Monthly Archives: December 2023

MASTERVERSE Revelations Tri-Klops

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What is on December 21? The darkest day of the year? The Winter Solstice?

Nope. The SpartanNerd’s birthday!

So I went to the Toy Federation in Greer. I intended to pick up a Mythic Legion or two. Instead, I picked up two MASTERVERSE figures, and one Mythic Legion. So here is my review of Tri-Klops.

This figure is of the Revelations design for the figure. I got him for $20, specifically because I had a lonely Trap Jaw at the house that seemed to need a Tri-Klops.

[VIDEO OF THE PACKAGE]

Tri-Klops came in the package you would expect. It is blue and boring around the window. There is artwork of the character on the side, and some information and art on the back.

I think it worthy to mention that they have the figure in the vintage style armor…with the priest of the techno cult clothes and armor beside him. Mattel knew they couldn’t sell this toy if he was in that robe.

Here he is out of the package…

As you could see in the box clearly, he came with this armor and sword, an alternate “pope hat” head, alternate “praying” hands, armor with a cape, and a robe. The cape and robe are soft goods.

I almost lost my temper, though. It took me awhile to get the visor on both heads to spin. I thought, “surely they didn’t sculpt this without that specific action feature!” It seemed like it, but then, with enough force, I got the visor to move. And I feel better about it now. The eyes should turn more freely than they do. But at least they DO move.

This sword…

It is the only accessory besides the alternate hands and costume. I am underwhelmed. I prefer this extra sword from the MOTUC weapons pack. What do you think, Hub City Geeks?

Tri-Klops’ sword…the thing about this sword was that as a kid, when I rarely lost He-Man’s sword, I gave Tri-Klop’s sword up to him. While traditionally it was green, it was bigger and perhaps cooler designed.

Check out this little comparison…just for fun!

This is a Super-Deformed, a Mega Bloks (Ok, MEGA,) and the MASTERVERSE Tri-Klops.

As just this…the MASTERVERSE figure is in fact just fine. He is is a bounty hunter, after all.

And he fits right in with this lot…(The only characters I am missing are Whiplash and Evil-Lyn.)

But there is this…

Yep. Tri-Klops has been ordained to the ministry! ”Reverend T.E. Scope,” I presume! We hope he turned over a new leaf…

So this was actually Kevin Smith’s doing. Both Tri-Klops and Trap Jaw are devoted to a goddess they call “Motherboard.” There is a figure for sale of Motherboard, but I probably won’t be picking that up. Essentially, it is a giant robotic woman with techno-angel wings. And she is apparently the herald of the Evil Horde. We saw this in the final scene of the Revelations cartoon, and this figure is set up to prominently drive the “Revolutions” sequal season. 

Am I a fan of this story? I never figured Tri-Klops to be a religious kind of guy. Kevin Smith has lined it up so that it is team magic vs. team technology. Which is different, I guess.

I guess I wish there was another accessory here. Maybe the chalice from the cartoon?

To me, this is the bonus character. I would trade this dumb head sculpt and costume for 200x drones, or a maybe a Grayskull ring accessory, or something else. A shield. A ray gun. 

As a costume, it is OK. The robe covers the whole figure, even if you keep the green armor on underneath. The rubber of the ribbons on the vestment wants to curl. If you pay close attention, you can see that the shapes on the ribbons are the same ones from Tri-Klops’ eyes. Just this Pastor ‘Klops don’t do it for me. 

I am rating this figure 3/5. It loses a point because of how tight it is to turn the visor. THE ACTION FEATURE for Tri-Klops. The other point because of the priest costume. Maybe I am looking at it wrong…now I have the robe to put on someone else. For instance the inner robe reminds me of what “Hamburgler” He-Man might wear. Couldn’t they have made the Pope hat into an accessory somehow? Then it could maybe go on anyone’s head! 

Do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments!

Another Mythic Legions Skeleton…SpartanNerd

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I purchased a Mythic Legion Skeleton Warrior on Halloween, and you can see the review and make comparisons here…

It seems like the whole month of November was Black Friday/Cyber Monday.  So I went shopping for some new stuff online.  I made my first purchase from BigBadToyStore.  I found them when I actually typed in “Mythic Legions…” They were one of the first sites.

I found more there than I could imagine, and also stuff from Figura Obscura, which looks incredibly cool.  (Father Christmas, The Headless Horseman, etc.) I mean…incredibly cool.  This sale contained all kinds of Mythic Legions but I went for another Skeleton Warrior.  It seems like Mythic Legions is a rabbit hole like Magic the Gathering.  You could collect and collect and always want more.  But the downside in comparison to MTG is that the Mythic Legions really don’t lose much value over time.  A Magic Card might be $50 during its first release and in its Standard season, but then when demand goes down, usually becomes very affordable.  But Mythic Legions just stay in demand.  The other downside is the amount of space the figures take up.

I wound up buying this guy anyway, as settling into Commander-all-the-time for MTG has also caused me to stop purchasing cards as much.  I got him for $35 on sale, and I am good with that.

His (Her?) package is mostly the same as the other, but a key difference is the back of this one shows off other army builder figures.  The viking just looks kind of dumb to me…I saw this online for a similar price.  Why does he look dumb?  Something about the way the helmet comes all the way down to the beard or something.  The goblin is reported to be popular, but I am more of a barbarian and skeleton kind of guy.  The Knight Templar would be cool if the horn armor on the side of the helmet wasn’t so big.  I saw the oversized “ogre scale” gladiator for $50 loose at the Toy Federation on Halloween, just before I left with Raven Spawn and Redeemer.  He is really big.

I decided to shoot these pics on some music paper I have laying around.  Why not?  ‘Tis the Season for Chorus.  (The SpartanNerd is a chorus teacher.)

Here are the accessories that came in a little poly bag.

There are two pauldrons, a weapons strap, a quiver with sculpted-in arrows, a bow, and an arrow.

Notable here, and the reason I got this skeleton is the bow and arrow.

The arrow is really skinny.  It is very silver!  There is a tiny slot on either side of the bow where it can clip in.

I’ve played with this for a few days, and it is pretty hard to get good archery poses.  The string on the bow is springy, and believe it or not, the arrow has shot off before.  It didn’t go far and I didn’t lose it thankfully, but I thought it wouldn’t…but then it did when I was trying to do a pose like you see below.

It is my preference to remove the shoulder pauldrons when doing these archery poses.  Which tracks on flavor as far as ranged fighters are concerned.  Notice how in both of these photos, the feather side of the arrow doesn’t line up with the hand, and therefore doesn’t look quite right.

Let’s talk about the head. It is a pretty cool sculpt, and the second reason I got this second army builder skeleton figure.  It has an articulated jaw, which is nice…the expression doesn’t have to look happy all the time like the other figure.  There is also a helmet with a visor…just another cool piece.  With the visor down, it reminds me of “Weapon-X.”

The jaw can come off…giving you even another display option.

He also comes with this giant spear thing.  Polearm?  Axe-spear?  Whatever it is, it looks good, but there is no paint on any of the weapons besides the silver on the arrow, or if they are painted then they are painted a consistent glossy shade.  I suppose it is a concession, because the figure itself is after all awesomely painted.  There is also another barbarian sword, but this time with and angled point.  More like a machete with a stabbing point.

The skeleton is very articulated, and like I said before, entirely modular.  You can swap pieces with other Mythic Legions in the same scale.

But great army pieces with wizard characters!  Check out the Faceless One here.

I rate this figure at a 5/5.  I feel it is an improvement on the original that I had just recently purchased in every way except for maybe the axe.  What else, the packaging is collector friendly.  It turns out that I am jamming both of them into a single Mythic Legions box.  Easy storage!  The only minor gripe is that it is hard to make a good archery pose with the arrow drawn.