It Came from the Toy Chest: It came from The Horsemen

The Four Horsemen HAVE DONE a LOT for Masters of the Universe and they were given a chance to create a brand spanking new character for the Toyline: Draego-Man... Seriously, if they ever make a new MOTU cartoon, John DiMaggio should voice Draego-Man... While it won't happen, "Bite my Scaly Dragon Ass!!" should be used at least once by him!! Well, what can I say about him, he's a Dragon-Man!! He's Evil and red... Let's just take a look at him shall we?

Draego-Man's worst enemy... Cuteness!

Created by the 4 Horsemen... Seriously, they should let the Horsemen create ALL the new characters...

Well, he DOES look like he's all new minus the Tail that is Obviously Whiplash's... right?



Draego-Man is made by a butt-load of reused parts! (Some of his new parts MAY have some future reuse)

Draego-Man is free and ready to terrorize the skies of Eternia

Head: New
Torso and Abs: Hordak
Armor: New
Wings: New (Possible reuse on Granamyr and Lord Dactys)
Loincloth: King Grayskull
Shoulders: King Hssss (Corrected)
Biceps: King Hssss
Forearms: New
Hands: New (Possible reuse on Ceratus)
Thighs: King Hssss
Shins: King Hssss
Boots: He-Ro
Feet: Hordak
Tail: Whiplash

He also has a Flaming Sword! What's NOT to love!?

I think I should talk a bit more about his background...
He is Pre-ternian, hates Granamyr, joined King Grayskull, hates King Grayskull, went to sleep or something, joins Skeletor to kill dragons and humans... until he switches sides or something... I guess...

Did I say he looks awesome? I should get on the ratings part... as always, the closer to zero = crap while the closer to 5 equals awesome...

Articulation:
Mr. Draego-Man has the standard MOTUC Articulation + 3 Extra POA with the wings and tail.
His head has a decent range of Articulation incredibly enough... Sadly, he lacks an articulated mouth... Now that would have made him BEYOND awesome!
4.5

Paint and Sculpt:
Yeah, I've already mentioned that he shares a LOT of parts with other characters, but the combination is pretty cool! King Hssss's body works pretty well for a scaly body look, incredibly enough. His head... OMG!! Like that's the kind of head that I see when I think of a Dragon!! His wings are very detailed, but at the same time they fit in the MOTUC style. The armor was made to match He-Ro's boots and the details on them make it pop...
Paintwise it's pretty good... (Good thing Mattel did not cut the paints on him like they did with the accessories). I have one tiny bit of slop on his armor, but it is forgivable...
4.5


Accessories:
The USS Logistics screwed Draego-Man here... He originally was meant to come with one sword and shield. His shield had a removable flame effect while his sword could be either a metal blade or a flaming sword... He only comes with the flaming sword... Now don't get me wrong, It WOULD have been ULTRA COOL! to have them, but in my opinion he really doesn't need any accessories... Unless they were clip-on flames for his face... So let's consider the sword as his only accessory...
4.0

or maybe a repaint of Thunderpunch He-Man's Shoryuken effect

It works pretty good on Draego-Man

Overall:
The Draego-Man gets an Overall score of: 4.33 It's not that bad for a newcomer... He'd probably would have fared a bit better if it wasn't for the USS Logistics...
Kinda wish I had bought multiple DM's to repaint... I wonder if some customizers would try to add different wings on him... Perhaps tweaking the Hasbro Annihilus wings and repaint them to fit Draego?

Does someone at Mattel HATES Teela?

With Snake Man-at-Arms' Bio released we find out that he dies due to being fatally wounded and the Heroic Warriors are unable to save him. They do manage to cure him of his "evil" before he dies...
I mean Seriously! Not only they KILL Teela's mom/sister cause she's a clone of the Sorceress... (Made by Skeletor, so that would make him her daddy and Adam's cousin... You can start saying Ewww! right now...) Seriously I hope that the whole Skeletor wants to marry Teela to gain Access to Grayskull is ignored on this canon... Now to add more drama to Teela's life her Father Figure... Well he's pretty much her dad even if there are no blood ties, gets killed as well...

Somebody at Mattel, or at least MOTUC's Bio Writing team MUST HATE TEELA'S guts!!
You have all this drama surrounding poor Teela's life that it's unbelievable... I  think this is something that King He-Man would have the Mighty Spector fix... Well assuming that the bio writers want to have He-Man and Teela be the king and queen of Eternia... but at the same time that would stop Adora from being queen and Spector is loyal to the house of Randor and, he'd have to fix that so Teela is stuck on Grayskull and the Adora and Adam are King and Queen... URGH! This is why having a character whose power is Time Travel (and Hyperloyalty) ROYALLY SUCKS!!

Gi Joes never retreat... unless it's for 3D

No Retaliation for 2012...
NO GI JOE RETALIATION FOR 2012!?
But it's OK It's got a March 29th 2013 Release date...
NO IT'S NOT OK!! I was so freaking stoked about GI Joe Retaliation and now I will not be able to see it until I'm a year OLDER!? (Literally since it comes near my next B-Day) This whole delay is for a possibly unneeded 3D gimmick!?
This totally sucks ASS!! Looks like I just lost the movie I was most excited for that is NOT Avengers...

It came from the Toy Chest: Thundaaa Pwnch!!

    

Yes, Thunder Punch He-Man has arrived... Very special thanks to the folks at The Great Rebellion for MY FAVORITE VINTAGE FIGURE!! Woo!! THUNDER PUNCH!! I can almost feel the gunpowdery scent from the spent blast caps...

You hear it here, but you feel it there... If you know what I mean... which is precisely that... nothing dirty about that... Unlike a certain Time Traveler...

Damn! I missed out on the Mighty Sextor... The amount of Penis jokes I could have made... I think I should go back to Thunder Punch He-Man

OOK, so back to Thunder Punch He-Man... He's pretty much just like I remember... Vac Metal shield,and harness... Clear yellowish sword... Mine kinda looks like a pineapple-ish gummy bear color... sadly it tastes like plastic... (had to lick the blade to see if it wasn't candy)

He has a working backpack with it's big honking dial on its back... (unlike Hurricane Hordak's this one spins around) It even fits a "blast cap" ring on his back and his Vac Metal Shield... Just like we remember... Sadly there are not Action Features on the line, so no Blast Cap fueled Thunder Punches...

Now THIS is what has me torn... I still am a strong believer of the Action Features = bad on an Adult collector line, but at the same time Nefty wants some big boom! Also, his backpack didn't need to open up or be able to have the blast cap inserted inside it... It IS kinda cool in a Nostalgic way, but as an Adult Collector item, it is not needed. So, how do we give some THUNDER to the PUNCH on HE-MAN? Simple: An Energy blast that clips on his fist... Can we say SHORYUKEN?

So, let's recap:
Harness, Blast Cap, Backpack, Shield, Shoryuken Energy, Right Fist are the new pieces on Thunder Punch He-Man...

Now unto the ratings part, where 1 is poop and 5 is great!
Articulation:
Same old, same old... Ab Crunch is a bit limited due to his Armor. His ankles are REALLY tight!
4.0

TP He-Man in a Nutshell

Paint and Sculpt:
Sculpt-wise, just like the Vintage Thunderpunch He-Man... Paintwise he's pretty good. Very little slop... or underpainted areas. Sadly my shield had soem vac metal issues (some of it had flaked off and I had to repaint... made it look like an old preternian shield) Also HE IS REALLY PALE... (Paler than Adam...)
4.0 

This is why I hate Vac Metal

Accessories:
Like I've said, I'm torn on the nostalgia appealing side of the accessories, vs their practicality on an Adult Collector line.
4.0

Overall: 4.0
I know what you're thinking: Why give him a lower score if this is my favorite Figure and I LOVE IT a lot?

Well, it's cause I'm being objective... I had to separate my love for this character...

But wait! There's more! Thunder Punch He-Man has an extra secret accessory! One of 3 Mini Comics! 

And I have to believe that Spector is NOT a Mary Sue...

 

Looking back on MOTU's 30 years pt. 4: Crouching Teela hidden Mekaneck

It's time for the 2002 reboot for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! This would be the final piece on this Looking back on MOTU since Classics is not over yet. So where to begin?
OK the Four Horsemen (The guys who sculpt the MOTUC toys) pitched an Idea to Mattel, an updated HE-MAN toyline that was MEANT to be a sequel to the original Toyline. Storywise Skeletor was meant to have taken over the full power sword and He-Man would have a Mechanical sword to channel the powers of Grayskull. They made the designs with their detailed style... Something something Focus groups and the toyline ended up looking the way it did, but Mattel chose to do a reboot instead of a continuation. Now I must say that this new toyline was being made during the era when toys were shifting towards having more articulation... (The trend started in the mid 90s) but for some Reason Mattel SHIED AWAY from the articulation... (which is funny since the Horsemen apparently were trying to make super articulated MOTU figures for this line)

Now I'm going to go on a small tangent and I don't mean this as an attack on The Four Horsemen, because they had to follow Mattel's orders and world class researched instructions...
The 200X toys SUCKED ASS!! I bought them cause they were He-Man and I love the designs...
I hate the STYLE... Blocky looking bodies, pinheads and he-man looks very PUNY! While he no longer looks like he's taking a dump (like the vintage toy) he looks like he's humping a ghost! (in order to stand without falling) The designs are sound, the detailing is AWESOME!! I did (and still DO) love how there are multiple body types on the line. Whiplash is thick, Beastman is HUGE and Skeletor is lanky, etc.

I only went after the core characters (cause those were pretty much the ones released...) Sadly I never found Adam, Teela or Evil Lyn due to scalpers. One thing that bothered me a lot about the toyline was the Excess of He-Man and Skeletor Variants... or the abuse of repaints (reverse colors two-bad, disco skeletor, etc.)

Now the other side of the 200X coin is the Cartoon, which still is heavily tied to Filmation... even if it was a reboot... (Count Marzo, Evil Seed, the Shadow Beasts, the Diamond Ray of Disappearance were some surviving Filmation elements) Like in Filmation, Mattel had one approach for the Toyline, while the Cartoon People (MYP) were heading into another direction. Mattel was going for a He-Man vs Skeletor approach, while the Cartoon was emphasizing the cast while He-Man was like a Background character at times.

The cartoon had a pretty decent cast of voice actors (I've already talked about He-Man being voiced by Cam Clarke before...) The music wasn't as epic as in Filmation, but the show had a bit more action...
 sadly the show went by almost unnoticed... It was playing the Network slot russian roulette... So it got cancelled... It also didn't help that Mattel was clogging the pegs with unnecessary He-Man and Skeletor variants...
While the Toyline didn't bring much new stuff to the table (aside a gazillion He-Man and Skeletor variants) the Cartoon DID bring some new stuff, like King Grayskull (He-Man's SECOND ancestor and source of Power... The 80s had a different ancestor in He-Ro) The Qadians, Odiphus among others.

Obviously after the demise of the line, Mattel threw He-Man back in the vault and swore to never speak of him until they could figure out a way to get some easy money... Fortunately for them, the Four Horsemen struck back with a Vintage Looking He-Man with Today's Articulation and with some pitching to Management, MOTU: Classics was born...

Luckily for us MOTU Classics has brought some of these guys into the fold as toys for the first time... (Carnivus, King Grayskull, the more Criss Angel Looking Count Marzo, and The Griffins to mention some of the 200X characters that have been classicized)

Now that pretty much covers all the eras before Classics and how they helped Classics be what it is...
Hopefully Mattel will allow Princess of Power AND New Adventures reach their 30th WHILE the  Classics Line is still alive...

Looking back: 30 years of MOTU pt. III He-Man in SPACE!

Ah, it's time for the New Adventures of He-Man. Here I have VERY LITTLE to say about on the side of my experiences, since I mostly talked about them on the link there... But I'll recap.
After the original line died, I had moved on to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Meanwhile, Mattel was planning a He-Man comeback... Ditching the Barbarian Sword and Sorcery motif to a more Space Opera kind of thing, He-Man was reborn. Was I into it?
HELL NO! It didn't look or feel like He-Man at all! (or so my child self thought...) I completely ignored the cartoon AND the toyline... (which I encountered before the cartoon) They were WIMPY!!

Fast forward all the way to 2010... I had a chance to have a conversation with Jack Olesker (one of the NA writers) through the He-Man.org forums as I was giving NA another chance, you know what I learned? That I should have given NA a chance when I was a Kid AND that season 2 would have kicked butt... Yes I said this already, but I'm retelling it due to the retrospect thing...

Now it's link to the MOTU Classics line is REALLY SMALL (due to Mattel's apprehension to support New adventures) with 3 figures in 3 years... Not so good for an alleged "All Encompassing line"
worst part is that my Favorite New Adventures characters were "Cartoon only characters" and while Mattel DOES have the rights for New Adventures Cartoon characters, their chances to get made are pretty slim!

Next time We'll tackle the 2002 Reboot of Masters of the Universe...

Looking back on MOTU's 30th pt. 2: The fate of the world's in the hands of a beautiful girl!

Part II is here! We're talking about He-Man's Twin Sister, She-Ra: Princess of Power! Mattel's attempt at an Action figure Line for Girls... Or how to make boys venture the Pink aisle and leave in frustration...

Like her brother before her, my connection is mostly based on Filmation. I did NOT collect the line... due to many reasons:
-Pink aisle and Latin American Machismo... Old man was not too keen on me playing with PoP toys
-The toys look NOTHING like their cartoon versions.
-The focus on the Toyline was a "barbarian barbie" while the Toon Focus was kinda Star War-ish thing.

Now, just cause  I could NOT BUY POP, it doesn't mean that I did NOT have access to POP toys...
Female cousins are a godsend... (The only problem was that she wanted to play the Mattel Way and I wanted to play the Filmation Way... So I had to sneak around to Play Princess of Power the way Filmation intended...) Speaking of Filmation vs Toys:



See what I mean? Mattel wanted She-Ra to sit down, have tea and crumpets with Catra while they talked about boys, or should I say BOW... (being the only guy in POP) and maybe have makeovers or whatever it is that girls do on sleepovers...

On the other hand Filmation had the Heroes of Etheria being a small resistance that the Evil Horde (available in the boys' aisle) had to squash...

That was pretty much my view on Princess of Power as a Kid... As an Adult I learned to appreciate the nature of the toys designs a LOT better than Filmation's simplistic 80s exercise video costumes.
I do WISH that the PoP MOTUC toys had more Vintage POP Toy elements on them, but I understand why they chose the Filmation looks instead. Also they gave us ADORA and a CARTOON ACCURATE SWIFT WIND!!! Another Plus for MOTUC...

Stay tuned for Part 3: The New Adventures of He-Man... (This one will be short for 2 reasons:
1: I already covered NA 2 years ago... 2: I only became an NA fan 2 years ago...)

Looking Back 30 Years of MOTU pt. I

As I've mentioned Before, He-Man's 30th Birthday is this year and Mattel has taken a weird approach to celebrating it. I think that I SHOULD Celebrate it by Looking Back on ALL the Toylines that made MOTU what it was and what it is... Since MOTU Classics is a Celebration of ALL of them under a cohesive look inspired by the Original Toyline, I guess I should start with that Line.

I began Collecting MOTU around 85' and was able to get older figures due to the many mom and pop toy stores around the time. (Technically my parents were the ones buying them but that's not the point) Well, the little guys were HUGE compared to the other toys from the era  like Hasbro's GI Joes, Kenner's Star Wars or DC Super Powers and Mattel's own Marvel Secret Wars. It's kinda funny though... 30 years later and Hasbro is STILL making GI Joes, Star Wars, Mattel was making a Spiritual Successor to Super Powers while Hasbro has the Spiritual successor to Secret Wars (DCUC and Marvel Legends) but we're not here to talk about those. We're here to talk about the 5 POA squatting barbarian figures that were the Original MOTU... Before some wise-ass commenter attempts to correct me about their POA by mentioning the Spring-Loaded Waist twist or some other Action-feature induced POA, there is your answer. I'm not counting Action Feature POAs.

They were colorful kinda quirky and eye-catching. Also they were the FIRST TRUE Toyline I collected. (Sorry Duplo blocks, but you guys aren't action figures) Now, as a child of the 80s the close link between MOTU and Filmation CANNOT be ignored.

To the 80s me Filmation WAS MOTU My Man-at-Arms had a mustache...(I painted one on him with nail polish and ruined his head... I got a second MAA to replace him though) Sadly I don't remember if I had the Original He-Man or not... I DO Remember Battle Armor and Thunder Punch though... The same for Skeletor (with his Battle Armor and Dragon Blaster) Now back on the main topic, Filmation was VERY important to my play universe (More on that when I deal with Princess of Power)
The lack of a Sorceress or a Queen Marlena were felt on my play universe but I still had fun with them. I DO remember them fondly even if I had to save my Beastman once from a toilet or the Grizzlors I ruined with the slime pit!

I have not many memories about the movie but they were mostly not pleasant, felt ripped-off and hated the Earth angle from the movie. (I learned to appreciate it more as an adult... which WILL BE a recurring theme on the Looking Back on MOTU rants)

Part of me misses the little guys, nostalgia is a crazy thing... Especially when dealing with some MOTUC Figures like Thunderpunch He-Man... (More on that on the ICFTTC for TP He-Man)
It's making me long for action features, when normally I prefer Articulation and sculpt over these features.
I have to admit that they were FUN FUN FUN!! I still feel the smell of gunpowder, or remeber the sound of the spring loaded drum on the BA and how tasty Whiplash's tail was... Yeah I was a biter...

MOTU Classics KNOWS how to pull the nostalgia strings AND enhance rosters with characters like Queen Marlena and Cringer... but without the Original line and the influences it made on other toylines (and the cartoons to promote these toys)  I would NOT be talking about MOTU today...

Next we'll tackle She-Ra: Princess of Power

There is too much estrogren in guy movies

Like I mentioned in the previous rant, many "Guy movies" are becoming "half-chick-flicks" and that's not cool.
Sure it can work on some movies like Spider-Man since half of Peter Parker's problems involve HIS love life.
Superman well there's Lois Lane and Lana Lang, (if we go to his Superboy years... or the crappy long-winded "Supes Creek" I mean Smallvile) Batman, well he's got no time for Romance... Neither do the GI Joes (unless it's Destro and the Baroness... or Flint and Lady Jaye! No Duke Romance allowed...unless it's the Duke/Scarlett/Snake Eyes thing...)

Transformers... A story about two robot factions fighting on our world... or how awkward, pseudo dorky character played by Shia LaBeouf gets the girl... See what I mean? On the other hand chick-flicks are so devoid of action or boobs that make them boring for guys. (Sorry ladies if it sounds rude, I'm on Super-Macho-ranting Mode today) If I had to sit through 3 and a half movies of Bella and Edward's mindless drivel, I think that requesting some gore or boobs should not be too much (Eclipse Did give us some gore, but the goriest scene in ALL the books was glossed over in the movie...)

Now with that said, Titanic IS THE BEST Movie Ever!! The first half is your standard chick flick. The second half has boobs, gunshots, people dying and a Mega Disaster...Bonus points for prettyboy DiCaprio kicking the bucket at the end! If our actionmovies are getting Estrogen shots, then Chick-Flicks should get a shot of Testosterone to compensate their mushiness...

Aliens came and screwed everything up!

Battleship: The movie seems to have suffered from A.I.'s biggest problem... The movie was cool until the aliens came and screwed everything up!
(Yes I KNOW that the "Aliens" in A.I. are really Super advanced Mechanisims... FUTURE ROBOTS that looked like aliens)

??????????

No I've not seen Battleship yet, and probably won't until it's on HBO or something... but my point still stands...
Aliens were NOT NEEDED for that movie. Amovie that could have been a simple War Game, kinda like Down Periscope but with a lot less Rob Schneider, could have worked. Sadly, the execs from Hasbro and the Hollywood people believe that Michael Bay's success for Transfromers should be Emulated to the point that it turned Battleship into a Transformers Wannabe. NOW THAT is why it WILL Fail!

As long as Hollywood does not Michael Bay-ize My Little Pony or He-Man, we will be safe!
Now Max Steel could work with Michael Bay something like Triple X/James Bond/Transporter/Xtreme Sports type of thing... Sadly, I'm not a Hollywood executive and Max Steel could end up like a half-a-chick flick like The Rise of Cobra (Hopefully GI Joe Retaliation will fix that error)

She-Hulk: Super Hero Attorney would be a pretty cool game

Yes I'm suggesting a game along the lines of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney that is based on the Marvel Universe.

I mean it's not like there have never been any Phoenix Wright Rip-offs...

It was also made by Capcom... So, you kinda get the idea.
The game could be a light-hearted, peppered with some self-deprecating humor in a parodic way of the Marvel Universe.
She-Hulk having to defend a drunk Tony Stark from the accusations of Ironman going on a Rampage (Armor Wars), or defending Spider-Man like the post Unmasking case. The Final Case could be She-Hulk Against Deadpool Who can do the lawyer thing because he played all Ace Attorney games and is representing himself.

Obviously I blame Phoenix Wright's Ending for that idea...
Also, who wouldn't want to beat that smug Matt Murdock in court...

Hey What the!? Tanning Mom: The rant and other stuff

Tanning Mom: The story of a Woman obsessed with tanning that allegedly took her 5 yo. daughter to a tanning booth. The little girl got sunburnt by waiting outside, or so the mother says. Obviously people have called her out on this. When Snooki of Jersey Shore fame calls you a bad mom, seriously you need to reconsider your position.
This is what Tanning Mom had to say to all of her critics:

"I saw the headlines today, but I don't care! I don't care what anyone thinks of me!" 

 "There's somebody out there, for my whole life, that doesn't like me because they are jealous, fat, and they're ugly." 

"I don't always sit in tanning booths," she insisted. "I have a life." 

 Hoo boy! Where do we start. It's obvious that she doesn't care, since she spends so much time tanning instead of taking care of her kid! She has a life... yet the Overcooked skin color says otherwise... From Orange to Brown so fast? She's got to spend TOO MUCH time on them booths.

Now, the whole "tanning mom" detractors being "jealous, fat and ugly" is rather funny. I'm pretty sure that most people don't want their flesh to look like a handbag or a sandal. Also, what kind of ADULT comes up with such a childish answer!?

Now on a more different topic: Famous actor and one-time Adventurer (Meaning he spent a weekend with Bear Grylls), Jake Gyllenhaal can play a really convincing cop! He's so convincing that he tricked some real cops while filming his latest movie! That's pretty cool! Having an actor devote so much time to get it right that he got cops fooled into thinking he was one of them... Luckily he's using his actor powers for good and not evil!

Speaking of cool people using their powers for good, this man, a huge radio history fanatic became a Mystery solving sleuth... kinda like a Scooby Gang but no marihuana references! He solved the Mystery of the disappearing files from the National Archives and Records Administration!He did it all without Scooby Snacks!!