Fire Armor Skeletor

Okay, ask a He-Man fan what he considers the #1 problem of the new line, and he'll invariably reply, "There are too many DAMNED HE-MANS AND SKELETORS!" I agree, in a sense... the problem is not that there are too many of them, but that there are too many boring versions of them. Many of the new versions have been simply repaints with new weapons. Come now, Mattel... do you really think we give an eff about that crap?!

Obviously, when I learned that my friend had picked up a Flame Armor Skeletor for me, I was a bit hesitant. Would it be just the same old crap? Well, I found that answer to be yes and no... I'll go more into detail in the review...

Looks: 3.5 out of 5 Skeletor looks cool, with a nice new look. He features interesting new flame armor detailing on his body sculpt. Also, he sports cool flame details made out of transparent yellow plastic that look cool as hell (so to speak). But two problems arise: First, he's in the same old "crotch thrusted forward" pose. While the pose isn't all that bad, I'd still like to see a different posture. Second, there's plenty of great fire detailing in the body, that they did nothing with. A bit of paint application on these details would have made the figure stand out.

Articulation: 3 out of 5 Skeletor features the standard MOTU articulation: neck, shoulders, wrists, waist, and hips. He moves relatively well, but some added articulation at the elbows and knees would have been awesome.

Accessories:3 out of 5 Skeletor comes with a shooting staff (featuring a fire ram-skull on the end) and two flaming swords (which can be placed in holsters on his back for added flame details). The staff is pretty lame. The fire ram-skull itself looks pretty cool. But it has difficulty shooting, and the shooting mechanism makes the staff look bulky. In contrast, the two flame-swords are super-sweet, and look great either in his back holsters or in his hands.

Action Features: 2.5 out of 5 Skeletor's waist swings around much like many of the vintage figures. He can swing his flame-swords pretty well, but he barely moves with the staff. Also, as stated before, his staff shoots pretty far, but is problematic in loading and shooting.

Coolness: 4 out of 5 I actually like this figure. The flames on his body and swords look really awesome! And the fire concept really goes well with Skeletor's hellish appearance.

Overall: 3.2 out of 5 Overall, I'd say that this is a step in the right direction. It IS just another He-Man and Skeletor, and fans will complain... but it's also a pretty cool and interesting figure that's different enough from the basic Skeletor to be worth a consideration, at least.

EDIT (9/25/03): You know, many times a toy seems really cool at first but loses that coolness quickly, leaving me to ask myself, "Why the hell did I buy this?" I've decided to add another factor to my older reviews to reflect this...

Staying Power: 0 out of 5 Man, for some reason, this Skeletor got old REALLY fast. Maybe it was the limited articulation, maybe the fact that it was a Skeletor remake... maybe a combination of both. Anyway, I got rid of him pretty soon after this review... I'm not exactly sure what happened to him.

Adjusted Overall: 2.7 out of 5

Now for the pics! Here's Fire Armor Skeletor with his staff and flame swords in his back holsters...