Being a lover of both toys and Masters of the Universe, I have been absolutely spoiled over the past 6 years or so with fantastic plastic interpretations of one of my favorite childhood lines. I won’t bore anybody with a litany of things I love about this property, so just know that when I say I have been mostly satisfied with the Classics line, I mean it. I’ve never been bothered by the black plastic, the reversed shoulders, the swapped Stinkor forearms the fat armor or any of the other things that have bothered others. And while Digital River has been a nightmare from day one, it’s all been worth it to have the collection I’ve amassed over the years.
When I stare at my collection, I see a full range of toys that are as close to perfect interpretations as it gets. And believe me, when you love a property, you want perfection. I’ve had very precise needs from certain characters. Trap Jaw and Ram Man, for instance, needed to be spot on awesome. For the most part, those needs have been met, and often surpassed.
But as nothing is perfect, there are a few figures that, as the line winds down in preparation for its evolution into something else, I’d like to have been done differently. Of all the figures that have been released, these are the characters that I think didn’t end up being all that they could be. Some of it budgetary, some of it is bad design decisions. There are some figures that others count as failures that I don’t see that way. Blue Hordak, for isntance, needed his Filmation head, but that didn’t bother me like it did the more strident Filmation-lovers. Battleground Evil-Lyn wasn’t as 200x as some wanted her, but 200x is fairly meaningless to me, so that didn’t bother me. Snout Spout’s head was dopey according to some, but YOU’RE A DOPEY! So there.
When I narrowed down the figures that left me disappointed, I ended up with a very short list when compared to what’s been released. These are the figures that are still juuuuust short of being perfect.
Whiplash
Whiplash is so close to being perfect. With two different styles of head to choose between (vintage forever!) and a great body, he’s almost there. All he needed, and all I wanted when I imagined his Classics figure, was a fully poseable tail. And while yes, it has a minor amount of articulation…I really wanted a balls-to-the-wall fully-articulated tail with multiple joints so the tail could be posed in any way you wanted. I was dying for that, and I ended up with something not quite in the neighborhood of that perfect tail. For a character whose “thing” was whipping people with his tail, to have his main ingredient to be less than all it could be was a gear-grinding thing. If Whiplash could get a 2.0 figure that was exactly the same except with a fully poseable ball-jointed tail, I’d go nuts. Look at all those segments, and all the possibility for poseability.
Clawful
I hear so much about Clawful’s “muppet head” (from people who need to stand in the corner and think about what they’ve done) that the most egregious problem with the figure is overshadowed. For the record, I love his head. Love it. (vintage forev…ok, you get the point). But unfortunately, his huge claw could be so much better. I have to admit it…I hate the spring-loadedness of it. I really do. It was fine on the vintage figure but I wanted a full, oversized non-gimmicked claw with an actual joint. It’s very close, like Whiplash, so close it’s a tragedy, but it just wasn’t where I wanted it to be. He doesn’t even need a full 2.0 figure. Just release a newly sculpted and jointed claw-section in some accessory pack or something.
Megator/Tytus/Procrustus
I give them full points for attempting the giants. And I love having them. Procrustus especially, and really, I’m not talking about him in terms of “wish he’d be better” because he was dependent on the limitations of the first two, so it’s really down to Megator and Tytus that I’m pointing the finger at. Giants are something that the line needs, if it’s going to be a self-respecting fantasy line. I know this is all down to budgetary constraints, but I paid full price for these guys when they came out, and I would have paid even more if they had been fully-articulated up to the same standards as the regular sized ones. I know they couldn’t afford to blow so much dough on large figures without knowing how well they’d sell, but I can’t help but feel the limitations on these large guys, and think about how awesome they’d be with the full range of motion. It’s not like they’re missing that much, but I really feel the loss of biceps and hips when trying to pose them dynamically.
Sorceress
Those wings. They were a good attempt, and they look good in two poses, but looking good in only two poses is not my personal desire for an action figure. Even if that one pose is iconic to the Sorceress, those wings could have been achieved better. When the Grayskull throne had to be altered to accommodate the bad design of the wings, something has gone wrong. And since she showed up twice it was double paramount that the wings be all that they could be. It’s not a total figure-ruiner but it definitely knocks her down the steps and calls her names.
Stonedar/Rokkon
Again, characters I love, and characters I was really looking forward to. And while they look good…I just can’t shake this feeling of being let down by them. I don’t want to be, and I kept picking them up, hoping I could get past my issues, but I just couldn’t. While they look good from a purely aesthetic viewpoint, I can’t help thinking about how the engineering in the original figures—figures from the ’80s—is just plain better than the snap-on-snap-off quality of these. I don’t like the extraneous extra piece that has to be used to make them into rocks. And I don’t like the rather flimsy nature of the actual clip-on rock pieces. I feel like an absolute ingrate poo-pooing these even for a second because they’re such involved and fairly niche characters in the toyline…but I loved them as a kid and ended up unfortunately let down by the updated figures. If I could rub a lamp and get my wish, they’d get fully-dedicated sculpts that allowed them to replicate their original “fold into a rock” ability. I think of all the ones on this list, these would require the most top-down reconstruction, and it will never happen. We were lucky they were made at all, I know. But it could have been done better. It could have been done perfect.
Rio Blast
Rio is probably the figure that was…I hate to say “bungled” but I can’t think of another term to use that gets across how strongly I feel. Rio was bungled. His backpack barely stays on—again, something that was not an issue in the ’80s—and even when you finally get it to flip up and stay plugged in, it doesn’t sit right. And then there’s that chest piece…oh, that chest piece. It should be flush, but it sticks out, because of the peg for his chest guns. It just…it sticks out. While I didn’t mind the snap-on qualities to his weapons (although I do miss the flip flip bam aspect of the original figure quite a bit, and I’m a dude that hates action features) I want what is there to work perfectly, because I’ve always loved Rio Blast. I really wanted him to blow my mind, and he did, but for all the wrong reasons. If everything had worked fine, I could have forgiven his updated head. But I didn’t like his updated head, and that was only compounded by the poor functionality of his chest-piece and his backpack. Again, this is not a total failure, but one where a few elements needed to be radically different in order for it to be the toy it could have been.
I have a big collection and only a few figures that have missed the mark. I think they’ve done a pretty good job, and I see very little to complain about. If these figures and these issues could be perfected, somehow, in some way, MotUC would truly be perfect.