Check out some more Catra pics with some brief thoughts about the latest Masters of the Universe Classics subscription figure after the jump!
Bio
Catra – Jealous Beauty
Real Name: C’yra of D’riluth III
A disputed monarch from the Tri Solar System, C’yra joined the Horde Empire and was given a magical mask which granted her secret powers such as the ability to transform into a panther. She traveled with Horde Commander Kur to Eternia on his mission to ensure He-Ro was destroyed. There, along with the rest of the Horde army, she was caught up in the Great Wars and eventually banished to Despondos by King Grayskull. She remained with her leader throughout their banishment and was eventually promoted to Force Captain after Hordak’s step-daughter betrayed the Horde to the Etherian Rebellion. Catra’s jealousy of She-Ra has become her greatest weakness.
I don’t know when I was thinking about this, but I had assumed that Catra was an Etherian who saw which way the wind was blowing when The Horde starting taking over and joined up with them. This is a somewhat different idea from the bio. The origin of deposed Monarch teaming up with a Galaxy Spanning empire reminds me of some of the recent storylines from DC comics featuring the character Blackfire (sister of Teen Titan Starfire) in their ‘space’ books from a few years back.
Accessories
Catra comes with quite a few accessories including a sword, a shield, a ‘comb’ whip, a removeable cape and two different cat masks.
Both masks clip onto Catra’s head securely but are easy to swap. They hook into small, almost invisible ‘dents’ in Catra’s hair sculpt. The red mask is in the filmation style and it fits the rest of filmation inspired costume better than the silver mask. The silver mask looks a little better when you have Catra all geared up with her silver weapons so it’s a little less of a jarring contrast. My silver mask is a little lopsided from certain angles, but I’m not sure if that’s how it was designed or mine is just a little warped. I think I’ll stick with the red mask, but I’m glad they included the silver for fans of that look.
The pink sword, with it’s Hello Kitty looking hilt and gigantic jewel, felt too girly to me in preview photos but I don’t mind the look having the figure in hand armed with these pink weapons. Besides, the character originated from a girl’s toy line, you have to expect some girly design elements. The sword is a little soft. Mine took some damage in the packaging – I think the plastic crinkled the blade slightly. The comb whip kind of looks odd to me, but can be made to look okay from certain angles. I like it more if she holds it with the comb tines facing inward. I think I’ve had enough of the comb weapons and I’m hoping the next PoP character gets something else.
I kind of prefer Catra with a blaster and I think she looks great with Adora’s.
The weapons rack rifle looks kinda cool too, but it strectches out her grip hand a bit too much.
The cape is removeable and it has a little indent at the front point so it can rest on the point of her dress that faces her neck. It’s a little loosey goosey, though, and you have to readjust it often when posing. I’m thinking of glueing it down, but I’m glad they left it removeable so fans could have the option of easily taking it off if they wished.
Sculpt
Catra is mostly re-use from She-Ra with a new ‘claw’ hand, a new dress, head and accessories. The claw hand is a little bit soft and though it holds it shape fine, it’s pretty useless to hold any accessories. I’m fine with it, though because I prefer the claw hand to an accessory holding hand. It makes for more dynamic poses.
The outfit looks like filmation perfection. I love the gigantic Horde bat and just looking at it makes me crave a MOTUC Shadow Weaver even more. Catra’s head sculpt is amazing. The high cheekbones and her eyes half closed in a haughty glare call to mind many a Filmation episode. I think the ponytail is a beautiful sculpt and an impressive technical achievment. The large hair could weigh the figure down and impede the articulation, but they designed this hair to be a bit concave so that it can be moved around the body and it is fairly light.
Articulation
The articulation is the standard MOTUC articulation except that the females don’t have the ab crunch. Catra has a pretty flexible plastic skirt, so her waist twist actually works and her hip range of motion is about as good as it gets for this line. Her rocker ankles are also pretty stable and have a decent range of motion. Not as good as the amazing ankles on Teela and Evil-Lynn, but still pretty good.
I was glad to see that her head popped off easily and doesn’t have the bobble head you saw with some of the other females.
Paint
The paint on Catra is very nice. Her outfit is overwhelmingly red, but they did a good job varying that wall of red up with some shiny gloss for the boots and a slight metallic red for the mask. Her dress and boots have some airbrushed lowlights as well. I also like the flesh tone plastic they used here. It’s not too glossy and looks more natural to me than other MOTUC figures and the airbrush spray for definition doesn’t have the ‘spray tan’ look you often see. The claw hand is a different more flexible plastic than the rest of Catra’s body and looks to have been painted flesh tone. I think they got a pretty good match.
Overall
I don’t think I ever watched She-Ra when I was a kid. I’m not sure I even knew it existed, really. I’ve become familiar with the filmation She-Ra cartoon as an adult watching it with my kids and I actually enjoy it more than the original He-Man series (I have to say I love the crossover episodes the most, though). Catra is one of the more amusing characters from that show with her strange speach patterns (She-RRRRRAAAAA!) and toxic personality and her design is a favorite of mine. I think it’s that mask. That’s some old school super-hero stuff right there.
The figure is a pretty dead on match for her Filmation look which pleases me to no end. That’s another one for the subscription win column. The only problem now is I’m really craving some Horde Troopers, Scorpia and Shadow Weaver to back her up!
Turnarounds
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