Two Bad. What a legacy character! The fun thing about the vintage action figure was the spring-loaded arms. This was designed so that he could sneak behind someone and grab them. Of course, you could also take those spring loaded arms (that had closed fists) and make each arm punch the other one in the face! This was a gimmick that seemed to work its way into the cartoon also..at least the two heads didn’t seem to agree with each other.
I am in favor of the 200x design, where were two characters (Tuvar and Baddrah) merged into one body by Skeletor as punishment for allowing their own personal rivalry to botch the capture of He-Man. If you read the bio on the back of this package, the responsibility for them being merged is on themselves, as they were stealing some treasure that mutated them.
Here is basic Two Bad
I have him armed up with everything except his alternate hands. There is a clip on the back of the armor to store a weapon. ”Two Bad” I didn’t take a better profile pic so we could see the axe. Also, I have the shield stored on the back of the figure with a weapon. The problem is that there is a rotating piece on his back. The weight of the shield and in this case the mace causes them to hang down. (You can sort of see the orange of the shield behind him.)
Here are the accessories.
You get alternate punching hands. a shield. A green double headed, blunt piked square mace. A pointy spiked traditional mace, a double barreled ray gun, and a double-headed battle axe. The only paint on the weapons seems to be the hilt of the axe and a wash on the axe. I can’t tell if the spiked mace has a pearl coating or if that is the molded plastic. (I think it is the plastic.). The Axe is my favorite piece, of course. It looks like one side of it has received alot of use. Details on the shield…notice how half of the shield has a circle motif, and the other half a square/diamond motif. There is duality all over these accessories!
This is how I figure on properly arming them with maces.
No problem getting Two Bad into this pose. He is very articulated.
Check out this photo…one of my favorites!
Stinkor didn’t come with a weapon. (Stinky figure, really. I mean…he sucks.). But that green mace looks good with him. So these two are attacking Battleground Teela, who has her ray gun. As I was shooting the photo…at the exact moment…Teela decides to fall forward, creating the illusion of action!
I can’t give Two Bad anything but a 5/5. I mean…compared to Stinkor. Two Bad has everything you could want in the character. Great accessries. Two heads. I paid only $20! Highly posable. He is a good size too. I just wish they would release Tuvar and Baddrah.
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.
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!
I couldn’t help it. I received an e-mail from Mattel Creations about a clearance sale, and went to look around. I was pleased enough to buy what I wouldn’t have bought at regular price. The three items here were each under $10. In the video above, I am showing off the package. It seems like the easier thing to do with the amount of things I am reviewing. These are all in the “sporty” packaging that I complained about before, but at least it is collector friendly. I have waxed poetic about the line that is never coming back…Masters of the Universe Classics. After thinking about it for awhile, I believe they are probably doing the correct thing. There is symmetry between this line and Star Wars Black Series and GI Joe Classified, as well as some of the newer Transformers. This box seems pretty similar if you think about it. You get a nice artwork profile on the side, an illustration on the back, and in the window you can see what you get. If you were a collector of this line in package, you could file them on the shelf easily like books and take them out when you want. This is the way I see especially GI Joe Classified on the shelf at places like the Toy Federation in Greer SC.
As you can see, I picked up New Eternia Skeletor, Revlations Stinkor, and Revelations Mer-Man. I also have Revelations Savage He-Man with Orko on the way in the mail. After the shipping, I spent $55. You know, Super7 Ultimates cost $55 each, without shipping… See where I felt this was a good value? Looks like I missed Trap Jaw and Tri-Clops…these were already sold out. But today, I just browsed Big Bad Toy Store, and they have all of these at similar prices. It seems like it might be because of the Black Friday sales going on.
Let’s begin with Skeletor.
This “New Eternia” Skeletor has a barbarian vibe that I really like. Sort of stupid and cool at the same time that he has a goatee. (Skulls can’t do that can they?) The concept that they are referring to on the package is of what became Demo-Man, an early concept for Skeletor. In MOTUC they mish-mashed the story up so that Skeletor is Keldor plus this Demo-Man demon. This begs the question of how much of Skeletor’s evil is his own. Not a big fan of that story. The MOTUC Demo-Man figure was bright green and really evoked the concept art. This one only hints at it. I went back and looked and there really isn’t much resemblance.
Above is a similar stance with the scimitar sword.
This figure has loose leg joints. It seems that the thigh cut is loose, and the bottom shin is also. So there is a complaint there. I really had to wrangle to get him to stand. The cape is an interesting piece. It has a large neck hole with a hard piece of bat armor meant to go over the top of the regular armor, really making this figure seem like a two-for-one. It is a soft-goods cape. (On thinking about this line vs. Classics, the soft goods have to be cheaper than those plastic capes. Think about all of the plastic and paint that went into those! With these, its a piece of fabric. The cost is less, and it does the job. However, there is something to be said about the plastic sculpted capes. They are impressive and it keeps a consistent look to the figure.
This is the way that I will generally keep him on display. This alternate head is more jovial but campy evil. The red eyes stare aggressively. The havoc staff is pretty heavy, and the pole is thick. I didn’t break any fingers, but you really have to stretch them. Skeletor also has a trigger finger but no gun accessory.
Look at how evil the goat head appears. This head is so different, like I said before, it could be a different character. Check it out on Movie Skeletor’s body.
Here I have a scene where movie Skeletor is summoning some help. See how this viking type of Skeletor can go as a generic kind of guy? Here is a good comparison now. Look at how much more detailed the paint is on the Mythic Legion army builder skeleton. With the Four Horsemen figure did they scrimp on the paint? No where. Skeletor has mostly unpainted blue plastic. The face is ok. But do you see why this figure is so much cheaper? To be fair, Movie Skeletor has many more paint hits. Maybe more than the Mythic Legion.
Oh the barbary!
This is the kind of thing I am after! Vikor fits pretty good with Skeletor. Yes, Skeletor is more articulated. So why didn’t I buy the New Eternia He-Man that was also on sale? Why would I? It is the same basic figure as Movie He-Man with different paint and a horned helmet.
The New Eternia He-Man doesn’t have a cape or the daggers. Essentially I also didn’t really like the way it looked.
Let’s move on to Skinkor
Here’s what you get. That mouth has a hole in it to plug that mask into. Without the mask it looks like he has an open mouth, giving you another option for display.
Notice anything missing? NO GUN. I think he should have some kind of spray gun. And no. He doesn’t stink. One thing I do like about this figure is the paint job. They really caked it on this time, which makes him fluffier looking.
So I wanted to see if he has a skunk stripe down his back?
Nope. No skunk stripe. No stink. No gun. BOOO.
There would never be a time when these two would fist bump! His hands are larger than the other figures. He has gloves obviously. But He-Man’s fist…I said it before. Deadpool baby hand.
The vintage Stinkor was a repaint of Mer-Man. Here you can see that isn’t true, at least between Revelations Mer-Man and Stinkor. There is some resemblance, and perhaps a different version of Mer-Man has the same head.
Speaking of…
My review of Mer-Man
This is the Revelations cartoon version of Mer-Man. Here’s what you get. Mer-Man, who has no removable armor. Four extra hands. These hands are four fingered and feature webbing. An aquatic scimitar type of sword. And a bident. (I mistakenly said “trident” in the packaging video. SHAME!)
This figure is a wizened and grisly motif for the character.
The box for Skeletor’s scimitar sword mentions that his is a “legendary weapon.” Mer-Man’s is likely generic. But it does look cool!
Never bring a bident to a gun fight!
He can even swim! (Just kidding…photo magic!)
SpartanNerd’s ratings of these three figures.
Skeletor is by far the best. That is exactly what I wanted! The undead knight look of that head is great. I do wish his legs were more sturdy, and that Havoc Staff has a little too much plastic in the handle. Taking off for the weak standing…4/5.
Stinkor is the weakest. I picked it up for just over $8. But no gun or other weapon? No stink. Why? You get a skunk themed biohazard suit character with a blue shield and some hands. 2/5. Pretty low. At least he stands well and the sculpt and paint are good.
Mer-Man is OK. I appreciate that he comes with a couple of weapons…pretty cool weapons. And he does look like the cartoon. I really like that color. Whatever it is … blue. Green. Aqua? The scratches and scars are a new and welcome touch. If they included yellow armor and a corn-cob sword it could be better. I am awarding 3/5. I’m glad to have him.
Savage He-Man and Orko are on the way. Keep an eye on the SpartanNerd Blog for my review!
I remember going to see the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie. I would have been nine years old. But such a memory! We went as a family, mom and dad, me and my two brothers, and we ate at a cafeteria style restaurant. Back then we had a mall on the east side of Spartanburg, “Hillcrest Mall.” The same theater is there, but the mall is gone. I remember when the movie was over and we got out to eat at the place, my father expressing dislike for the movie, which was shocking to me. I thought it was great! I may have been experiencing a hype fantasy…not hard for an extreme fan like 9 year old SpartanNerd. I had most of the toys and watched the show every day. I got the magazine.
I remember this being a hard time…we were seeing less and less of the toys at the stores. I would keep getting some MOTU toys for a few years…when I was as old as eleven or twelve I got Tyrantisaurus Rex and Evil Lyn for Christmas, and was made fun of by my uncles. I didn’t care.
I just wanted to set the scene for you. We would eventually get the movie on BetaMax and I would watch a blurry copy a whole lot. Sure, when I was 13-16 years old, not much toy business for me. A few legos, and some models cars and things. But I remember clearly being a Senior in high school and getting on the internet for the first time. Our teacher said, “Go to Yahoo.com. There you can type anything you want and the internet will search for it.” And what did I type…”He-Man.” I found Adam Tyner’s page, or what must have been the beginning of fan pages, and ever since that is how I have stayed afloat. In college I took my Mosquitor toy with me. I have no idea what happened to it. But Masters of the Universe have been my jam.
Why this trip down memory lane?
I saw these on sale last week during the Comic Con…I saw it online of course. But Movie Skeletor had the ominous “Only a few left.” At $33 each, I didn’t want to miss out.
I didn’t get the Super7 MOTUC version of He-Man, and their Skeletor was God Skeletor from the final scenes of the movie. (Was there a MOTUC of regular Skeletor?) But these were so cool I couldn’t pass them up.
I don’t collect this line. I have mentioned a few times that I was immediately put off when I saw the first images of He-Man. And it isn’t as elegant of a line as the Masters of the Universe Classics. The only one I had before these was 40th Anniversary He-Man. I don’t have the Skeletor, but I picked up that figure at Target for $20. I was drawn to the packaging and just the 40th anniversery-ness of it. But these guys come in the “boring” packaging that is one of the things that put me off of this line.
But I might be evolving on that…I will need to have a look at some other boxes next time I make my unfortunate visit to the department store (probably Wal-Mart.)
The side of the boxes give us some images. I won’t say they are wonderful, but they could be worse. He-Man looks like a member of 1980’s hair metal band. Skeletor looks like the mascot for Iron Maiden or similar. He-Man DOES NOT resemble Dolph Lundgren in the art. (The other side of the package just has the name of the character.)
The two boxes on the back can combine to create a scene…this represents the Great Eye of the Galaxy. Or something like that from the movie, where Skeletor is about to open up the power of Grayskull. As a piece of comic book art, this is great. I was about to throw this box away…instead I am going to cut off the back of the boxes. This would be a great poster. HINT HINT MATTEL!!! And at this point, isn’t this rare official art? The last official movie art we had would have had to have been Erle Norem’s work from the magazine, or maybe some movie posters.
LET’S LOOK AT HE-MAN
The inside of the box isn’t bad either. This rock texture makes for a good diorama. Here is what comes with He-Man. This figure boasts of 30 points of articulation, and it’s true. But it isn’t pretty. You can see the joints all over the place. He-Man comes with two knives (sheathed in the picture), a lazer pistol (in the holster), the power sword, two extra fists, and a classic toy sculpted head.
I remember after seeing the movie that my mom was concerned about a couple of things. The cursing, and He-Man used a gun a good bit of the movie, which was uncharacteristic of the character. We had toy guns, GI Joes, Transformers, but she didn’t like us playing with them. But our uncles kept giving us stuff…You can see that He-Man has no problem getting into this classic lazer gun pose. You can see the armor on his legs…this is sculpted on. It has good details on it. Very busy. What do you think about this head sculpt? Does it resemble Dolph to you? Not to me. You can tell they were trying really hard to capture his likeness. But it just isn’t quite there.
These two knives…I don’t think He-Man used these in the movie? The one on the boot keeps coming up. It is from an early He-Man design, and it must have been present in the movie version. The one on his belt seems superfluous. But I guess He-Man is “EXTRA” like that. Notice the cape. It is soft goods. It reminds me of old Batman toy capes. Just a note, it was taped to the blister card in the box, and I was freaked out a little removing it…I was afraid I would tear it. The pauldrons on the shoulders don’t hinder the articulation much, but his joints are very tight. His shoulder joint is massive, and I was worried I would break something in moving it around. But he is tougher than you think. I am uncertain what the design on the center of the chest is or on the belt. A dragon? A tornado? A lightning bolt?
You can evoke a more cartoon vibe by putting on the fist hand and the classic head. Once again, this looks a little bit too…something. Naive? Oblivious? Is he smiling? Is he talking? To me there is something about this head sculpt that takes away from the character of He-Man. Maybe he seems too “soft” or something. I will also say, this is the same “baby hand” fist that we got with the 40th anniversary figure. (Comparison below. Notice that 40th anniversary has a much larger chest.)
And I guess I have to show this off too.
The sword goes through a look at his neck, and the point end fits in a scabbard on the bottom under the cape. Why not a whole scabbard? Maybe this is what the movie props did? I don’t know? You can see that the armor is removable. They missed an opportunity here to put some stripes on his back from Blade’s Lazer whips. Then I would be inclined to remove the armor!
LET’S LOOK AT SKELETOR
Skeletor comes with what you see here. The Havoc Staff, a dark version of the same sword as He-Man, the Cosmic Key, and a fist and a chopping hand. Was this sword in the movie? I guess I need to go back and watch again. Pay attention SpartanNerd!
Skeletor’s articulation. isthe same as He-Man’s, but there is a problem…The Samurai armor that he has hanging down is stiff and so Skeletor can’t be on his knees. Which is fitting…Skeletor kneels for no one!
You can’t do much with the Cosmic Key. But it looks nice. It really can’t be held and doesn’t have anywhere to hang on Skeletor’s belt like it did in the movie.
Here we can compare the two swords. I guess they are similar, but they are. a little bit different at the hilt.
The sculpt of Skeletor is terrific! You can remove his head, but the hood remains attached. Under that is the ribbon chain, and under that is shoulder armor, and the soft goods cape…all removable. There are bone details sculpted onto the chest armor. Like He-Man, I can’t make out what the symbols on the armor are. The missed opportunity here is another hoodless Skeletor head, so we can do the post-credit’s scene “I’ll be back!” (Of course this turned out not to be true…very sad.)
So how does the SpartanNerd rate this sort-of impulse purchase?
Like I said, Skeletor is just about perfect as far as a sculpt. He-Man misses the mark as far as Dolph Lundgren goes…but the rest of him is pretty good. He-Man is very articulated, but you can see every joint in exposed detail, which is unsightly. Skeletor’s sculpt is so busy that you don’t see the seams so much.
There were missed opportunities on both figures. A hoodless head for Skeletor, and stripes on He-Man’s back.
The packaging was surprising. The art is good, but He-Man looks a little too “Motley Crue” to me. The scene on the back is epic…it reminds me of the big Todd McFarlane splash pages. (But no art is as good as McFarlane’s! Well…Maybe Norem’s.)
I felt like I had good value. I am going to go with 5/5!
The SpartanKid (College kid now….) He said “What other figures like this would you get. There is no market.” I disagree!
Give me a Kevin, Julie (Courtney Cox fans rally!), Music Store Guy, Lubbock, Movie Man-At Arms, Movie Teela, Movie Sorcerous (old crone!), Movie Evil Lyn. Surely there will be a Karg, a Movie Beast Man, a Saurod, a Blade, and a Gwildor. Maybe a dark shock trooper with a flying disc. Maybe even a Robbie’s Ribs cow!
Are you as enthusiastic as me, Hub City Geeks? Do you own these? Are you into the 1987 movie? Let me know in the comments!
Part 3- “Section 2” and final thoughts (You are here!)
I mentioned in the Part 2 review that this is a “daunting” project. I kept putting it off. I actually figured it would snow some during the school year, but that never materialized, and so a lot of the projects I would work on never happened. But this one…the first part took hours and hours. And I knew this part would also. Throw in that this is my least favorite looking piece of Snake Mountain, and it finally just took me getting tired of the box taking up all the room in the closet.
This build took about 10-12 hours. I would work on it for 1.5-3 hours and then stop. (I would take brief breaks to do normal things, of course. I mention the box was taking up my space. I ultimately decided to throw it away. I kept some of the more “diarama”-ish pieces, which is why you see the build sitting on the black and gray “brick” packaging. Going forward with vehicles and such, this will be nice! I saw someone on FaceBook used HeroClix floor pieces to fill out their displays, and that looked fantastic! Using the box this way gives a similar vibe I think. The other thing…I used a large poster board we had sitting around as a backdrop. It is kind of beaten up and has a conspicuous label on the side, but I blurred that out in case anyone was wondering what that was about.
I have never been a big fan of the “face” on the vintage toy Snake Mountain. As a kid it was kind of confusing to me that the Filmation version had such a radically different design. All these years later, in order to make the most fans happy, they have amalgamated the designs. I don’t dislike it. But I still am not a fan that stupid face. As a kid I think I supposed it to be a snake…only the ugly face we can see. As an adult I learned that it was supposed to be a demon face. Well…it is a stupid face either way. It has a lever that you can used to open and close the mouth to make it “speak,” but I thought it more fun to have it eat Ram Man.
Up at the top where He-Man is being eaten, I still don’t know if that is a rat or a wolf. The original toy featured a removable microphone “voice changer.” This is still removable, and you can move its mouth also.
I like to joke about the Battle Bones having a “secret action feature.” One or two of the claws, they just launch off! I guess it is the type of plastic, the thickness of the pieces. But usually when I move it around, I lose some toes. Well, the back cheeks of the rat/wolf also have this problem. Eventually, not really caring as they aren’t that necessary of pieces, I just took them off.
I’m getting ahead of myself! What about the build.
I almost had a seizure when I saw the discoloration on these bricks. The SpartanWife decided I shouldn’t complain…it was probably on purpose. Turns out she was correct! Easily some of the most rewarding Mega building I have ever done was the lava slide!
You can take a flashlight of some kind and shine it behind and it makes a really cool glowing effect! The way the pieces are layered is also very fun and satisfying. The mix of translucent yellow/orange, opaque red, plus those unsightly paint splotches are what makes this work. (Isn’t the bridge a cool feature. And it is designed to break down like this also!)
Fans will sure get the picture reference of the above!
I don’t have pics of the other two sections alone. But the lava slide was just fun!
As you can see, there is a nice stairway going in front of the face that leads up to the bridge that crosses the lava slide. There is a ledge with shackles…actually a piece of the vintage design that I had forgotten about! In order to get a minifigure on it correctly, you pretty much have to take the chains off and attach to the arms, and then put them back on the wall. Beneath the ledge there is a false wall so that prisoners can bust out! It has a much better switch to cause it to open than the ones that came with Grayskull.
There are lots of pink squirel-ly things and a couple of “faces of evil,” as well as pink horns all over the place making this place into a corny, campy, obvious base for bad guys. One of the problems I had more than once in both sections of this build was getting the “faces of evil” to work. I wound up adding a round or square stud piece in several instances to make them fit. (You can’t tell I added a piece.)
Let’s look at the inside.
We have a jail. (Guess who is inside…) Filmation’s magic table. (Notice I placed Filmation-type figures around it. You don’t get more 1980’s than this!). A ladder leading from the top floor. The top floor also has the computer, which I think was in the vintage toy (maybe?). And the bone throne!
I love that more is going on here than in the vintage playset, where there was nothing but a hollow shell.
The magic table. This is the most worthy item! And the bone throne! If you watched the unfortunate “Some Kind of Monster” rockumentary about Metallica’s “St. Anger” disaster, I think I remember Kirk Hammet having a similar item. He said he likes to sit on it and think. In Filmation, we saw Skeletor sit on this quite often. I love the design…so evil! I like how Super7 made one for their MOTUC Snake Mountain, and was positively envious as it would be something I would never have. But this is great for Mega! Now, I do have a complaint. There is almost no floor space in front of the chair.
The throne rests on some flat gray pieces that have a single stud, so it is easy to take it out to set in other places or on other playsets. Traditional Skeletor works better. (Hub City Geeks, do you think this havoc staff is a darker color than the carded one?)
Notice that we have the correct stand for Screech also. It is red, and he (she?) has dark blue or black feet. Sorry, the SpartanNerd isn’t great with colors!
Thoughts on the whole set.
When you put it all together, it is massive!
You can store your figures in here. But there isn’t really that much room. For instance…
By the way, the instructions state that this table is supposed to lock in here. NO WAY! It doesn’t, and I don’t want to.
Ultimately, in the interest of space, I am going to keep it on display like this…
The table, the throne, and the sarlacc pit monster are ultimately cool pieces to use anywhere. I don’t recommend relying on this castle to stay locked together as you move it around. Remember, the SpartanNerd has dropped Castle Grayskull and had rebuild it. On the other hand, the pieces here are very tight. Almost unreasonably tight. The little pink horns and teeth and such…those things break off very easily. But also, that is an area where you kind of have artistic liberty also if you wanted to change them around.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I mentioned I might have to think twice about building an Eternia three towers or Fright Zone on account of some of the frustrations I had with building this set. But if you have been reading my blog, then you know I already have Eternia tower. In other words, it wasn’t bad enough to deter me from getting it.
The box got on my nerves enough to finally toss it out.
Do I regret this castle? Not really. As a Mega set, it has its quirks. The pieces not fitting together well, or fitting together TOO well. For. the price, looking back, I know I gave the minifigs a 5/5. I can stand by that, but why didn’t this set come with more? Where are the Snake Men? Why did we get another Evil Lyn?
In total, it probably took 24 hours to build this set. Your mileage may vary. I am an adult with the responsibilities of jobs and a family, and do other things also to be entertained. Some things have to give sometimes, and Section 2 of Snake Mountain kept getting procrastinated in favor of spending time with my wife, playing Magic the Gathering with my son, building other sets, playing with my dogs, fishing, etc. When I began building section 2, it sat on the kitchen table taking up everyone’s space for several days.
I guess I am saying, this was probably too much. There are complaints that the new Eternia Tower is too small…even I said this. But looking back after building this behemoth, I don’t think I want anymore sets this large. It is too tedious, and I think Mattel/Mega believes the same thing.
Let’s consider $300…and. it has been almost 365 days since it first arrived.
The packaging was a fail.
The selection of minifigures…Dragonblaster Skeletor (Great), Thunder Punch He-Man (Great), Ram Man (Great), Webstor (Great), Trap Jaw toy colors (should have been available apart from the set), Evil Lyn (meh), Screech (OK I guess. Why can’t we have open wings?). Snake Men (MIA). Skelcons (MIA).
(Rather than a Battle Cat large set build, they should give us Zoar and Screech. That would be worthy!)
The Filmation Side was terrific.
The more toy accurate side had a cool lava slide and terrific accessories.
A lot of hours of work. I am going to give the whole set a 3.5/5. Why the decimal? I believe there is alot of fun ahead with this set. I already have plans to make a comic! But the build was daunting, tedious, and lengthy, perhaps moreso than the feeling of accomplishment when it was done. More like “I’m glad I am finally finished.” I know I am old and such, but who is this marketed towards? The mid 30’s to mid 40’s crowd. I am optimistic that I will really enjoy it as a part of my almost complete set (Battle for Eternia II is hard to get). This piece is essential to having a complete set on account of the minifigures and on account of being a Masters of the Universe fan.
Thanks for reading if you did follow all of this! Do you agree with my 3.5/5 rating? Let me know in the comments or let me know of FaceBook!
The Eternia Towers. As a child I only dreamed of this set. I knew of it from the toy catalogue in 1987? and also from the mini-comics. (Here is a picture below.). In person I have only seen this toy one time, at the Toy Federation in Greer, SC. And it is truly a marvel. HUGE! Which is why the size of this set is a little bit of a downer.
Now I am NOT building the tower yet. I figure I would wait until I got all three pieces. Surely Grayskull Tower and Viper Tower will come out before Christmas this year. Just up front, this set looks to be smaller than the vintage set was.
Instead I was super excited that we finally got the Attak Trak! I don’t have much of a nostalgia connection to the tower. But the Attak Trak, now we are talking! I might have skipped this set if it weren’t for that specific vehicle.
But first, the packaging. This is one of the best boxes in awhile. (Pictured at the top). It features the Eternia Tower prominently, and shows off the mini figures with an illustrated vibe. You also can see the Attak Trak. Important…it also shows paintings of Grayskull Tower and Viper Tower, as well as Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain. Eternia Tower is supposed to be a place of balance between good and evil. (I think this is the original lore anyway.). I heard sometime awhile back that the intention was to create a Grayskull 2.0. This set was to feature a piece of Grayskull and Snake Mountain, both of which were out of production but demand was expected to go up with the movie and all in 1987. The Eternia Tower story was to launch off new property, He-Ro and the Masters of Preternia, or something like that.
The sides and the back of the box are terrific, featuring retro blueprint types of designs in red. I can’t express how great I thought this was! And this box is much smaller than Grayskulls or Snake Mountains. Of course, this set is alot less pieces though.
Now for the figures.
We got Battle Armor He-Man. This is the same as the one we got before (I am going to show comparisons on all of the duplicates.). The only difference is this armor has the one scratch on it.
We got Webstor. This is the same Webstor from Snake Mountain, but with a darker color scheme (hard to tell in the photo) and also a larger lazer.
I couldn’t help but do an Erle Norem reference. We get Buzz Off. I prefer Buzz Off without the helmet. It seems I lost it when I was a kid, and kind of forgot about it until I was an adult. But he came with it, and his little axe also. This is the first Buzz Off we have had, and so Clawful and Whiplash couldn’t be too far behind soon… (They use the same chest piece and monster legs.)
And finally, Ninjor. This guy is a walking weapons rack! He comes with a bow and arrow, a katana, and nunchuks. Admittedly, this character wasn’t one I had as a kid. I have expressed that I had about 80% of Masters of the Universe stuff as a child. But Ninjor just wasn’t one of them. I don’t know much about the character either. I remember Jitsu quite well, and am surprised that we haven’t seen him yet to balance out Fisto.
I went ahead and built the weapons rack/computer system.
We have been given so many different weapon racks. But this one is different. the computer on one side…I just am not familiar enough with the Eternia Tower set to know if this was part of the original toy. I like how the graphics on there show the three towers. I almost think of it as a charging station for the Attak Trak. The weapons are in bright orange, and frankly I don’t really like that.
Here is some comparisons with other weapons racks we have from this line.
Here is a comparison with a Skeletor Head computer.
All of this is pretty consistent. On to the Attak Trak!
As a child, this was my FAVORITE vehicle. It ate the C batteries…that was the problem. But I loved it from the cartoon (which was more of a big talking van) and I loved the toy with the awesome treads to run stuff over.
Those blue things on the side were always a puzzle to me. Were they supposed to be guns? I never could tell, and really almost can’t tell now. It has a rocket design on it, so maybe a missle launcher?
They included nice vintage printed blocks to go where the stickers would be, just like they did with the Battle Ram.
On the vintage toy, figures could grab the handle basically with the same design as the battle ram. Here we don’t get that option. It just has some studs that stick off to the side and nothing for the figures to grab. The wheels work exactly like the vintage toy. Which is super fantastic. You have to push it yourself, of course. But it is a genius design.
In Masters of the Universe Classics, we got a few vehicles. Roton, Battle Ram, Wind Raider. But they skipped the Attak Trak. And that was actually truly shameful. I don’t even think we have had any Attak Trak re-dos or analogues since the 1980s. I don’t own a single Masters of the Universe Origins figure. But if they come out with a new Attak Trak, I bet I am the first to get it!
And now you know how this story will play out…
Here is a bug theme setup, Buzz Off vs. Monstroid.
Well, I rate the Attak Trak a solid 5/5. I think it is weak to give us another Battle Armor He-Man and another Webstor. Ninjor is cool, but doesn’t really belong in my head. Buzz off is terrific.
They need to give us more mini figures. You all know what. I really want. It is that Battle for Eternia II set. But no one has it. So….
spartannerd 