MOTUC Feature – Ram Man

With the release of last month’s Ram Man, I’ve now completed my childhood MOTU collection in MOTUC form so I’m quitting the line. Anybody need to buy a Fang Man figure?

Just kidding. Let’s take a look at February’s oversize bonus feature — Ram Man!

Ram Man® Bio

Real Name: Krass

Growing up just outside the Vine Jungle, Krass’ village was always under threat from the savage Beastmen. During a particularly brutal attack, he donned his family’s ancient mystical armor that magically absorbs raw force. Using it to ram into his enemies and drive off their attack earned Krass the nickname “Ram Man®”. These actions were quickly detected by Skeletor® who recruited him in a scheme to ram through the Jaw Bridge of Castle Grayskull®. Realizing the error of his ways after seeing Skeletor® attack He-Man®, Ram Man® switched sides, helping to defeat the Evil Lord of Destruction™ and save the Castle. He soon became a core member of the Masters of the Universe® using his iron-like body as a battering ram against evil!

MOTUC Ram Man — Ram Man and the Filmation A-listers.

There a couple of new things in the bio that I like, namely that Rammy’s powers are mystical in nature and the armor actually absorbs the physical punishment that his unique fighting style demands. As much as I love the Shapoopie, Mushroomie, Shashimi talking-goof of the Filmation cartoon, I like to think of Ram Man as more of a bruiser — a tough guy of few words. When he is portrayed as a fool or moron, one has to wonder is that’s the reason he chose to become a human battering-ram, or if it was the result of that choice?

The stuff about Skeletor recruiting him is straight out of the excellent Mark Texeira illustrated Mini-Comic He-Man Meets Ram Man! The Texeira mini-comics are some of my favorite MOTU media, especially the way he drew Ram Man, so it’s nice to see a nod to that here. Also, I just love the ad-copy sentence at the end of this bio: “… a battering ram against evil!” That’s awesome.

Accessories

Ram Man comes with two accessories, his classic axe and an alternate head sculpt. The axe looks more like the axe Ram Man wields in the cross-sell art on vintage MOTU boxes than the cleaver-like weapon he had in the toy line. It’s not that far of a departure from the vintage weapon, so I can’t imagine that anyone is upset with that. I’m not. It’s made of softer plastic, so the blade warped on mine in package. A quick heat and reshape procedure straightened it out fine, though. The axe handle fits into a hole in Ram Man’s right hand just like the old figure. I like this as it allows him to hold his weapon and still keep the massive meat-hook fists for pounding fools. The best thing about the axe is that the Four Horsemen have added a clip where you can store the thing when Rammy is in ramming mode. I love that they do this stuff and I want to see more of that with future figures whenever possible.

The alternate head is an unmasked version of Krass wearing his 2002-inspired metal cap. It’s a cool nod to the 2002 fans and I like to see alternate looks on figures, but this doesn’t work so well. I think the main reason is that Ram Man has little neck to speak of. I’m glad he doesn’t since it gives the helmeted head more range of motion, but the alternate head looks a little like it’s floating.

Sculpt

One of the big topics of Ram Man MOTUC speculation prior to his release was his size. Do you make him short like Filmation, hulking like MYP, or more average (well, Eternian average) like the mini-comics? One thing I never considered, and I should have since the 4H use this as inspiration all the time, is the cross-sell art. In the cross sell art, Ram Man is about the same height as the other characters, but much wider and thicker, and this is the look we see here.

I’m very happy with that choice. It seems like a nice happy medium between all the options, and since so many other things in this line are influenced by that art, it seems right. The minute I saw the sculpt at SDCC I was pleased. The shape and silhouette is perfect and I love how bulky Ram Man is compared to the other figure. The head sculpts do seem to be a bit of a departure from the cross-sell art, however.

The features on the Ram Man figure are a bit more extreme that what we see on the cross-sell. His nose and lips are larger and his chin juts out strongly.

The unmasked head kind of reminds me of the B-Movie actor Rondo Hatton, and the features seem almost more pronounced on that head than the masked version. It’s not exactly how I imagine Ram Man in my mind, but he does look like a tough customer, so I like it quite a bit.

One cool new detail I haven’t noticed in any source material are the studs around the soles of Ram Man’s boots. That and the skull tread are a couple of neat little detail touches I love to see on these figures.

Ram Man and the Snake Men — Ram Man starts toward the Snake army…

Articulation

Ram Man has the standard MOTUC articulation with a couple of modifications. His hips are more like Battleground Teela in that there is no swivel joint near the top as with most MOTUC figures. Ram Man does have a swivel at the knee, though.

The knee swivel and bulky leg design make the lack of the upper thigh-swivel tolerable. The articulation of Rammy’s arms and abs are more limited than the usual MOTUC figure due to the bulk of the sculpt.

The skirt is pretty soft, so it doesn’t hinder articulation too much. I do wish they would put a side slit in these skirts to ensure that there was no hindrance at all. Ram Man seemed like the perfect candidate for such a modification since the skirt is a segmented design to begin with.

Paint

Paint is close to flawless on my Ram Man. First of all, I love the metallic paint they used on his armor. It’s got a great shine to it, but there is also a bit of a gritty overspray here and there that gives it a worn look.

There is one stray black dot under my Ram Man’s eyes, but I only noticed that in the super macro close-up picture I took.

Overall

Overall this figure is a triumph for MOTUC. They got this one right, a few nitpicks aside. Ram Man was one of my favorites as a child and has long been at the top of my most-wanted MOTUC list.

I am so glad they did this character right and made him an all-new sculpt. Ram Man is a bit of a pricier figure, but I feel like the hefty beast is totally worth it.

I may have been joking about quitting MOTUC, but I do need a new most-wanted figure as I have a lot of potential front runners now that I have Ram Man and Shapoopie… I mean Shokoti… has been announced. I’m thinking Scorpia is my new number one most wanted.