector friendly, but I’m leaning toward not keeping these boxes any longer.

Before I even did an in hand direct comparison, I could tell that this new version of Wilykit was a huge improvement over Mattel’s. She looks crisper and more colorful, and surprisingly more polished than the previous release. Her dress is more of a purple and pink combo, where Matty’s was more blue and lavender. The skin tone is a lot lighter and uses bare plastic rather than paint, making her look a lot cleaner. And yes, it is an entirely new sculpt! She’s only a bit shorter than the Matty figure, but her proportions are slighter and more alike to what we saw in the cartoon. The belt is now red instead of brown and still has her braces of pill bombs sculpted in. These along with the belt buckle are sculpted sharper and painted in bright silver, as is the sculpted cuff on her right bicep. Finally, her toes are more claw like and accurate to the cartoon, whereas Matty’s, looked more human.

You get two heads to choose from, where Matty’s only came with one. The neutral head has much paler skin than the Matty release and the difference between the white painted inner part of the face and the the surrounding area is more subtle. The eyes are printed much more sharply and are colored orange rather than red, as is the hair. The hair shape has been reworked so it’s less pointy on the top, which is where most of the difference in height comes from. Whether this is more or less screen accurate kind of depended on which episode I was watching. I think the brightness of the hair could have been taken down a notch, but I still dig it. Everything about this portrait just looks so much brighter and cleaner than Matty’s.

The additional head offers a wink and a smile and is a very welcome bonus. Wilykit is now showing off her pearly whites and has her right eye closed into a knowing wink. It’s playful and mischievous and really presents the character very well.

The articulation here is nearly identical to Matty’s, meaning you get lots of rotating hinges, and not as tight a bend in the elbow as most would probably like. With that having been said, the one big improvement here is that the waist is now ball jointed, where it was merely a swivel on the Matty figure. The skirt is a tad restrictive of the hips. You can still get her into a pretty wide stance, but I think Matty’s could do slightly better in that regards. The joints are a bit delicate due to the smaller nature of the figures’s limbs, but not so much that I was worried about breakage while playing with her.

WilyKit comes with a pair of relaxed hands attached and you get only three additional hands to swap out. These include one set of gripping hands for her lasso and one right hand sculpted with one of her pill bombs between her fingers. I love that they included the pill throwing hand and I’ll likely display her with it. But, it still feels like she came up pretty light in the extra hand department. Considering how small a figure she is, that feels a tad cheap.

Just like the previous release, WilyKit comes with two versions of her rope: One to store on her belt, and one all unfurled into a lasso. This is one aspect where the S7 figure takes a step back from Matty’s, as this one has a real problem staying put when you peg it into her belt. Matty’s wasn’t perfect, but it used a much chonkier tab to connect and it just worked better. On the other hand, S7’s is still more accurate to the episodes I’ve watched recently.

And of course, WilyKit comes with her Space Board, and this is also an entirely new sculpt. The board is about as long as WilyKit is tall and it’s a lot fatter and rounder than Matty’s. It’s also painted much, much better. There’s a single peg on the top to support the figure as well as a sculpted Eye of Thundera. Meanwhile the flipside has some sculpted thruster jets and a socket to plug in the flight stand.

The stand plugs into the bottom and has a ball joint so you can angle the board different ways. It’s a clear cone with a smoked effect on the bottom. All in all it looks good and does its job well. The foot peg makes a secure connection with Wilykit and she stays on a lot better than Matty’s figure does.

And here are some comparison pics with the Matty figure, where you can really see the differences to the hair sculpt from behind.

Apart from some spotty QC issues, I was pretty favorable toward the SDCC Thunder Kittens when I reviewed them back in the day. I would have been perfectly fine having them continue on in my ThunderCats display if S7 opted out of making them. But, with that having been said, I think this new WilyKit is an improvement on nearly all fronts. Of course, the previous WilyKit is nearly nine years old now, so I expected better, but even still, I prefer the color choices, the changes to the hair, and even the design of the Space Board. Yeah, she stumbles a bit with the lasso belt attachment, but it’s a minor thing on an otherwise great figure. Her brother is already on his way to me as we speak, and we’ll get these two Kittens together as soon as I am done looking at the rest of this wave.

May 1 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Ratar-O by Super7

I’ve got a pile of Super7’s GI JOE and Silverhawks Ultimates to get to, but I decided I’d at least wrap up the latest wave of ThunderCats Ultimates before moving on. And I’ll probably be doubling up on a few of those JOEs in order to get caught up. If you’re just joining me for Wave 7, this assortment has included Snarf, Willa, and Mongor, and now lastly the Evil Mutant Ratar-O. Let’s check him out!

Our latest Mutant figure arrives in the same style packaging as we’ve been seeing all along, so I won’t dwell on it, but in the cartoon he arrived in his signature ship, The Ratstar! Ratar-O was a latecomer to the series, not arriving to join the fight until almost thirty episodes in, and his appearance really smacked of a need for LJN to help market and expand the action figure line. Not that he wasn’t a cool new character, but it was weird to see this fat rat show up to supplant Ssslithe and start dominating the more familiar Mutants. But, with monkeys, vultures, jackals and lizards already spoken for, I think a rat was a good choice.

And this rat is a force to be reckoned with! While the previous Evil Mutants all have a primitive and savage appearance about them, Ratar-O is clearly a rodent with some class and sophistication. He dons a full set of clothes that strike me as being somewhere between an emperor’s robes and a spaceship captain’s uniform. The blue tunic has gold edging, a large decoration on the front, and wide shoulders giving way to long red sleeves. He has blue and gold bracers on his wrists and grieves on his lower legs. Both his clawed hands and ratty feet are left bare and his tail snakes out from the bottom of the back of the tunic. It’s a colorful costume that makes him stand out and I really dig what Super7 did with it. The paint is sharp, the colors pop, and there are slits in the skirt part of the tunic to allow for better movement in the hips.

You get two head sculpts to choose from, which are pretty much the same but with one having a closed mouth and the other open. Both of these look great and convey all the personality of the animated design. He has two rodent teeth jutting down from under his nose, as well as a pair of reverse fangs reaching up out of the sides of his mouth. I also love the long tendril-like mustache that snakes down each side of his snout. The pointed ears jut upward from his almost samurai-like helmet and there’s a gold crest with a red gem in the center of his forehead. My one complaint with both heads is that there are a few molding seams running along the sides of the snout. These are not terribly apparent with the figure in hand, but kind of ugly when you punch in close with the camera.

The open mouth head displays Ratar-O’s full set of teeth and you get some nice variance in his eyes, where the left one is narrowed and the right is popping a bit. It mimics a recurring style in the Mutant’s animation models and gives the character a lot more personality. This may be the head that I display on the figure the most.

Despite having a rather rotund body, Ratar-O’s articulation works mostly the same as other figures in the line. He is missing the ab crunch that the skinnier Mutants have, but maintains a waist swivel. The range of motion in the arms are great thanks to rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows. The legs have a decent range in the hips thanks to the slits in the sides of the tunic, plus you get rotating hinges in the knees and hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The neck is ball jointed and you get pegged hinges in the wrists to allow for hand swapping. There are two sets of hands, which include a right relaxed hand, a left pointing finger, and one pair for his daggers.

The daggers, were known as The Rat’s Eye, which always kind of intrigued me that the pair of daggers had a single name, and yet each dagger kind of had their own rat’s eye. These beautiful twin accessories have a sort of Egyptian theme to their ornate gold hilts, with the eyes painted white with green pupils. The blades have a serpentine kris-style to them and lovely satin silver finishes to the paint.

You get two sets of effect parts to work with the daggers, all of which are cast in translucent, pale blue plastic. One set are to energize the blades and the other are projectile blasts that plug into the sockets in the eyes. Both designs work really well and they look great!

Finally, the Evil Mutants are complete and Ratar-O is a great figure to end them on. He was the last of them to join the show and there was just something different about him that made him stand out. And the Ultimates line definitely did him justice with this figure. Sure, you could argue that he comes with a lot less stuff than say Vultureman, but his added bulk kind of makes up for it. Also, there’s really not much else I could think of tossing in there, except maybe an episode-specific accessory or two. And while Ratar-O gets us the last of the Evil Mutants in the line, I’d still like to circle back and check out Monkian and Vultureman at some point, because both of those figures are yet to have their time in the spotlight here.

Apr 22 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Mongor by Super7

With new waves of both GI JOE and Silverhawks Ultimates arriving at my door last week, the Super7 figures continue to pile up here, so it’s likely you’ll be seeing them turn up a little more often in my review rotation. Add to that the fact that I’m currently working my way through the most recently shipped wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates, and well… there’s a lot of plastic to cover! I already checked out Willa and Snarf and now it’s time to let the baddies of the assortment have their turn. So let’s have a look at Mongor, a one-off, demonic goat villain from the first season of the cartoon!

I have nothing new to say about the packaging. It’s the same window box with a foil black sleeve over the top. There’s some character art on the back panel of the box, along with a little bio. Oh, and mine came with a nasty rip in the front of the sleeve. I guess those brown mailer boxes we don’t get anymore were good for something. Anyway, Mongor is just one of those hazards you have to accept when living on Third Earth. You’re a Thunder Kitten and one day you go out to explore and screw around and the next thing you know, you’ve unleashed a hell-spawned goat creature from his tomb. Mongor was pretty terrifying as far as cartoon villains go, probably second only to Mumm-Ra himself. Surprisingly, he also actually got his own figure back in the LJN line, which was odd since he only appeared in one episode and there more than a few regulars that didn’t get figures.

And here he is, freed from his cardboard and plastic tomb and ready to haunt your dreams. I don’t know what it is about goat creatures, but they give me the willies, and this guy is no exception. To make things even creepier, Mongor comes at you with nothing but his sculpted lavender fur-pants for modesty. And what a great job they did on the fur sculpting! The detail is sharp and it has a really nice shaggy depth to it. He does have bald spots on the backs of his calves and the lavender shag also runs up his back. Otherwise you just get bare grey skin with some subtle texturing to it and a pretty impressive six-pack of abs. He has sharp claw-like fingernails and big brown talons on his clodhoppers. As far as the body is concerned, this is a fairly minimalist design made extra memorable by the sculpt and paint. As much as I love the lavender, it would be interesting to see him repainted with those parts in black and gray.

You get two heads to choose from, and both are pretty unsettling. The lavender face is framed by more of that shaggy hair in a darker shade. It forms a beard that cascades down over his chest and a mane that spills over his shoulders. Slightly curved goaty ears protrude from the sides of his head and he has a pair of majestic horns sprouting up and outward, each doing a little curl. The yellow eyes are practically reptilian with their vertical slits for irises and he has an open mouth advertising a wall of teeth. I’ll confess, the work on the teeth is a tad sloppy and does let this otherwise majestic portrait down just a tad. On the other hand Mongor’s piercing yellow gaze is totally on point. I’ll also note here that swapping the heads on this figure is a painful experience. There is no place to grab either head so as not to have sharp plastic points digging into your flesh. And the more force you have to apply, the deeper those points dig. It really, really hurts.

The alternate head might as well be that of a sleep paralysis demon. The pupils are gone from the eyes and the mouth is fully open revealing a much better detailed set of choppers. You also get some electric effect parts for his horns, which work on either head, but they look best with this one. The yellowish tint on the effect parts made me think they might be Glow In The Dark, but sadly they don’t seem to be. They still look pretty rad though!

Mongor’s articulation falls right in with the standards we’ve seen in this line. That is to say you get a lot of useful points, but maybe not the range you were hoping for, particularly in the elbows, where Mongor can’t quite do a 90-degree bend. I won’t run through all the points, since we’ve seen it before, but everything else is pretty damn good and his big feet make for a stable platform for what is a pretty well balanced figure. Also, I didn’t have any issues with stuck or loose joints. Naturally, you get a good sized helping of hands. These include a pair of relaxed hands, fists, pointy fingers, and accessory holding hands.

Mongor comes with one weapon and that’s the big, terrifying scythe he wielded in the cartoon. There’s a slight S-curve to the shaft and it has a simple wood grain texture sculpted in. The blade is black with a jagged line that transitions to a silver edge.

And if a giant goat demon with a scythe isn’t intimidating enough, there’s a flame effect that you can attach onto the blade. Normally, flame effects aren’t terribly impressive to me, but this one is quite a banger. The sculpt looks great, especially the way the individual flames lick around the blade and shaft. The transition from the inner yellow to the outer orange plastic looks especially nice too. I guess it’s nice to have the option to go with or without the flame piece, but I can’t imagine ever displaying the figure without it. It just looks too good!

In a wave that delivered on Snarf, Willa, and another Evil Mutant, Mongor was probably considered to be the black sheep (or in this case lavender goat) of this wave by many. Maybe doubly so, since he only had the one appearance in the cartoon. But, it’s a credit to how well this figure is executed that he stands tall among the assortment of heavier hitters. It’s still crazy to think that LJN produced a figure of Mongor over a regular like Willa, but then I’m guessing the thought process was that kids were probably more likely to want the purple goat monster than an icky girl. Either way, I’m thrilled to add this one to my ThunderCats shelf and that leaves just one more figure in the wave to go. And I smell a big rat on the horizon!

Apr 5 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Willa by Super7

With new waves of both GI JOE and Silverhawks Ultimates arriving, Super7 has been shipping a lot of figures this year and I’m going to have to put in some extra time just to keep my head above water. But since I’ve already started digging into the most recent wave of ThunderCats with Snarf, let’s press on through and try to put this one to bed with a look at Willa, Queen of the Warrior Maidens!

Willa was one of those recurring characters in the cartoon that sadly never got the figure treatment from LJN, so naturally I was really looking forward to her release. These treetop-dwelling battle-vixens were pretty strong allies for the ThunderCats to have in their fight for survival on their new home plasnet. Besides, if I found myself crash landing on Third Earth and my closest neighbors are auto-tuning robot bears or hot warrior maidens, I know where I’d be hanging out the most! Willa comes in the standard style Ultimates packaging with a sleeve over a window box. You get some character art and a little blurb about Willa on the back, and everything is collector friendly!

And Willa does indeed look like she dropped right out of the cartoon and into my hands! She dons her ragged cut dress made out of what I always presumed to be some kind of exotic orange animal skins, a double belt, which suspends a dagger in a scabbard on her waist, and some gold bangles sculpted onto her left wrist and both her ankles. The costume is pretty simple, but that’s in keeping with the character’s appearance on screen and I think Super7 did a beautiful job translating it to figure form. I was happy to see the bangles were sculpted and not worn by the figure, as this way they stay put as intended and the ones on her wrist don’t fall out when I swap hands. What I don’t care for is that the use of skin tone colored bare plastic used for the arms and legs doesn’t quite match the flesh tone that’s painted in the exposed area around her neck and chest. Maybe she just got extra tan up there? Yeah, it’s not ideal, but I can live with it.

You get two head sculpts to choose from: One serious and one smiling. I think both are excellent, but I’m going to go with the first one for regular display. I think it suits the character more, as she is a warrior maiden after all. Also, I get a bit more of a Disney Princess vibe off the second head. Both portraits feature the large flower she wears under her right ear and the ponytail down her left shoulder.

Naturally, you get a lot of hands to choose from, each fitted with hinged pegs. These include fists, grasping hands, accessory holding hands, flat hands, and a right hand for drawing her bow string. The articulation is what I’ve come to expect from this line, which means rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles. You get ball joint in the neck and under the chest, as well as ball joints in the hips with some extra lateral movement and slits in the sides of the skirt to allow for greater range of motion there. She also has lateral rockers in the ankles to keep her feet planted flat on the floor in wide stances.

Her curved dagger is removable and can be wielded in her right or left hand. It’s pretty small, but has some silver paint for the blade, guard and pommel and a black and red pattern on the grip.

Of course, Willa’s weapon of choice is the bow, and hers comes with a black string. And thank God for that, because I absolutely hate it when figures in this scale have plastic strings on their bows. The bow is red with sculpted yellow wrapping around the middle and both ends. She also sports a quiver with a number of arrows permanently sculpted inside it. The quiver has a soft plastic strap to allow her to wear it on her shoulder. Yeah, in the cartoon it was often worn around her waist but I prefer it off the shoulder.

There are two loose arrows included: One regular and one which looks like a bomb or unlit fire arrow. I was surprised that even with the limited range in the elbows, I could still get her to draw the bow and knock the arrow pretty well.

And the final accessory is Willa’s pet spider, Bushy, who can serve as a sort of living grappling hook. Bushy is just a static piece with no articulation, but they did a great job on the sculpt and paint for such a little bugger.

If I actually had any ThunderCats toys as a kid, I could say that I’ve been waiting 40 years for a figure like this, but I can say that I still remember going over my friend’s house to play with his ridiculously large collection of Thunder Kitties and realizing there was no Willa or Nayda and that always made me sad. Either way, Super7 is really doing an admirable job of knocking these cartoon styled figures off my wishlist. And boy do I hope to see Nayda turn up in a future wave! Heck, I’ll go one step further… let’s see a wave of Warrior Maidens similar to how they did the Mutant Reptile troop builders, because I would be all over that!

Mar 13 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Snarf by Super7

I’m finally getting to break into the most recent wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates and while I was hotly anticipating several of the figures in this assortment, there’s no question about who I had to start with. Snarf has been a long time coming! He’s the heart and soul of the ThunderCats. And while many 80’s cartoons shit the bed with annoying cutesy animal sidekicks, I always loved Snarf. He was fun and goofy, but his role of doting nursemaid to the suddenly giant Lion-O was so endearing. Plus, the neurotic little fluffball certainly saved the day on more than one occasion. Of course, Rankin-Bass couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to toss Snarfer in there, but we’ll get to deal with that a couple waves from now.

Uncle Osbert comes in the same style package we’ve been seeing since the beginning. There’s a high-gloss sleeve that lifts off the top to reveal the window box within. The red foil Eye of Thundera graces the front of the sleeve and you get some character art and a blurb about Snarf on the back of the box. These packages are collector friendly and I have a huge box of them stored in my garage because I can’t bring myself to toss them out. Yup, when you have boxes full of empty boxes, you know you have a problem.

Obviously old Snarf is a little guy, and we’ll get to the pricing on this fellow at the end. But, I’m happy to say that Super7 managed to give us a surprisingly good amount of articulation for such a short and stocky character. With rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles, hinged pegs in the wrists, ball jointed hips, another two ball joints in the neck, and two more in the tail, Snarf is a lot of fun to play with for a character that was merely a static piece in the original toy line. I really dig all the sculpted detail on his fur, which is painted reddish brown with some yellow patches on his arms and legs and a wide stripe running from the back of his head down to the tip of his tail. He’s got a bald, segmented, almost dragon-like tummy that has some nice shading on it and flesh-colored plastic for his hands and feet. For what it is, there’s not much I can complain about here, aside from the fact that Snarf can’t really go down on all fours, which is how he ran in the cartoon. I’m not sure that would have been possible with articulation alone, but with extra swap out limbs? Maybe.

Uncle Osbert comes with three different heads, each showcasing very different expressions, and each one really capturing the cartoon character design very well. The first head offers a somewhat neutral expression with a hint of Snarf’s default emotional setting: Worried. The second is an open mouth expression of pure delight. And finally we get rage monster Snarf. Oh yes… Make no mistake, you back Snarf into a corner and you’re going to get your ankles bit. The paint here is all pretty sharp to the naked eye and you have to punch in pretty close to see any real faults. They did a beautiful job on his eyes, as all the ‘Cats in the cartoon had such distinctive eyes. His pointy ears and adorable tuft of hair round out the package nicely on all of these portraits. I will say that I had some difficulty getting the angry head in for the first time. I had to apply a good amount of force and since the head has a lot of sharp points, it was a painful experience. After that it seemed to go on just fine.

Perhaps the coolest addition to this set is the standing tail base. Snarf had a habit of standing on his erect tail when he wanted to gain some height and this is achieved by swapping out the lower part of the tail for this tail piece that’s attached to a clear base. It’s a clever design for this display option, and I will likely utilize it most of the time because it looks so good and gives him a bit more shelf presence when displayed in front of the other ‘Cats. Let’s check out the accessories…

Snarf comes with a small assortment of extras along with three pairs of hands. The hands include tight grip hands, looser grip hands, and relaxed hands. There’s a gray satchel that he can wear on his shoulder. I remember him having this in the cartoon and I want to say he mostly used it to carry Candy Fruit, but he might of stored other stuff in it too. It’s a simple piece, it looks good on him, but I probably won’t display it with the figure much.

If you don’t remember Candy Fruit, it was harvested by the neighboring village of robot teddy bear Berbils and acted as a staple of the ThunderCats’ diet on Third Earth. God, this was a delightfully bizarre show! I don’t really remember the ‘Cats eating much of anything else. Early on, I think I imagined that the Berbils were just getting them hooked on the stuff so they could enthrall the ThunderCats to slay all their enemies, but nah… The Berbils were pretty chill. Here you get a single Candy Fruit, which seems kind of cheap. Couldn’t throw a few more in there without breaking the bank, guys? The wider grip hands are good for holding it.

Next you get new versions of Lion-O’s Claw Shield and a dormant Sword of Omens. Some might consider this an odd couple of accessories for Snarf, but there were plenty of times where Lion-O got separated from them and Snarf delivered them so he could save the day. Still, I doubt anyone was really clamoring for another version of these, especially since if you have some of the Lion-O variant releases, you have a few already. Still, they look great and the sword can store in the Claw Shield. The paint on both pieces is really nice.

Snarf can hold the Sword of Omens in his mouth, which I remember him doing several times in the cartoon. The problem here is that he was usually doing it so he could run on all fours to deliver it to Lion-O and as we already established, the figure can’t really do that. So again, some way to make that work would have been a nice option, either with swap out limbs or even an extra static body.

Snarf is a fantastic figure. I love the sculpting, the extra heads, and he’s got more useful articulation than I expected we’d get out of a little Snarf. And yes, at $55 he is egregiously over-priced. Indeed, when you consider all the extras that came with some of the other regular sized figures at this price point, Snarf here just feels like highway robbery. It’s not like this was some risky one-off Goat Man villain that some collectors would pass up. Nope. No doubt, Super7 gambled that everyone would want Snarf in their collection and would pay it. And well-played, because in my case they were right. Still, it’s not a great way to treat your customers. I think the best way to raise the value in this package would have been to include a static extra body to pose him running on all fours with the Sword in his mouth. Another way to go would be to make him a two-pack with RoBear Bill. And even with all that having been said, I love how he turned out and I’m happy to finally have a full set of the ThunderCats on display! Snarf, Snarf!

Feb 19 2024

ThunderCats Ultimates: Reptilian Reinforcements by Super7

In my effort to get through all of Super7’s Silverhawks, I purposely set their ThunderCats and GI JOE lines on the side burner. But now that I’m caught up with them, I’m going to spend a lot more time with the other Ultimates lines. I already started digging back into the JOE Ultimates and now it’s time for the ThunderCats! And while I’m anxious to get to the recently arrived wave of ThunderCats, before I do, I thought I’d double back and take a look at Super7’s trio of Evil Reptilian Mutant troop builders!

Yeah, how cool is it that Super7 took the took the Ssslithe body and created some army builders off of it! Of course, Ssslithe alone represented the Reptilian Mutants in the bulk of the cartoon, but the race as a whole made appearances in several episodes. Not to mention we got to see the ThunderCats demolishing a whole army of mutants in the intro before every episode. Super7 represents these nameless Reptilian from Plun-Darr as The Warrior, The Guard, and The Brute. These figures were released as their own wave and came in the same style packaging that we’ve been seeing all along, so basically window boxes with sleeves that lift off the top. There’s some original character art on the backs along with a little blurb about each one. Let’s unleash these raunchy reptiles onto Third Earth, and start with The Guard!

As already mentioned, each of these figures are repaints of the Ssslithe body, but accessorized with different outfits and heads. This body was great the first time around and it still holds up incredibly well. There’s sculpted scales over every inch of his skin and I just love his stocky build and hunched stature, as well as how the head just juts from the center of that hump. The crest of fins running from his head down his back is really cool too. The Guard features a dark olive colored skin with blueish white paint on his chest, palms, and the undercarriage of his tail. He wears a yellow tunic that’s actually made of softgoods and hangs off his left shoulder and is tied around his waist with a crude rope. It’s not the first time we’ve seen cloth in this line, as it was used on Jaga’s cape and on Pumm-Ra’s cloak, but it’s cool to see it again here, especially on a lowly army builder. He has mismatched cuffs on his ankles and a bracer on his left arm.

Super7 completely re-sculpted Ssslithe’s head three times to offer different expressions and these new noggins are spread out with two different heads included with each of these figures. Gone is their leader’s head piece and instead of the fin-like ears, we get simpler pointed ears. The Guard has one head with the mouth closed and the one with it opened up all the way and the eyes a little wider, and both look really nice. The head’s deco matches the two colors used for the body, and you get some bright yellow paint and sharp black irises for the eyes, and some bright red for the exposed tongue.

Each of these figures comes with one weapon and two sets of hands. The hands offer tight grips and looser grips, although the looser ones are kind of like grasping hands as well. The Guard comes with a gray club that looks like it’s meant to be fashioned out of bone, and it fits really well into the tighter gripping hands.

Next up is The Warrior and he’s been repainted in a sort of hunter green with a blue belly, palms and under-tail. He has a sculpted furry diaper with a gold belt and a shoulder strap holding a piece of armor on his left side This whole rig is sculpted as one piece and fitted onto the figure. He also has mis-matched cuffs on his wrists and ankles, all of which are different from what we saw on The Guard. The shoulder armor does have a habit of sliding down his arm, so I will likely pop a bit of blue tack under it to hold it in place a little better.

The Warrior has a repaint of the closed mouth head we saw with The Guard, but he also introduces a second head with the mouth only slightly open and wide eyes. He looks surprised, like he’s about to get a beatdown from one of the ThunderCats. Once again, you get the same deco on the head as on the body and this fellow’s eyes are painted a lighter shade of yellow.

The Warrior comes with a spiked flail with the ball connecting to the handle by a piece of bendable wire. Chain would have looked better, but the wire does allow for a bit more dynamic posing as it will support the weight of the ball at certain angles.

The Brute has a dark green, almost grey skin with gray for his chest, palms, and undertail. He’s wearing a sculpted furry diaper similar to The Warrior’s, but with a shoulder strap going over the right shoulder and no shoulder armor. He’s got the same arm bracer as The Guard, but now on both forearms, and he has recolors of the mismatched ankle cuffs that we saw on The Warrior. I think I like the coloring on this one the best, but I also think his outfit is probably the least interesting of the three.

Here we get a closed mouth head and a one with the mouth slightly agape and the eyes just a smidge wider. I really love the slight spectrum of expressions on the three heads provided for this wave. They all have some wonderful personality for a bunch of nameless goons.

The Brute comes with a spiked club, which is fine and all, but I would have preferred an axe or something else since we already got a club with The Guard. I suppose I could always give him one of Ssslithe’s extra weapons if I want to.

These three reptiles were a nice surprise for me when they were revealed and for what they are I think Super7 did a really nice job with them. Sure, they’re really milking the sales out of that body for all it’s worth, but I like that we got new heads and outfits with them all, rather than just straight repaints with a few minor tweaks. The only downside of these guys is, like Ssslithe, they take up a lot of shelf space and my ThunderCats display is getting pretty congested as it is. I’m interested to see if they do something similar with Monkian and Jackalmen, but I guess that will depend on how well these guys sell. Either way, it’s great to bolster the Evil Mutant forces a bit, because I’ll need plenty of them to attack the giant Cat’s Lair when it eventually arrives!