Tag Archives: thundercats

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!

Feb 22 2023

ThunderCats Ultimates: Snowman of Hook Mountain by Super7

The time of reckoning is coming! Super7’s ThunderTank is starting to show up in people’s hands. And I still have a lot of ThunderCats figures to try to review before that happens. So, I’m going to do my best to throw a lot of love at this line over the next few weeks. Will I be caught up by the time the tank arrives? Probably not. But I’ll try to close the gap as much as I can. Today I’m checking out a figure from Wave 4, and it is indeed the Snowman of Hook Mountain! *Snowmeow not included!

We’ve seen the packaging for these figures many times now, but it’s so nicely done, that I don’t mind taking more shots of another one. You get the sleeve with the red foil Eye of Thundera on the front and when you lift it off it reveals the window box. The window shows off the figure and just how much little excess room there is in there because he’s so hefty. The back panel has a nice bit of character art and a blurb about Snowman. I love the one line here that states, so matter of fact and irrefutably, Lion-O was able to tame Snowmeow because he is the Lord of all Cats. Cartoon logic, bitches! I really enjoy Snowman’s debut episode a lot. It starts out with a misunderstanding and Lion-O fighting him, but they end up as fast friends, making Snowman a formidable ThunderCat ally!

Protector of the Castle of the Snowmen, Standing member of The League of Third Earth… like his animated counterpart, Snowman is a big boy, measuring in at many chonks more than even the biggest ThunderCat! He has a dark blue, short-sleeve tunic over lighter blue sleeves and baggie trousers. His lower legs are covered in sculpted fur boots, and he’s got a mantle of more sculpted fur over his shoulders and covering most of his chest and back. His hands are bare, but he’s got some natural brown fur on the backs of his mighty meathooks! This is not one of the most complex character designs out there, but Super7 did a really nice job detailing all that gray fur. I also dig how the articulation cuts at the knees and ankles make it look like the boots are cinched and tied at those points.

When this figure was originally solicited, I seem to remember the plan was to have a regular head and helmeted head, but we wound up with one head and a removable helmet, and that made me happy. Sure, you could argue that the eyes would line up better with the eyeholes if the helmet had the exposed eyes as part of the sculpt, but what we got isn’t that bad, and I like to have the option to have him holding the helmet and not seeing a severed head in there. I love this helmet design, as it looks like a cross between an exaggerated knight’s helmet and a German WWI helmet with the one spike protruding from the top. The visor is massive and the silver paint looks quite nice!

Remove the helmet and you are treated to Snowman’s walrus-like visage. At least it reminds me of a walrus sans tusks and with a human nose. He’s got a wall of off-white facial hair surrounding his buried mouth with the rest of the head covered in brown fur, leaving only the skin around the nose and eyes bare. Oh yeah, he’s also got two adorable little ears jutting from his hair. If only they had hired on Wilfred Brimley to voice this guy! “Folks, I’d like to talk to you all about Thundrilliam…”

For articulation, Snowman has all the right points, but because of his bigger size, the range of motion is curtailed in some of them. There’s a ball joint under the chest, which allows him to rotate and lean back and forward a bit, with the ball joint in the neck fairing about as well. The arms do a pretty good job with rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, and hinged pegs for the hands. There are three sets of hands: Fists, Relaxed, and Accessory Holding. The legs have a great range of motion in the ball jointed hips, but the knees don’t bend back nearly as much as I would like, because of the sculpt. The ankles are good for flattening the feet on wider stances, but not a whole lot more. Snowman is still loads of fun to play with, but for a line that isn’t exactly super-articulated, he manages to offer a wee bit less.

As for accessories, Snowman comes with a lance, a spear, and a shield. Each of these are cast in chalky, somewhat transparent plastic to make them look like they’re fashioned in ice, and it’s a pretty nice effect, which I don’t seem to remember being the case on the LJN figure’s accessories. The lance even has a cool bubble effect in the handle, and this weapon is almost twice as tall as Snowman himself!

The spear and shield are my favorites of the three, as the spear is a lot easier for him to wield than the bulky jousting lance. The shield handle, however, is very tough to get into his hand, as the fingers are not very pliable. Still, he looks great holding them! I’ll likely leave it connected to that hand to risk having to deal with that tight grip again.

Snowman was one of the first inhabitants of Third Earth that left a lasting impression on me in the cartoon. His episode is fun and does a good job about teaching a life lesson. Naturally, I was excited to get a figure of him, and Super7’s does not disappoint. Is there any chance we might still get Snowmeow? Well, initially I thought the chances were slim since they didn’t come together. But, seeing as how Super7 packaged Mandora and her Electro-Charger separately, I think there’s still some hope. If Super7 is confident enough in selling some of the bigger toys, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the big snow cat show up.

Jan 20 2023

ThunderCats Ultimates: Electro-Charger by Super7

As promised, I’m back today to round out the week with a look at the very first vehicle released in Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates line. Besides being absolutely stoked to be getting Mandora the Evil Chaser’s flying police motorcycle, I was also curious to see how this toy would turn out as an indicator of future possibilities. And I’m not just talking about the ThunderTank, but more so the variety of one-person vehicles released in LJN’s original toyline. Not long ago, I bought a vintage LJN Skycutter, which scales fairly well with the Ultimates figures, but I’d love to see Super7 get to work on their own version of the Skycutter, Nosediver, and other fun little vehicles! Hopefully, you already checked out my look at Mandora from a few days ago. If not it should be right below this one, otherwise… let’s get to it!

The Electro-Charger comes in a window box, with the window wrapping around the front and top panels. The front has the classic ThunderCats logo and it identifies the Electro-Charger as “Mandora’s Interstellar Transport Vehicle!” The back panel of the box has some shots calling out some of the toy’s features, as well as a cool photo of Mandora with her sweet ride. The toy is 99% assembled (only the rear antenna needs to be attached), so it displays great in the box, and the packaging is totally collector friendly. Just pop off the antenna, and you can use the box as a garage!

Out of the box, this thing looks absolutely amazing. The design looks a lot like a police motorcycle model kitbashed with a spaceship model, and I mean that in the most loving way imaginable. The clean white plastic looks fantastic, and the toy is all about those sweeping curves and smooth rounded surfaces. The translucent red caps on the front of the wings are reminiscent of the bussard collectors on the USS Enterprise, while the yellow star, windshield, and transparent yellow headlamp and side panels drive home the police motorcycle motif.

There’s sides of the space bike are fitted blue panels and silver exhaust tubing, with some lovely burn marks painted around the edges. The blue paint contrasts beautifully with the white and the silver paint on the pipes has a gorgeous satin finish. The two seats are ribbed and painted black with an extended back on the rear seat. Below that you get the Interplanetary Control Force emblem printed in yellow, a tall antenna, and a single yellow rear tail light. Super7 did a beautiful job recreating the cartoon model of this bike in plastic, and it sure is an impressive toy to hold.

The dashboard sports some excellent detail with a painted control console and a set of silver handlebars with black grips. You also get two console display options, thanks to swap out instrument boards which connect to the dashboard via magnets. The first option is a display screen, which I think is how the console appeared in Mandora’s debut episode. The second panel features a host of switches and buttons. This panel was showcased in the episode Cracker’s Revenge, where Captain Bragg’s avian companion Crownan had to operate the bike because Mandora was tied to it and it was speeding out of control.

Just like in the cartoon, the Electro-Charger has retractable tires to allow it to land and be driven just like a regular motorcycle. Depending on the episode, sometimes the wheels were deployed even when it was in flight. I’m guessing that was an animation error, rather than being intentional. There’s no mechanism to deploy the wheels, instead you first have to remove the two hatches, which are held on by clips. Once those are off, you can open the hatch on the back of the bike with the Interplanetary Control Force insignia to push down the back wheel, while the front wheel can just be grabbed and pulled out through the open hatch. There’s also a flip down kickstand in the middle, but I didn’t find it was really necessary, as the bike seems to sit fine without it.

The kickstand also houses the hole which the translucent flight stand can be pegged into. It’s a rock solid connection and it displays the bike in a slightly inclined manner. Mandora herself fits perfectly on the bike and you can use a few different pairs of hands to grip the handlebars, depending on how tight you want that grip to be. I found the looser grips work just as well and are easier to get her hands on and off the grips. And boy does she look fantastic on the bike!

The back seat is roomy enough for Lion-O or any of the other ThunderCats to catch a ride, showing just what a good sized vehicle this is!

And as I mentioned yesterday, the Electro-Charger comes with Mandora’s Enzyme Catalyzer, or Soap Gun if you prefer. There’s even a hatch just below the handlebars that has a compartment to store it, which is where she kept it in her debut episode.

The Enzyme Catalyzer consists of the gun portion and the soap tank with a rubber hose running between them. There’s a grab bar on the tank so she can hold it in one hand while wielding the nozzle like a gun. You also get a soap spray effect part to attach to the nozzle! I love it!

It’s hard to believe that so many decades later, we finally have Mandora and her Electro-Charger in toy form! This is a beautiful and impressive toy, but with a price tag that is not for the weak of wallet. At $150, this one really tests the ThunderCats fanboy chops, and I can certainly see sticker shock preventing some collectors from buying it. With that having been said, the bike showcases some top notch craftsmanship, and I have absolutely no issues with mine when it comes to the paint or the overall build. It’s quite simply immaculate, which really bolsters my confidence in the upcoming ThunderTank. I was maybe a wee bit concerned about the possibility of buyer’s remorse on this one, but that certainly has not been the case and sure am happy to be able to display this in my collection! While it was offered as a pre-order, a number of online retailers are showing it in stock as we speak.

Jan 18 2023

ThunderCats Ultimates: Mandora by Super7

From what I’ve been hearing, we’re about a month away from Super7’s behemoth ThunderTank shipping out, but this month, we got another vehicle in the ThunderCats line with Mandora and her Electro-Charger both arriving here last week. I know, I have a few older ThunderCats releases on my backlog, but I couldn’t resist pushing the Evil Chaser and her sweet ride to the front of the line. These were released separately, so I’m going to check out Mandora today, and then we’ll have a look at the Electro-Charger on Friday!

Super7’s Ultimates packaging looks slick as ever. You get a beautiful window box with a sleeve over it. Lift off the sleeve, which is adorned with a red foil Eye of Thundera, and you get treated to a great look at the figure and accessories inside the box. The back panel has some nice character art, along with a little bio blurb about the character. Working for Interplanetary Control Force, an organization of interstellar space cops, Mandora is known as an Evil Chaser, and appeared in around half a dozen episodes of the original cartoon, peppered across both seasons. In her debut, she travels to Third Earth to recapture a trio of evil fugitives, which Lion-O accidentally set free. And yes, Super7, I’d like figures of Plutar, Burnout, and most of all Quick Pick, please and thank you!

Out of the box, Mandora is ready to hunt down fugitives no matter where they hide! Her costume is the spitting image of her animated counterpart, with a black bodysuit, sleeveless on the left side, red and pink boots and gauntlets, a gray belt with white and red belt buckle, some pink shoulder pads, and, what is that a half-jacket? Half a chest armor? I don’t know, but it looks great! While the shoulders are sculpted separately, sadly they are not designed to be removable, so you can’t recreate that bare shoulder look from her debut episode. Bummer! She also has a gray scabbard on her right leg to hold her boomerang!

You get no less than three different heads to choose from, all sporting her RoboCop-inspired visor with yellow ponytail sprouting from the back and back-swept headphones. The only difference between the first two heads is the way her ponytail is positioned. The first has it dropping straight down, while the other is a windblown look.

The third head has the ponytail blowing in the opposite direction and Mandora gritting her teeth. Her visor is also changed to a tracking display. The paint on my figure’s second head could be a little cleaner, especially when you punch in real close with the camera, but I don’t have any issues with the other two. I might as well take this opportunity to address the skin tone. Super7 went with bare, unpainted plastic for the skin which looked really waxy in the promo shots. In hand, I think it looks fine, and I’d even go so far as to say I think it turned out better than if they had painted it.

Mandora has pretty much the same articulation as the other two ladies of the line, which means it’s definitely serviceable, but far from the best. The legs have ball jointed hips, rotating hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The neck is ball jointed and there’s a ball joint under the chest. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, with hinged pegs for the hands to swap them out. And boy do you get a lot of hands! You get fists, relaxed hands, grasping hands, accessory holding hands, you even get a right pointing hand and a right thumbs-up hand. As for the articulation, the biggest issue remains the range of motion in the elbows and knees, which does feel limited. Thankfully, there are slits cut in the back of the shoulders to keep them from hindering the shoulder movement.

As for accessories, Mandora has an inventory of goodies that hits most of the beats. Her trademark boomerang is front and center, actually she has two of them: One standard, and one with a trailing motion effect. The boomerang is nice and colorful with a white base and blue and red accents. The motion effect has a semi-transparent red trail that looks great.

Next up, you get a set of handcuffs with real chain connecting them. The cuffs do not open, but you only need to pop off a figure’s hands to slip them on.

She has her ID badge with her picture printed on a sticker.. Depending on which episode you’re watching, Mandora sometimes flashed her badge with her picture upright and sometimes with the badge part at the top and her picture upside down. The sticker on my figure’s accessory is kind of rough, with some chipping on the edges, but it’s pretty small and hard to notice with the naked eye.

And lastly, you get her computerized ticket book and the tracking device she used to hunt fugitives. Both of these are pretty simple accessories, but cool additions nonetheless. Pity we didn’t get some tiny paper tickets to hand out to Snarfer. Assuming we actually get Snarfer. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ll get a Snarfer.

I was super excited when Mandora first got solicited and now that I’ve get her in hand, I’m thrilled to have her in my collection. It always surprised me that she didn’t get an LJN release in the original toyline, as she’s a damn cool looking character, and she sure came back for a good number of episodes. Now, naturally the big omission with Super7’s figure is her enzyme-catalyzer (aka. soap gun). Super7 didn’t forget it, but rather chose to bundle it with the Electro-Charger. I was always going to pick up her ride, so I don’t mind it getting put in with the bike, but I can see why some collectors might consider it a cheap move. Not everyone is going to buy both the figure and the bike. So yeah, I think they should have included it with the figure. Come on back Friday and we’ll have a look at the Electro-Charger!

Nov 4 2022

ThunderCats Ultimates: Captain Hammerhand by Super7

It’s been about two months since I last visited with Super7’s Ultimate ThunderCats, and that’s just unacceptable. I’ve still got a bunch of figures from this line to check out, and the pre-orders for the newest wave has got me motivated to get caught up. So, let’s get this going with a look at Super7’s first foray into the fearsome Berserkers… It’s Captain Hammerhand!

Once again, this line’s packaging never fails to impress. Super7 has been sticking with the same glossy black sleeve over window box, which just oozes class. The sleeve features Mumm-Ra’s symbol, which Super7 has been using for all the baddies that have allied themselves with The Ever-Living Evil Lord. The spacious window gives you a look at the figure and all the goodies inside, and you get some nice character art and a little blurb about Hammerhand on the back. And may I say that this is one of the best character blurbs of all time, as it contains the phrase, “in search of delicious unicorns!” One of the many cool things about the ThunderCats was all the crazy villains that were introduced and often returned. The Berserkers were among my favorites!

Super7 has been adopting the animated style for their Ultimates line, and that’s certainly the case here with Hammerhand. I’m happy to have the cartoon-style, but props have to be given to how absolutely freaking creepy the old LJN figure was. He had a crack-addled rage face and unsettling proportions, but this version is the one I know best. It’s also worth noting that this is based on his later appearance, as he looked very different in his debut episode. Here, Hammerhand sports some bright yellow trousers with a booted right foot and a giant mechanical left foot. His wide belt features a skull and bones motif with some red to give an extra splash of color. He shows off his mighty six-pack of abs, and I don’t blame him because he is positively chiseled up in there. Looks like that unicorn meat is not a fatty food. His chest is encased in black armor, his left arm is mostly bare, with a bicep cuff and a black gauntlet, while his right hand is dominated by his titular hammer hand. This is just such a colorful, fun design and Super7 did a wonderful job realizing that in plastic form.

You get two heads to choose from, the first of which is just plain bad tempered. Hammerhand’s bushy beard and mustache spills out of his face and looks to be angry at the world. A flash of teeth and bottom lip are nestled in the middle of this mad face coif, and his noggin is capped with a yellow helmet and mis-matched horns. A nasal guard bisects his face, with a large patch covering his right eye and a single red peeper gazing out to the left.

The other option trades bad tempered for downright pissed off. His mouth is agape with rage and showing more teeth. I think this may be the head I display on him the most!

The hammer hand is suitably large and imposing, and like the heads, you get two versions of it to choose from. One has articulated fingers, while the other is just folded into a solid hammer. The difference is a little subtle, but the non-articulated hand does close up tighter than the other one is capable of. You also get a selection of left hands, including a fist, open hand, weapon holding hand, and another accessory holding hand.

For the weapon holding hand, Hammerhand comes with his trusty blunderbuss. I absolutely love this weapon design. There’s something about antique looking weapons with futuristic elements on them that just does it for me. The sculpted tape wrapped around the barrel is a nice touch too.

Hammerhand also comes with a couple of coin purses… or BOOTY, if you prefer! They’re nothing special, but a fun addition to round out the accessories.

I was thrilled to see Hammerhand introduced to the line so soon, and I sincerely hope we don’t have to wait too long to get some more Berserkers. For the time being, Hammerhand has been hanging out with his fellow Captain, Cracker, which I think look surprisingly good together, despite not being from the same faction. I’ve had tons of fun fiddling about with Hammerhand on my desk for weeks after he came out, and he’s definitely one of my favorite baddies released in this line so far!

Aug 19 2022

ThunderCats Ultimates: Cheetara by Super7

It’s been a long road… getting from there to here. Oh wait. Wrong franchise. Still, the sentiment holds up. After two abandoned lines from Ban Dai and one abandoned line from Mattel, Super7 picked up the mantel, and has finally given us a complete team of original ThunderCats… well, provided you have the Mattel ThunderKittens… oh, and we’re still minus one Snarf. And just to add to the unbearable torture of waiting, Cheetara was even delayed in favor of some revisions. Well, she arrived a little while ago, and I finally had the time to sit down and spend some time with her!

There’s nothing left for me to say about the packaging, other than the fact that it looks great and has a very premium flavor to it. It’s rare that I ever keep boxes for figures in this scale, but I’ve been keeping all of these. That’s high praise, considering I can’t imagine ever not having these figures on display somewhere. I’ve been very anxious to get Cheetara for a lot of reasons. Her little segment from the ThunderCats intro alone may have sparked the jolt to my nether regions that kickstarted puberty for me. Sure, the intro is a universally gorgeous piece of animation, but I found Cheetara to be particularly arousing. And I’m not into furries. Honest! Well, before I make any more awkward confessions, let’s get Cheetara out of the box and have a look!

MEOW! Super7 has been doing a superb job bringing the animated versions of the ThunderCats to figure form, but they started out borrowing from Mattel’s molds, so it’s nice to see that with Tygra and now Cheetara, they are continuing the trend on their own. Granted, Cheetara’s character design isn’t overly complex, consisting of an orange leotard, gold rimmed boots, left arm bracer, and bangles on her right wrist, but it’s nonetheless beautifully translated here. They also did a wonderful job on her tush! The colors are also spot on for the animated look, and yes, if you’re looking for the LJN toy colors, I think that variant is up for pre-order now. I really dig how sharp the spots turned out on her right shoulder, as well as her ThunderCat emblem.

You get not one, not two, but three heads, which is pretty above and beyond if you ask me. I was a little worried with what we were going to get since I was never really thrilled with Pumyra’s head sculpt. But turns out I had nothing to fear, as the standard head is an excellent portrait. The yellow and black spotted coif is sculpted separately to offer a clean hair line around the scalp, and the little licks of hair here and there give it a naturally untamed look. Her facial markings, as well as the eyes and mouth are pretty sharp and all very evocative of the cartoon kitty.

The second head is pretty much the same, only with glow-in-the-dark eyes. It’s a cool bonus and the glowing eyes look pretty nice, but this head isn’t going to get much use by me.

The final head is for those action poses, with her hair blowing back, as she exercises her super speed ability. This wasn’t something I expected when I was imagining what Super7 would do with the figure, but now I couldn’t imagine the figure without it.

As for articulation, we know by now that these figures aren’t exactly super-articulated, but what they have is pretty serviceable and I’ve got few complaints. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, and the wrists are on hinged pegs. There are rotating hinges up in the hips, and they are designed to be concealed pretty well unless you’re looking up and in between the legs. You also get rotating hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint under the chest and another in the neck. My only nitpick here is that I would have liked to see swivels at the tops of the boots.

In addition to the three portraits, Cheetara comes with four sets of hands! You get fists, grapple hands, accessory holding hands, and running (or karate chop!) hands.

Naturally, Cheetara comes with her trusty bo staff, or actually two versions of it. The first is in its retracted form, and this can be fitted into her arm bracer for easy storage. The second is the fully extended version, which she can wield in either, or both, of her accessory holding hands. Yup, it’s a pretty simple accessory, but the gold paint looks nice and she looks damn great holding it.

There’s also a flame effect part, which can be fitted onto the end. It looks fantastic, but it’s very heavy and it’s pretty hard to get a good pose with it where it isn’t bending the bo staff under the weight of its bulk.

You get a few more accessories, which are pretty much all fun little Easter Eggs from various episodes of the cartoon. First off is The Mirror of Truth. This ThunderCats artifact reveals the truth to whomever gazes into its reflection. It also kind of makes me want the team to be released as ThunderKittens.

Next up is the Magical Flute, and like the Mirror, this is another one of Thundera’s lost treasures. This artifact allows the player to control animals. I don’t dig this one as much as the Mirror, as it’s hard to get Cheetara to hold it like she’s actually playing it. But it’s still a cool bonus piece.

Finally, you get two versions of the ThunderCats communicator: One closed and one open. They both have strings. Honestly, I could take or leave these pieces. They aren’t particularly iconic to me, and they’ll probably spend most of their time back in the box.

It feels so great to finally have the core team of ThunderCats to proudly display on my shelf! And holy crap, do these cats look great together. I’ll concede that I was more than a little nervous when Cheetara was first delayed, as I had high expectations out of this figure. Well, now that she’s here, I’m very happy with what we got! Super7 took the time to do some much needed tweaks, and the final product turned out great! And now, with the core team complete, next time I revisit this line I’ll be checking out The Evil Mumm-Ra!!!