Masters of the Universe Classics Feature

The 2013 Masters of the Universe Classics Filmation Mini-Subscription came to an end with the fan-demanded villain Strongarm! He had to have his name on the packaging changed to Strong-Or for copyright reasons, but the fans all know it’s Strongarm. I’ve never been a particular fan of this character, but have seen plenty of requests and custom versions of this guy over the years. He falls into the “fan demanded” category for sure, it’s just not a demand I’ve really been all that interested in over the years.

Strong-Or™ Bio

Real Name: Dalmus Fu Originally a worker in the photanium mines of Phantos, Dalmus lost his right arm and parts of his face when a mechanical press folder malfunctioned. Desiring to become a super strong menace, the master metal-worker stole large amounts of photanium, the strongest metal in the universe, from the mines and created a new face and telescoping arm. After Strong-Or’s thievery was discovered, Queen Elmora banished him from her kingdom. Years later, he returned with Skeletor® to invade the photanium mines, but when He-Man® freed Queen Elmora from Skeletor’s influence, Strong-Or™ was forced out of Phantos once again. Strong-Or™ has a powerful punch that extends great distances and is nearly as strong as He-Man®.

This bio adds a bit of back story for Strongarm that makes sense to me. The biological-looking ears hints that he had a regular head at some point and is wearing a sophisticated facial appliance, so the idea that he is covering up disfigurement from an accident tracks.

It’s also pretty classic villain stuff. The arm being made of photanium is also a cool touch since the metal is the focus of Strongarm’s one Filmation appearance, “She Demon of Phantos.” Finally, I love that the bio-writer mentioned that his punch is nearly as strong as He-Man’s. I like my villains to stand a chance against He-Man, otherwise there is little drama in these conflicts and no reason for He-Man to have all of his cool and colorful allies.

Accessories

Strongarm comes with a swappable longer arm attachment and a blaster. The blaster is straight from another Filmation episode, “Teela’s Triumph,” and looks spot-on to the cool ‘50s sci-fi design from that episode. I do think that style of tech also complements Strongarm’s very ‘80s look well. The gun is cast in some solid plastic that doesn’t warp and holds detail well.

The longer arm piece is a neat touch that helps mimic Strongarm’s extending ability. It swaps easily with the smaller forearm on a ball-and-socket joint. It’s easy to swap and seems to hold its position well once swapped. I think it would be a bit more effective if it were a tad bit longer for real go-go-gadget action, but it’s cool.

Sculpt

The head sculpt here matches the artwork and looks really great. I’m not sure if this is a sculpting or engineering issue, but the head sits a little too low on the neck for my taste. I popped the head off about halfway so that it rests a little higher in most of these pics. In the show he has a striped metallic neck similar to his arm, which was dropped here. The armor overlay is a nice, thin piece that adds the costume detail from the show while adding a bit more design detail to help him match the detail level of other MOTUC figures. The “Strong” arm has that great Colossus-style metallic ribbons that are so cleanly sculpted and evenly distributed that I would think it was done mechanically. I also like that they added a line of rivets along the arm seam for added detail.

Articulation

Strongarm has the standard MOTUC articulation with the addition of a forearm swivel on the right arm where the forearm attaches to the bicep. It’s slightly redundant articulation, though, and I think it contributed to my mistakenly spinning the bicep around the wrong direction for these pics. That’s what I’m choosing to blame my rookie mistake on, anyway.

Paint

Paint is really simple on Strongarm as he doesn’t have the slight muscle shading most MOTUC figures sport. I think some detail lines or a wash highlighting the metallic sections details would have been nice, though the clean look does feel a bit more Filmation.

Overall

I’ve never been a fan of Strongarm, but I like his design quite a bit. The 4H continues their streak of making these fan-favorites that aren’t my particular favorite into must-have and fun toys. The punching gimmick is fun to mess with and his asymmetrical design just looks cool on the shelf. The design has a very ‘80s sci-fi feel to it that I appreciate as well.