Tag Archives: SpartanNerd Unboxing and Review

Mega Snake Mountain Review part 2

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This is the third part of a huge review.

Part 1- Packaging and Minifigures (Click)

Part 2- “Section One” (Click)

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!

Mega Eternia Tower- Attak Trak and Mini Figures. SpartanNerd review

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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….

World’s Smallest Micro Figures Masters of the Universe 4 Pack- SpartanNerd Unboxing and Review

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That is the longest title I have ever typed!

Here is a product I didn’t even know existed! And the SpartanWife gave it to me for Christmas! I knew about “The World’s Smallest Figures” but haven’t been collecting them. Last year someone put World’s Smallest Battle Cat in my stocking. But this year, I got a four pack, which like I said I didn’t even know was a thing.

The front is a nice window box. The back tells us what a Masters of the Universe fan already knows, with artwork that I think is from the new Origins line of figures. And I am pretty sure the art on the sides is Emiliano Santalucia’s art from the DVD collections. (I might be wrong about that.). I appreciate how the Masters of the Universe logo with the exploding red rocks on the bottom is present.

There is a black blister on the inside. This four pack is a great display on its own because of this blister. We also get a pamphlet showcasing other products by Super Impulse. The Micro Figures are there most prolific product. I didn’t know there was as much of it out there. We did have the MTG Jace vs. Chandra decks once. Isn’t Super Impulse the best name for a brand of novelty products like this?

Here are all of the items outside the blister. I went ahead and opened the hinged boxes on the two cats so you can see how these each have their own collector friendly package. On He-Man and Skeletor, you get the little door on the back.

You can see how this works. There is a little pull tab on the back of the micro blister. A polybag has all of the accessories.

For some reason He-Man came with two power swords? A mistake at the factory? I am not used to photographing such small things. You will have to forgive me. It is amazing how different the lighting can be when you focus on tiny objects. And then I cropped what I had and adjusted the lighting using Apple Photos.

I want to say how hazardously small these figures are. I am not even kidding. It is a feat of toy engineering! They are about the size of a dime. The sculpt is pretty good. The arms and the head move, but the legs are stiff and unarticulated. The armor appears to be glued on…I didn’t try and remove it. He holds the sword reasonably well and the shield snaps onto his forearms and elbow OK. The armor doesn’t have a functional holster for the sword or the battle axe. The battle axe really, really, really is hazardously small. The handle is loose in He-Man’s hand. It is like the thinnest piece of plastic. It is about as thin as a high e nylon guitar string.

Here is a size comparison for you. Sorry, not opening the 200x He-Man for this! You can see how very tiny this is. Someone at a toy store told me that the World’s Smallest figures go well in the Hot Wheels vehicles. I’ll have to try that when it snow. (You can see how the 40th Anniversary Masterverse figure’s sword isn’t holding up too well. :(. )

Amazingly, I have one smaller figure! This one came with GI Joe Classified Sgt. Slaughter. If He-Man wasn’t on a stand, the Sarge’s hat would not even tough his belt. However, this tiny figure isn’t articulated.

I KNOW. THEY ARE DIFFERENT THINGS. Still, the detail of the head sculpt on the micro figure makes the MEGA minifig seem derpy and comical. World’s Smallest He-Man doesn’t sit on Battle Cat so well…

Here is the whole set. Skeletor also doesn’t fit on Panthor so well. Both cats have the same articulation. All four legs move. Their heads can turn but not go up and down. Their tails are articulated, and you can remove their armor. This Panthor is not flocked.

Here is Skeletor beside He-Man. Once again, sorry about the blur! Skeletor can’t hold the Havoc Staff so good either. It has the same handle thickness as the battle axe. Also, his armor looks kind of wrong. But I do enjoy the redness of his eyes.

I had lots of fun taking pics of these guys. As miniature action figures, these are the smallest you could get without becoming a rubber slug like Sgt. Slaughter’s micro figure. (Still puzzled about them including that. It is cool though!). The sculpts are great and they come with appropriate accessories. I guess the issues with them holding the Havoc Staff and the battle axe are ignorable. Just be careful. The axe is so small I was afraid of it getting stuck under my Macbook Pro keys! They go right back in their packages, and then that goes back in the blister no problem. Panthor was an exclusive for this set, another bonus!

I am giving it a 5/5. Do you agree or disagree, Hub City Geeks? Let me know in the comments!

GI Joe Classified Sgt. Slaughter…SpartanNerd unboxing and review

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Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!

The SpartanNerd got some new goodies!

First up is a “second”…that is, a second GI Joe Classified figure. (I already had Cobra Commander.). And now, I have Sgt. Slaughter, a figure of a person I actually met in person at the Retro Toy Con in Greenville last year. (Sgt. Slaughter is a real-life character.)

My history with the Sarge. Well, as a child I used to watch GI Joe. But we didn’t have many of the figures. Like Transformers, they were on the more expensive side. Which wasn’t to say we had none. Me and my brothers eventually accrued a small army, but we usually didn’t remember the names of the characters, and some of ours were of the more generic but WAY CHEAPER “Corps” variety. As the older brother, I always gravitated towards Cobra and the Decepticons in these rare but cherished acquisitions. The other issue…my mother didn’t want us to go into the army. I have an uncle who was eventually a colonel. And he of course encouraged us to join up. (Just a note. The character of Sgt. Slaughter would be a Marine before becoming a GI Joe.)

Anyway, Sgt. Slaughter was one of the few official Joes that we had. I remember specifically that he had a removable hat, that I remember specifically getting lost. So most of the time he didn’t have this. Some light research on YoJoe.com tells me that we must have had the version that came with the Warthog AIFV.

But this isn’t all, is it? Sgt. Slaughter was a WWF wrestler. I remember watching him. I didn’t watch wrestling that much. It was what came on after the cartoons on Saturday morning, so…BUT, (Confusingly, the sarge seemed to switch to our enemy Iraq sometime in the 1990’s for his wrestling kayfabe. Nobody’s perfect…). Sgt. Slaughter also appeared as a Saturday morning cartoon host and in commercials for GI Joe toys. And finally, the most memorable thing about Sgt. Slaughter for me was the 1980’s movie appearance. In this version, which I got to see dozens of times because we had it on BETA tapes hooked to our Nintendo TV, Sgt. Slaughter shines most of all. Without using a curse word (unlike Beach Head), he let us know what a drill sergeant is all about. “The only way your going home is in a ditty bag. An itty, bitty, ditty bag.” !!!!!!!!!!

(I asked the Sarge what this meant when I met him at the Retro Toy Con last year. The “ditty bag” is a small cosmetics bag that a soldier stores his razor in. At the con I was SO TEMPTED to get an autographed poster of Sgt. Slaughter saying this to hang in my classroom!)

On to the toy review!

WHAT? SERIOUSLY? I ordered my figure from GameStop…I got an e-mail blasting a sale. And so when I clicked, I saw it at a reasonable price of <$25, and ordered it. Having a Cobra Commander already, I knew this would be a pretty cool toy to display beside him.

BUT NOPE. REALLY!!

I had heard of “windowless” packaging for Hasbro’s toys. I might have seen a Star Wars black series Battle Droid hanging on a tab when I visited the store. I didn’t put it together that THIS WAS WHAT I WOULD GET. No window showing us the figure. I did not and still do not appreciate this. OK so there is virtually no plastic in this package. I guess that’s a win for the environment. But the environment has to take second place. We are talking about serious business here, Hub City Geeks.

What we get is a nice picture of Sgt. Slaughter in different situations. The top left is the GI Joe TV host (I think,), the top right is the comic book appearance. Next on the left is a person holding the action figure who is holding a micro action figure which is an included accessory. The right is the image of the Sarge from the movie. The bottom left is a picture of the toy posed holding the machine gun. And in the center, nice and tall, is a modern illustration of the character. If he seems less muscular in this depiction, this is what he really looks like in real life today, only an illustrated version. When GamesStop advertised that this figure would be Six-In-One, what they meant was the six versions that surround the illustration. And they are counting the micro figure.

The back shows us another picture of the machine gun pose, and also a picture of everything in the box along with a ruler showing us how big everything is in scale. Those symbols…

I didn’t pay that much attention to them on Cobra Commander’s box. I guess I just thought it part of the design. But with Sgt. Slaughter’s box next to it, I see that there is more going on here. Something deeper. These are the character’s stats! You can see a whole page about that here. Finally, it makes sense. Cobra Commander has strong leadership, light weapons, “psyops” (psychological warfare), and a mastered skillset for coercion. Sgt. Slaughter has strong leadership, great hand to hand skills, great strength, and a mastered skillset that is too secret to reveal!

The other side has nice art, comparable to Cobra Commander’s.

BUT…Trying to save the environment by removing the blister is a poor excuse for not getting to see the figure we are getting. AND…it looks dumb next to Cobra Commander who has a windowed package. Hasbro. You deal in plastic. Do it right.

Let’s open this up.

This is what you open. The figure is strapped to the open box with paper rope. The other box contains the accessories.

We get what my son in the army says is an AK-47, but you have to assemble it. The magazine and the flashlight were not attached. A pair of sunglasses. A “baton” (is this the right word?), a whistle, a micro action figure on card WITH BLISTER. Three alternate left and right hands, and that hat I remember so fondly.

I think the only couple of things I would add here are a figure stand and a pistol or grenades. But I don’t miss these that much.

Here I have Sgt. Slaughter posed as best as I could to his comic appearance.

I tried to do the pose of the big image on the box…the problem is that the baton will not stay securely in his armpit. Another one you can’t do is the arms folded. His plastic muscles are just too much!

He looks like an 80’s action star holding his AK-47.

In a future post, I will open this micro figure. Why did they include this? Do the recent GI Joe Classified figures all come with this? I really enjoy it, though!

The sergeant must be taller than Cobra Commander. With another upcoming review, you will see that it must be that Cobra Commander is supposed to be on the shorter side. More research needed, I guess. But I kind of like it if he has a Napoleon complex. Seems fitting. The Sarge looks like he could roll up Old Snake and throw him at some BAT bowling pins.

So what do I rate this GI Joe Classified Sgt. Slaughter? No question. That package is a disappointment. I was underwhelmed when I opened the shipper box. And that isn’t what you want in a hobby that is supposed to be about awesome fun. As a teacher that box gets a D+. The contents are clear and the pictures are nice. Blah blah blah. Less plastic. Blah blah blah. I. Want. To. See. What. I. Have. In. The. Box. for display purposes. I am a grown up. Are kids buying these figures? I don’t think so. They have no connection to them.

As far as the figure, it is excellent. 5/5. Hooray! It is a great representation of the classic GI Joe. He looks cool, is highly posable. Looks good with Cobra Commander. No issues with sloppy paint or anything like that. The joints feel right. The swappable hands kind of worry me, but they work just fine…just be careful.

If the figure gets a 5/5, and the package gets a 2/5, I guess I am giving this a 4/5. Do you agree or disagree, Hub City Geeks? Let me know in the comments!

Mega Construx Snake Mountain Review part 1

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This is such a massive build, I am breaking up the review into sections.

You can find a review of the packaging and figures here.

Build Review part 1 (you are looking at it right now!)

Build Review part 2 (coming soon)

If it has been awhile since you checked in to the SpartanNerd blog, here is a link to the main page! I suggest starting with “catching up” from July 4, 2022.

Part 1 of this review is the “Filmation” side of the mountain.

I am also highly distracted, so I feel like this is one of the most ADHD reviews I have ever done. (’tis the season for chorus!)

It took me from mid-September until last week (second week of December) to complete this side. This is working in spurts of an hour and a half or two hours. when I felt up to it. I would get a couple of the polybags out and assemble those steps. Then put the whole project away until next time. I think there are 27 steps here?

This playset really gives you the scale of a mountain with the mini figures around it.

The trap door is pretty nice. But beware that the figures fall a long way. I had to wrangle with it so that the mechanism would work smoothly.

Webstor is doing the “trap door spider” thing. Notice these pink squirelly things and the horns. They look cool. This place “oozes evil.”

Grayskull with Point Dread and the Talon Fighter is only barely taller.

Snake Mountain is even taller than Master Grade Gundam Epyon EW on a flight stand with beam saber raised!

Shades of purple. The Land Shark and my custom “War Sled.”

I want to begin by saying that just like Castle Grayskull, each small section of Snake Mountain is packaged in its own plastic baggie. They give you this set in small and manageable chunks, and the instructions are pretty clear. Sometimes I personally have a hard time seeing the correct shape of a piece in respect of it’s orientation and position in the picture…But this is more of a SpartanNerd problem. Because it is in such small bite sized chunks, I don’t feel the need to always set out the pieces and organize them like I do smaller sets.

While the instructions are easy and the sequence is clear, the build HAS NOT been easy. I am of the belief that Mattel has opted to use cheaper or at least different plastic than they used for Castle Grayskull. The effect of that is…I really have to work hard to get the pieces to snap together! I mean…sometimes I set the pieces and the table and have to hammer them with my hand. And all of the SpartanPets go running. And then…If you make a mistake and have to take it apart…Let’s just say that the “brick separator” is our best friend. The forks on the end have worn out from me having to separate blocks that are wedged together too tightly.

I recently had to rebuild Castle Grayskull. (YAY. It has crumbled TWICE on me.). I managed to get the castle back together in about four hours. (Large pieces stayed together negating the need for a total rebuild.).

Rebuilding that set in the middle of working on Snake Mountain let me see the true difference of what is going on. Grayskull’s pieces don’t stick together so tightly…Hence the lack of durability. That roof is also dubious. It is barely attached to the playset, Snake Mountain…I probably could drop it from 8 feet in the air like I did Grayskull, and it would mostly stay together except for the little horn details and such.

(OK. I decided to move the castle to the top shelf to be beside the new Snake Mountain which is too tall for the better shelf on the lower level. I had also attached the Talon Fighter to the top of the tower. And I dropped it. In the closet. Pieces everywhere and underneath stuff in the closet. A real nightmare.)

Earlier I said cheaper/different plastic. This plastic has a problem. There is a tiny discolored nib on almost every piece. Sometimes it is on a stud. Sometimes it is somewhere else. But it is ugly and uncalled for in a set that costs over $300. Mattel knows they will get their money from people like the SpartanNerd. But every time I would see one of those ugly artifacts, I felt a little burned. I felt this bad enough to where I thought…”Would I buy a Fright Zone, Eternia Playset, or Crystal Castle?” All of those are possible sets on a similar scale and price point to Snake Mountain and Grayskull. They can do better.

Now probably the economy has to do with this. Oil/Petroleum shortage. Biden-flation. ETC etc. Maybe they purposely wanted the plastic to be more rigid so that the set wouldn’t crumble. I don’t know. But people who put pupils in the eyes of a Man-E-Faces Mega Mini Figure pay attention to details, and those ugly nibs are a problem.

Next up. I have a problem with this piece (First picture)

Notice how there is a white scar on each of these blocks.

@#!$%&*@. This large piece is stupid.

Maybe this was a reprinted piece from some earlier HALO set. Seems a little familiar. Mattel/MEGA, you missed an opportunity here. By giving us this large hollow piece you have deprived us of the ability to build that piece. And on this subject, there are some dubious design choices on some of the interior. Instead of solid blocks, they have us use large flat rectangular pieces back to back with a row of studs in between. MIND BOGGLING. WHY!? I think it might have been to save money on plastic? Maybe it made the set weigh less? I don’t know. But that design choice seems wrong on a building toy.

Last complaint. The wraparound snake. This is another missed opportunity. This snake should have been a complete snake. We should be able to remove it for a monster battle. You say, “SpartanNerd, it didn’t do that in Filmation.” True. But it did in 200x. My point is, if we received a proper tail piece, this snake would have been even more epic. We could have disconnected it from the mountain and used it. Too much fun, I guess.

On to some positivity. IT IS HUGE. A good problem, but also a problem. It is as tall as Grayskull with the Point Dread and Talon Fighter configuration. The figures look great posed on it. You get a real sense of “mountain” that I always felt that the vintage playset failed to capture. It is that sense that us collectors and fans crave that pushed the Super7 Snake Mountain to be so large and expensive.

The little horns and pink squirelly things make this really evil. Also the monster face at the base of the mountain just appears from the build, and as I mentioned before, I prefer that! The trap door is a nice touch, but the figures fall a long way down and can get busted.

The “faces of evil” are a Four Horsemen design if I remember correctly. In the middle, that purple support snaps off way to easy. It is only for looks…isn’t a functional piece for stability. I could not get the face on the left to attach without bulding up the layer underneath with spare parts.

The only “extra” on this side of the mountain is this “sarlacc pit” trap under the trap door. I put The Sorceress here, with Evil Lynn clearly summoning the monster. The Sorceress seems to wind up a prisoner quite often.

You can remove this trap and sit it other places. “The Well of Souls?”

So what is my overall feeling? Can I rate this yet?

I think it will be awhile before I begin on the second half. It seems kind of daunting. And that isn’t what a toy should be.

On the other hand, the other side has some of the cooler parts of this set. Skeletor’s throne for one. The magic table from Filmation is another. There are others…That lava slide. But I also never was a big fan of the face on the other side. Or the rat/wolf microphone. But I really liked the bridge.

Well, I am glad that we got this side with the snake, that really looks like a Filmation Snake mountain sort of. At least they gave us a little more snake.

I feel that a person might be able to customize this set a little bit. I am building it as it is meant to be first, for now.

So far Grayskull beats this set, however. It might be because of my own personal attachment as a child. But I find it is also just really awesome…in the sense that Mortal Kombat II was more awesome than Mortal Kombat I. It is more, More, MORE! I had Snake Mountain as a child, but this set departs from the vintage design enough to where it doesn’t hit me the same way that Grayskull does. I know that this is based on the Super7 Snake Mountain design, which summarizes the toy and the Filmation version. But that wasn’t “my snake mountain.” If it was dark black and gray with a giant snake wrapped around and lava coming out of its mouth…That’s “my Snake Mountain.” or if it was an exact copy of the vintage toy. It’s still cool and it’s still epic, though!

Masterverse 40th Anniversary He-Man- SpartanNerd unboxing and review

by

5

I am going to take a moment away from Snake Mountain, which is slowly coming together, to review the 40th Anniversary He-Man I didn’t know existed. It was at Target, where I was looking for some Christmas presents for one of my sons. At $21.00 I decided this was a good purchase

Here are some pics for reference. The big one is the 40th anniversary He-Man. You can see the art on the back of the box, and how the cardboard tray can slide out revealing the blister with the action figure inside. You can also see my sealed 200x He-Man, and also my vintage He-Man. (Might be the re-issue. I know that the Grayskull door was mine from childhood.)

I have mostly avoided the Masterverse line of Masters of the Universe toys…The first wave, which featured He-Man and Skeletor, just threw me off. He-Man’s belt was colored too closely to his skin tone, making it seem like he had a “gut,” which just wasn’t right for the character of course. This one item, plus too much focus on the Revelation show just kept me from wanting it. It seemed to me right away that this line was going to be far inferior to the Masters of the Universe Classics line, which it was supposedly replacing.

Let me settle this up front: Mattel, Masters of the Universe Classics was the line of toys the fans deserved. It was a high bar that you set yourself. Now whatever you do that is pointed at adults has to match it. The Masterverse line does not match it. I have watched Scott Neitlich’s videos and I understand what is going on…that it was a small line aimed at collectors only and sold online. I get it. But you have set a gold standard as far as highly desirable action figures.

So now that I got my sermon posted, which they will surely never read or care about, here are my thoughts on this 40th anniversary figure.

This is my first purchase of a Masterverse figure. I have seen the boxes and all of the other figures, and thank you Mattel for giving us a good box for this one. The other figures in the Masterverse line come in boring and ugly blue boxes with plain text. But this box is not only great, it is collector friendly too! You can see from the above pic that you just open the top flap (mine had a little piece of tape) and slide the tray out. I was carefully able to remove the figure without damaging the bubble. I sold all of my MOTUC figures when I ran out of room. (This is where the funding came from that got me into the Mega line). If there is anything that this Masterverse line is doing better, it is this collector friendly package. On all of the MOTUC figures you pretty much had to destroy the package if you wanted to touch the figure. After selling the MOTCU collection, I have been collecting the Mega figures on card and also off card. This is economical enough, and helps me feel like a real collector. I have since picked up San Diego Comic Con She-Ra that had a similar collector box, and also GI-Joe Classified Cobra Commander. I am sad that in the instance of the 200x He-Man that I have on card he has to just stay on the card. (That figure seems to have come down in value recently. My box is in awful shape anyway. Notice my version is the more rare “cross” on the chest version.)

The figure looks OK in the box. Let’s get him out and play awhile.

He-Man comes with this: Power Harness (armor), Power Sword, Shield, and Battle Axe. He also comes with a fist hand and a chopping hand. I guess I should count the left hand Wrist Bracer that also comes off.

His articulation is pretty good. Shoulder, biceps, double jointed elbow, and wrist with a 360 rotation as well as a hinge for up and down. The hands just pop out of their socket, and as mentioned, the left hand bracer comes off which might help you to display him equipped with the shield. The classics version didn’t have the double jointed elbows…but…I’ll say in a minute.

He-man’s head has 360 rotation and can nod up and down. He has a torso that is more likely to bend backwards rather than ab crunch. (Remember what I said about the first Masterverse He-Man having a gut?)

You get a waist swivel, legs that come out to do a split, and now thigh cuts. Double-jointed knees, boot cut, and rocker and hinge ankles.

Go have a look at my review of MOTUC He-Man from 2013. Now let’s talk. The double-joints are supposed to be an improvement on the design. But they look bad. Also, the thigh cut doesn’t do anything for me. It is kind of similar to what we had with the female figures in the MOTUC line, where when you moved their waste, you had a flat surface that just “looked wrong.” The thighs here just look wrong. No other way around it.

The top left pic shows He-Man in the same pose as the artwork on the back of the box. (very nice art, by the way.). He has no trouble getting into this pose. The second pic shows a near-transformation pose. But can you see what I see? The arms are out of proportion. His hand is too long. This head sculpt has an unsettling facial expression. You can compare the original sculpt to the new one in the third pic. The original looked menacing. Barbaric. They have given him a more vertical head, larger eyes, and distinct eyebrows, making this He-Man appear less confident. And He-Man should exude confidence. You can really see this when posing the fist. This fist looks like Deadpool’s baby hand compared to the rest of the arm (don’t look it up if you don’t know). The backside pic shows off the way the sword fits in the harness, and the muscle flexshows the off-proportions. I will say, the furry shorts and boots have a nice wash. But there is a contrast between the molded plastic belt and bracers that seems incongruent.

He-Man goes back in the box nicely, where I think he will stay.

I didn’t have any trouble getting him back in the box. Here he is with my other carded Masters figures.

I think I believed this purchase would scratch the itch of collecting He-Mann figs again. In the box, maybe. But he just isn’t as inspiring as was the MOTUC figures were. I don’t think I am likely to remove him from this package again. Maybe when it snows.

So what do I rate this figure?

The packaging is a 5/5. The toy is about a 2/5. So this puts it in the 3/5 camp. You would think that a 40th anniversary figure would be a solid 5/5. It should be. At least it was affordable, unlike the Magic the Gathering 30th anniversary fake cards (60 fake cards for $1000). Thanks professor! I didn’t know this product existed, so it was kind of an impulse buy. I wonder if they will make a Skeletor. Surely they will. But I will probably pass on it.

UPDATE: I had a good look at the first release of the Masterverse He-Man today unsealed in a case in a store. This 40th anniversary figure has a MASSIVE chest in comparison.

ONE MORE THING: I was just moving the MEGA CONSTRUX Castle Grayskull to the top shelf…It crumbled. I guess I am taking even more of a commercial from Snake Mountain.