The Mighty Spector is the second newly-created character from the Masters of the Universe Classics 30th Anniversary subline, and a controversial creation to say the least. Check out more pics and thoughts on this figure after the jump!
The Mighty Spector™ Bio
Real Name: John Spector
After Skeletor® banished King Randor® to Despondos™, he seized his rightful throne and dismantled the Eternian Palace Guards™. Loyal to Marlena and the Royal Household, Lt. Spector™ was cut off from the rest of the Masters of the Universe® when he was thrown into a time portal and flung into the future. In this new time, he served King He-Man® and was given a special suit reverse-engineered from the Cosmic Key™. Using its powers, Spector could travel into time, fighting for the Royal Family as their agent throughout Eternia’s history. Spector uses his Vortex Suit to turn the tide in battle, loyally serving the King and Queen of Eternia®.
First off, can I say that I love that his name is John? It’s such a common name, but if feels appropriate for a fantasy setting. I think it’s cool that he was flung into the future, and we get our first MOTUC-canon look at the future of Adam and possibly the “Dare, Son of He-Man” storyline.
Creator Scott Nietlich has said in interviews that Spector is kind of like a time cop, keeping people from messing with the timeline. I’m assuming it’s probably Skeletor, but the bio doesn’t really say. I would like it if there was an explanation of who exactly Spector was fighting in the past or why Spector was uniquely suited for being the time traveling agent.
Accessories
Spector comes with removable web gear and holster, a blaster, and a time-travel wrist device that can be swapped out with another device that has an energy blade.
The web gear is made of very flexible, bright yellow plastic. It’s a little too bright in my opinion, and it looks kind of cheap and too toy-like for my taste. If you look at the concept art, the purple and gold color scheme is less jarring and looks much nicer when the web gear is a darker yellow-gold.
The blaster is made of a nice stiff plastic and has a cool, “1980s-blaster” style to it. It fits nicely in Spector’s holster.
My favorite accessory on this figure is the time-travel wrist device. This device takes design cues from the cosmic key from The Masters of the Universe live-action movie.
The device is removable from the wrist peg, and can be swapped with a version of the device with an energy blade. An energy whip was also planned, but unfortunately had to be scrapped for cost reasons. It seems to be a bad year for whip accessories.
Sculpt
Spector has Man-E-Faces’ boots, left hand, and lower torso, along with He-Man’s upper torso, shoulders, biceps, and right forearm. The new pieces are the accessories, the head sculpt, and the left forearm.
The head sculpt is a perfect superhero mask, and recalls some of the more expressive Deadpool artwork by Alvin Lee where you could actually read Deadpool’s expressions under the mask. On this figure, you can definitely make out the facial features under the mask. The time-travel device gauntlet has a miniature control panel that reminds me of the self-destruct device the creature from the film Predator used, right down to the control keys with alien glyphs.
The time-travel device itself has the look of a miniaturized cosmic key grafted onto a light sabre. The blade itself has an interesting texture that gives it an almost shimmering feel that I like quite a bit. I normally like the open hands on MOTUC figures since they are more expressive, but I feel like Spector would have benefited from a fist on his right hand. I feel like the guy would make a fist while attacking with his energy blade.
Articulation
Spector has the standard MOTUC articulation. The leg movement is a little bit hindered by the plastic of Man-E-Faces’ lower torso piece. It seems a little harder on this figure than on Man-E; otherwise, his articulation has a good range of motion. He actually looks up a lot better than most MOTUC figures since he has no hair or helmet getting in the way. And I’m glad to say the web gear does not impede articulation at all.
Paint
Paint on Spector is minimal. He is cast in mostly the purple plastic of his costume and the purple is a nice, flat plastic. In hand, I don’t see the shimmery effect of earlier Spector figures we saw in previews, but it does show up a little in pictures.
The only paint issue I see is the web gear–it’s just too bright and fake looking. There is a slight darker shading around the leg strap that helps make the plastic look a little less fake, but it isn’t used enough to knock down that bright yellow plastic look. A different, darker plastic would have been nicer.
I also don’t love the spade symbol on the chest armor. I’m not someone who opposed the inclusion of that symbol as a design choice, but in practice, the dark black symbol tampo on the bright yellow plastic looks a little cheap.
As I said before, The Mighty Spector is a fairly controversial character for MOTU fans. I did not immediately love the design since it recalls comic book characters from the ’90s of the Liefield and Lee school of character design, and that was not particularly a favorite era of mine. Whatever the artists’ original intentions, the design feels like a character out of Blacklash, WildC.A.T.S, Youngblood, or some other Image Comics book. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, since I think there is room for a wide variety of genre characters in MOTU, but it’s not an aesthetic I particularly love.
That said, the design has been growing on me over time, and after finally getting this figure in hand, I find that I really like it. The figure itself is pretty fun to mess around with. The blaster and the energy blade lend themselves to a lot of fun poses.
Previous Features:
- Draego-Man
- Thunder Punch He-Man
- Kobra Khan
- Fisto
- Fearless Photog
- Demo-Man
- Battleground Evil-Lyn
- Star Sisters
- Class of 2011
- Class of 2009
- Icarius
- Hurricane Hordak
- Man-E-Faces
- Megator
- Queen Marlena
- Clawful
- The Faceless One
- Battleground Teela
- Catra
- Panthor
- Battle Armor Skeletor
- King Hssss
- Bow
- Palace Guards
- Vikor
- Class of 2010
- Buzz-Off
- Grizzlor
- Roboto
- Chief Carnivus
- Whiplash
- Count Marzo
- She-Ra
- Keldor
- Optikk
- Evil-Lynn
- Moss-Man
- Faker
- Stratos
You get points for photography and effects… but there is nothing that will ever make The Mighty Spector fall into the status of “awesome”
love the pictures showing off Spectre who still sounds like he should be a comic book character then a motu one plus that suit looks like they used the one from Orion. and nice that mattel finaly found a use for the cosmic key as a new weapon
Nice review and stunning pictures! I reviewed Spector for Doomkick.com and I really came to appreciate him.
I completely agree with your response to Lay-Ze’s comment. The line has so much diversity now what with entries like Flipshot, Optikk, Slushhead, etc. that Spector narrowly makes the cut. Ultimately its a matter of personal preference, but I like him.
Lay-Ze – With the addition of the NA characters, my feeling of what fits into has expanded quite a bit and Spector gets in just under the wire.
Mario – Thanks! That’s my favorite pic of the bunch. It took a lot of tries to get right, so I’m glad to hear you like it.
Lestat – Thank you. I’d work for them if they asked, but I’m one of those weird people that feel less motivated to perform when actually employed. I don’t like being told what to do. Also, I don’t feel like my work is up to professional snuff.
Judremy – That explanation works for me! Thank you.
Adult Collector – Thanks!
Polo23 – Thank you.
Dale – Leech is still on the docket. I’m trying to stay current and that’s been eating up most of my building time. I wanted to build a cool swamp backdrop for Leech, but it’s not working out as planned.
NiteOwl – Thank you!
Clark – I am looking forward to Laser-Lot for that very reason. I’m thinking he needs some sort of Lance and Steed to charge around on, though.
Arez – I hear you. The design is not the most exciting, but he turned out to be a fun toy.
comicinker – Thanks! That’s really nice to hear, but I don’t think I’m anywhere near polished enough to ‘go pro’.
Your photos are just ridiculously awesome!! I’m sure your skills are being used in some professional way, but a toy company would indeed be well-served to put them to use.
WOW Matthew K! AWESOME pictures and your skills help the figure a lot. But Spector still hasn’t appeal to me at all. To me the figure is just dull. Anyway, I can’t wait to see more MOTUC pictures Bro!!!
These are great photos, but for me Spector is *almost* a really cool figure. there are just a few design and/or execution items that I would like to change. However, I do not begrudge anyone who thinks he’s really neat, or those who hate him.
I can’t wait for you pics of Sir Lazer Lot (a figure I initially didn’t care for, and am now excited to buy him), with all his translucent goodies I bet you’ll have a field day!
Fantastic pics!!
Awesome review again Matthew K. I like Spector as a figure. Not crazy about the time traveler aspects, but he’s a cool toy.
Also, still waiting on that Leech review. *Sighs*. I want to see my favorite character get the Matthew K. treatment. 😉
That cosmic key looks like a Life Saver off of Star Wars but it fits his outfits. A time traveler cop from Eternia give me break. Cool pics!!
Terrible figure. Amazing photos!
The only reason I can think of that Spector would be chosen as the time cop is due to the fact that he is displaced in time himself. Maybe there is a residual effect to having travelled in time WITHOUT the suit that allows him to use it.
You really should be working as a photographer for Mattel. Your pictures remind me of those old catalogs and inserts that came with toys from the 80’s.
Man, that “time travel” pic is just killer.
Wow!! Simply outstanding, amazing photography as always!
But yeah, try as you might with the awesome settings, he just doesn’t feel MotU.