http://nerditis.com/...verse-classics/
Today's review is of a pile of severed heads. Sorta.What it is, is an accessory pack that most people won't want, but a few people have every reason to need.
Remember that 2002 Masters of the Universe cartoon? Well, the Masters of the Universe Classics team sure didn't want to... at first. But production teams change, and years go by - it has now been over a decade since that show as on the airwaves, and nostalgia rules!
I've given up talking about MOTUC packaging. Given up photographing it even semi-competently, too. Anyway, a few figures in this line have alternate heads, if you remember. And some of the earlier ones had heads patterned after the remake cartoon - not th bodies, though, because we just can't handle cohesive design. The designs in that show were more detailed, more varied, and had a minor "anime" influence to them (they didn't really seem Japanese, they just had actual detail, so peopel labelled it anime). And although MOTUC has included a few figures in that style, it has mostly stayed away. Years ago, the order came down to quit including 200X-themed heads, too - and so, figures like Clawful and Grizzlor, who were scheduled to come with alternate heads, never did.
And so, we come to the Heads of Eternia pack. The bonus item in the 200X mini-sub, everybody technically paid $25 for it when they subscribed, and it got boxed into August's shipment. It's an odd item, in that every single figure they work with came at the beginning of the line, most of which are insanely expensive to find now. You like that Buzz-Off head? Have fun paying $60 for the figure! So for anybody who wasn't in on this from the groudn floor up, this set makes no sense. But for those few, patient people who have all the old figures and really wanted the sets... well, the bodies still don't match. But it could still be good! As for myself, I do not have the originals. So I grabbed some proxies. Let's take a look!
Click the character names to see their original figures.
Snout Spout is arguably the most important of this set, in that his original figure's head is messed-up. Not justugly (which it kind of is), but genuinely broken. Mattel gave him a bendy trunk with a foam covering, but that foam apparently deteriorates in contact with paint... including the paint on said trunk. Most Snout Spouts cracked and withered in short order, to say nothign about his goofy, sad face. Although he never appeared in the cartoon, he did get a 200X design courtesy of the "Staction" figures (non-articulated statues), and it turned a goody elephant man into an awesome cyborg monster. The only problem is, his body doesn't match the head - it's a little too smooth. But that head! That head!
Snout Spout's head is a fantastic, intimidting, badass robo-elephant shape. In lie of actually owning the original figure, I stuck this head on hordak's body - and see how intimidating he can be? The trunk isn't bendy (smart move, Mattel), but this is far and away the best piece of the set.
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Buzz-Off the Bee Man is another guy who benefits from an update. His original form? Kind of hilarious, with a goofy hat. This? It looks kind of like a bug man. Because Buzz-Off was skinnier than most in the cartoon, the head seems proportioned for a smaller figure. So, he kind of becomes a pinhead with it on. Also, the yellow of his head does not match the yellow of the body. If you squint and don't look too closely, it works, though.
As I lack Buzz-Off, I decided to stick him on a random, tiny body. Beware the mite-monster, Eternia! MUAHAHA!
Ugh, Grizzlor. The vintage figure came with fur, and so did this guy, despite absolutely nothing else in the toy line being this way. He already didn't fit with anything, you know? Grizzlor's new head gives him a little bit of clothing, and makes him look less like a dopey animal and more like a fierce monster. However, the fur does not match perfectly with the original - almost, but not quite.
I present to you BUTTER-FACE, the Evil Ex-Girlfriend! That was a bad joke and I am sorry, except that I'm not.
Roboto was another figure with a hilarious quality control flaw. For some reason, Roboto cracks. Maybe the plastic is bad, maybe they were assembled wrong, but Roboto is one of the more infamous MOTUC problem figures, just like Snout Spout. This new head does not fix that, though you should know about it if you want to buy it. s far as heads go, it's a sleeker update of the original, and doesn't look out of place, since Roboto was mostly the same in the 200X cartoon.
So, why not give him a new body? He fits strangely well on Hydron, for example. Really bloated, but this figure is not going to fall apart on you.
Clawful is another interesting one. The 200X version as a giant, hulking crab monster, and one of my favorite redesigns - he didn't get a figure, but he did have a staction. The MOTUC figure... has issues. It looks like a muppet wearing a crab suit, and his flesh-toned armsjust screw with the aesthetic. His old head was hilariously goofy, what with the eyebrows and... the eyebrows, and suffice to say he was not a very popular figure.
The new head is pretty much the same as the old, except with better eyes and no eyebrows. it's such a tiny change, and it does not fix the fundamental problems of Clawful's body, but the improvement is surprisingly tremensoud. Also, when put on Draego-Man, he's kind of amusing.
And finally, here's Sy-Klone. Hilariously, the MOTUC figure actually had plenty of 200X details - the giant ring on his back, for starters. So this new head is entirely appropriate. It doesn't differ gigantically from the old one, except that his face is narrower and his helmet more resembles a samurai kabuto, but the subtle changes are notable.
And hey, it turns out there's at least one other body with yellow and blue, too!
So, in total? They are kind of hit and miss, with mismatched colors, clashing styles, and the fact that they really only appeal to a tiny subset of the fandom. But if you are one of those few collectors who has the original figures, or you want to deplete your savings and purhase them, then they do have some value. Snout Spout is clearly the hands-down winner here, at least.
