I hope that the release of Battle Lion means that Mattel will release a 200x Battle Cat, or that there won’t be any problems transferring the armor to Battle Cat. For those that care or remember, 200x refers to the series of Masters of the Universe action figures that were released in early 2000. They had newer “McFarlanized” and “Anime” stylings and were an attempt to reboot the MOTU worlds for a new generation. And if you listen enough to the Internet, the lack of success was due to Mattel being idiots and the designs being horrible. I’m here to tell you the designs were not terrible. All you have to do is look to Mattel’s use of the armor on the planned MOTUC Battle Lion figure (if you missed the Power Con coverage, it is here) to see how cool the armor can be! And the fact that Mattel continues to find ways to incorporate these designs into MOTUC is proof enough!
In fact, I prefer most of the 200x designs over the classic designs because, well, really, the 200x versions aren’t that different. Yes, there were some failures, like the crotch pouch on He-Man’s belt and his Power Sword, but those were very minor in the big scheme of things. For the most part, the designs were just updated versions of the classic characters; they were more realistic in regards to the costumes and had a lot more detail.
The toys in general were good, but there are some things that didn’t go over well, like the lack of articulation. It irks me to no end that these figure were not designed with articulation in mind. And the scale from figure to figure was atrocious. Just bad. But the designs were still solid. In fact, some of them were solid enough to be incorporated into Masters of the Universe Classics.
One of those is King Greyskull’s ride: Battle Lion. In the 200x cartoon this bad boy appears early on with a very different armor than the original Battle Cat. The armor is much more “anime” styled, not “fantasy” at all, yet it still fits with the overall mix of science fiction and fantasy themes that dominate MOTU. The armor is pure science fiction and one of my favorite changes in the MOTU-storied world. While I like the original Battle Cat armor, and I had the original and I have the MOTUC version, the 200x armor really hit me. I like the mask quite a bit, it’s less gawdy and has an edgy look that speaks to me. The saddle matches the helmet, but it is far from perfect. The big, giant discs over the shoulders and the guns that pop out are… too much, too anime. And it looks like those are removed in the Battle Lion version; the shoulder disks are just shields. I like the saddle. One of the things that I like is that there is less of it, and it looks more mobile and comfortable, unlike the original that seems to be cumbersome.
And the addition of the armored claws on the paws tickles me pink. I never understood why Battle Cat never had any offensive weapons. Yeah, yeah, he was a big, huge tiger with claws, but when you are going up against some of the monsters and villains of the MOTU universe you would expect more weapons. Now, this is where VeeBee jumps in and says, “That shows you how bad-ass he was.” Yes, yes, he is bad-ass, but he still deserves some extra weaponry. Battle Lion delivers.
In the 200x world, Prince Adam inherits the power of He-Man, and Cringer inherits the power of Battle Lion. My 200x custom collection is struggling because the original 200x Battle Cat armor does not fit on the new MOTUC Battle Cat; he looks silly and out of place using armored designed in the ’80s when he needs armored designed in the double zeroes. Now I’ll be able to outfit my Battle Cat properly.
That is if Mattel doesn’t throw some kind of design curveball and make the Battle Lion incompatible with the Battle Cat armor, which, based on their track record, they might. But if they don’t, then my 200x custom collection will almost be complete. Sure, I still need to finish Man-E-Faces and Mekaneck, but the heroes should be rocking and rolling soon enough. Soon… soon I will be able to have a proper 200x-inspired custom display.
You will be able to pick this bad boy up on:
And you can talk about this subject further on
