Aaaaaand, boom goes the dynamite! If nothing else, Masters of the Universe can be celebrated for its diversity. There is really no other property like it that has the ability to take barbarians, and robots, and angel ladies, and crab guys, and space swimmers, and dumpy good witches and smash them all together into a one glorious and cohesive universe, and let’s face it – that is something we love about it. So, even as we count down the days to the final vintage figure being released in the Classics line, we are still getting diversity like never before; May 2015 will be no different as the resident walking time bomb, Blast Attack is finally realized in the line.
Blast Attack was one of the later figures in the vintage line and much like the release schedule of the 1980s, many of those characters are finally seeing their release in the latter days of Classics. I know there is a contingency out there that does not hold the latter day MOTU characters in as high a regard as say, the original 8-Back, but I think some of the concepts are designs are really cool and the unique attributes really started to take Masters in a lot of different directions, even in the waning days of the vintage run. Blast Attack fits squarely into this group with his almost startling action feature and unique make-up.
I had Blast Attack as kid, but even back then, I had a bit of a time reconciling what to do with him. I knew he was obviously a bad guy because let’s face it, no pal of He-Man would straight blow himself up just to get a point across, but at the same time, I did not feel as though he had any real allegiance to Skeletor, Hordak or anyone else. So, while that messed with my basic need to compartmentalize my figures/characters, that made Blast Attack the wild card of Eternia who gave absolutely no f**ks about who he was taking with him when he decided to put his brand of self-emollition into play. He-Man and Skeletor and their cronies could be having a nice little battle when all of the sudden Blast Attack shows up and throws everyone into a panic. I suppose that made him Eternia’s first real Hater, at least for me, and trolling both the Light and Dark Hemispheres made it all worthwhile to him. Fun, right?
However, as time has gone on, I have discovered that Blast Attack does have a bit more of a background than what I originally noted when I was conceiving his character concept. That is cool because while I still like the idea of some guy running around Eternia blowing stuff/people up just for sadistic self-satisfaction, I appreciate him having more of a meaningful spot in the overall mythos. I know a lot of fans are split about where he goes – does he line up with the Evil Warriors or the Snake Men? He has basis for both, and the Classics bio actually account for both of them. Personally, if I am putting him on my shelf, I like him going with the Snake Men. While Man-at-Arms does not remain (and die) a Snake Man in my own canon, he does spend some time under the influence, and he brings technology to the slithering Snakes, and that included Blast Attack. I like it because it goes against anything that Duncan would create while of sound mind, so Blast Attack is a constant reminder and source of guilt for him.
Now, the thing is that, while I have already taken a bit of time talking about Blast Attack’s signature, and really, character defining, action feature, this Classics figure does not include it. The vintage figure split right in half to mimic his “exploding” feature, but that has been removed in this modern incarnation. Frankly, I don’t think this is anything that everyone wasn’t expecting because action features are not treated as prevailing in this line. Sure, we get things time to time like Man-E-Faces head turns and Roboto’s working gears, but Blast Attack’s feature would have completely altered his structure, and sculpt and (rarely) articulation, are not sacrificed in this line in lieu of the action feature. Sure, everything is evaluated on a one-off basis, but Blast Attack would have been really involved from an engineering standpoint in his break from a “normal” Classics figure.
This will OBVIOUSLY divide the fandom, but this was going to go one way or the other and no matter what, a portion of people would be upset. Frankly, I am not troubled with it because he would pose on my shelf as a “whole” and the split down the middle was never really how I pictured his explosion anyway. Sure, that is how it had to be represented due to the limitations of action figures, but I always saw him as blasting into millions of pieces of shrapnel, taking out his enemies like a cluster bomb.
So, understanding that, I have to say that the figure turned out really nice overall; I have a couple of minor quibbles, but nothing from a character design standpoint was sacrificed due to part sharing and he has a lot of unique traits that make him eye-catching, even in the midst of everyone else in the line. Sure, he reused the Horde Trooper torso and Horde Prime’s arms, but those are completely appropriate, and everything else is new, at least as far as I can tell. In fact, the Horde Trooper reuse is made almost null due to the fact that the armor is NOT removable, but I am betting that helps with keeping the figure more svelte, avoiding the “fat” armor trap all together.
Speaking of the armor, it has all of the updated detailing you have come to expect with the Classics line and all of the little dials, switches, and techno-bits have been recreated masterfully by the Four Horsemen. I like all of the gauges and meters on Blast Attack, it gives him a bit of a “pressure” cooker feel and that that golden suit of armor is the only thing that is holding him back from going to bits every other second. The gold paint is also nice and while it is bright and shiny, it does not look cheap and avoids standing out too much, like vac-metal. His “shorts” are also nicely detailed and one of the Horsemen had to have had some fun sculpting the little “ass panels” in the back – forbid his backside blowing unexpectedly! The on nitpick I have about the armor is that does sit a bit high on the figure, so it covers up most of the neck. This is mostly an aesthetic concern as the head still move pretty well, but it does give the figure a bit of blocky feel toward the top.
Blast Attack’s legs and boots are also all-new in terms of parts and sculpt and this was obviously due to the fact that he did not share leg parts with a previous figure in the vintage line. The boots have a lot of techno details on them, and they do actually twist at the top, the point is just really well hidden in the sculpt. The legs have a lot of robotic pieces too, especially around the back and he does have those strange “football pads” on the front of his legs. I mean, are those there to soften the blow for him when his entire body explodes? At any rate, it will be interesting to see when and if these legs ever get reused in the this line, or in the next incarnation. We have seen some control art from Axel Gimenez that features these legs in the design of the Great Black Wizard, so if he ever sees the light of day in plastic, the parts will be ready.
My favorite part of the sculpt though, is the head – for being a walking robotic weapon, Blast Attack has a ton of personality. He has his patented helmet complete with giant screw in the back to keep it firmly in place, but the real highlight is in the face and I was not really expecting to like it as much as I do. There are a lot of sculpted lines and wrinkles that give the character a more organic feel than his bio seems to lead on. In a great twist, maybe when Duncan built him for the Snake Man, they actually used a living man as tribute and through the mentioned nanites, his organic form is trapped inside of this robotic bomb only to reform over and over again in a gunpowder-infused zombie hell. Now that is getting a little crazy, but man, it makes Blast Attack all kinds of complicated. Whether you buy into that or not, the guy has a great head sculpt.
Finally, Blast Attack is armed with two additional weapons he can use when he is not detonating – his classic axe and a re-purposed whip. The axe is a faithful recreation of a rather unusual weapon, but judging by all of the bolts and what-not, it probably has a myriad of crazy auto-chopping settings that make put it on the forefront of Eternian axe technology. The other weapon is *kind of* a new weapon in that it is a whip, but it is modeled after the little tube you would plug into the back of the vintage figure to set off the action feature. Now, we have seen the Horsemen re-purpose things like the before (the PoP combs, for example), but this is probably the best take thus far. It works as a weapon very well and the white portion is made of an extremely soft plastic so it is feels like a whip, too. This was something that was absolutely not essential, but it turned out to be a great little addition to an already strong figure.
You know, Blast Attack is one of those figures that was flying a bit under the radar in 2015 due to everything else that is coming out this year, but I am very pleasantly surprise by him, and I like the figure an awful lot. The sculpt is great and aside from the high-up armor, he is engineered really well; he has a lot of color to him and is very unique in both character and appearance. Even in the “last” year of Classics, we are getting our vintage favorites re-imagined in Four Horsemen fashion and the after thoughts of the vintage line are shining in 2015. I think Blast Attack is going to rank higher than originally thought for a lot collectors and whether or not you like him with the Evil Warriors, Snake Men, or even with Princess of Power, he is going to look great. Blast Attack is the May 2015 Club Eternia figure, so he will be available in less than a month!
*Thanks for checking this out and thanks to the team at Mattel for sending along Blast Attack for a First Look. Don’t worry, we have plenty more coming your way soon, so stay tuned.
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