Much like Masters of the Universe, my affections lie with the bad guys when it comes to ThunderCats, so to say I have been impatiently waiting for Jackalman would be an understatement.
ThunderCats Classics is now in its second month, and I would be so damned excited if its fate past December wasn’t so up in the air. As we all know by now, Matty Collector is shuttering at the end of the year, and while Masters of the Universe has found a new home at Super7, ThunderCats is not as clear cut in terms of its final fate. I am hoping beyond hope that Warner Brothers, Mattel, and Super7 can all find a way to get this new line to continue on with the Four Horsemen, and that this (seemingly) long-cursed property can get ALL the modern action figures it deserves. It looks like by the time 2017 marches in we will have seven amazing figures, but I don’t have emphasize the fact that is not nearly enough, and balance of the main cast is still in doubt.
The real kicker is that Mattel blasted out of the gate with a pretty stunning Lion-O figure, and it looks like they somehow found a way to make Jackalman even better. I know that can sound a bit like hyperbole whenever we get a brand new figure, but I find Jackalman to be representative of just how good Mattel could be when hitting on all cylinders. A part-swap bugaboo keeps this from being a flawless figure, but overall, I love this new and improved Jackalman so much. As we expected, he is somewhat built on an MOTUC base, but, with the new pieces and proper configuration, nothing is sacrificed in getting us a great representation of this wild Mutant.
Hailing from the planet Plun-Darr, Jackalman, along with Ssslythe and Monkian, are the main Mutants in the service of Mumm-Ra on Third Earth. While his species is/was many, with most of them resembling him almost exactly, THIS Jackalman (given the name Kaynar in the more recent cartoon) has been a thorn in the side of the ThunderCats from the very beginning of the classic cartoon, and has been a fan favorite amongst those with the refined taste to prefer the villains over the heroes in the battle for the aforementioned Third Earth. I know that Horseman sculptor Eric Treadaway shares that kinship with me, so I love seeing his passion and talents come out in figures like Jackalman.
And come out it did because from a visual standpoint, this figure is stunning. Again, I get it if you are not down with the slight adaptation of the style to fit in with MOTUC, but if you are, I am hard-pressed to find anything more you could want out of a Jackalman for this line. For being a Mutant fleabag who is more cowardly than not, he has certainly been given his due and turned out beautifully. His overall design lends itself to be a bit more visually interesting than that of Lion-O (as iconic as the Lord of the ThunderCats may be), and while he might share some parts with MOTUC’s Beast Man due to their aesthetic similarities, the Horsemen solved some new part requirements in innovative ways.
Now, Jackalman was pretty svelte in the original Rankin/Bass cartoon, but his action figure was much more built, so the form of this figure follows old toy while the details resemble the animated look. I know that there are MOTUC parts here, but he still does not feel as stocky as Beast Man or any of the other furry Masters characters. This figure ended up being pretty tall overall, but since he was pretty much always portrayed with a hunched-over posture in the show and toy, this actually allows you to pose him in that fashion without sacrificing a natural stance. The torso, upper arms, and upper legs all appear to be borrowed, but I am pretty certain that the rest of the figure is all-new, so that is actually a good assemblage of original pieces.
Jackalman has new forearms to represent his unique design, and I am particularly fond of the cheetah patterning on the left arm. I never really thought of it until now, but since it is a cheetah pattern, that adds some ferocity to his design and personality, being a savage enemy of the ThunderCats. His loincloth and shin bracers are also new and fit the show design design well. I really like how this line is being fitted to be compatible with Masters, but it still holds its own voice and not at all shoehorned into an inappropriate aesthetic.
His armor is also all-new, and it is conceived and fitted in pretty neat way to also accommodate the extra tufts of fur along his neck and right shoulder. This is all one piece that can be easily removed, but it also lets everything come together is a way that is not awkward or hard to pose. I raised my eyebrows a bit when I first opened the figure as I was not expecting it to be like this, but it makes a lot sense, especially from an engineering standpoint: it would have taken a lot of new parts that worked together PERFECTLY to pull all the fur and armor off well if it had been done any other way.
Two (or three) of my favorite new parts are the head and feet. I realize that the feet are a weird thing to pick, but since they have the same forward facing peg that allows for some great ankle rocker articulation, I cannot commend them enough. I know this is a relatively new point of articulation for Mattel, but it has been used with super-articulated figures for a while now and really should be the standard. You really don’t realize how many action poses you miss out on without it until you do a 1:1 comparison with a figure that DOES have it, so Lion-O and Jackalman are already ahead of He-Man and Beast Man in that regard.
I love the head sculpt, because, well, it is rad and is a near-perfect portrait of Jackalman. It is maybe a bit more placid and less ferocious than it could have been, but it is really lovely and captures his look really well with lots of detail. All of the paint work is great, too, so while he shipped with a sketchy Evil-Lyn this month, my Jackalman’s paints are pretty much perfect. One thing I do want to point out is that the head is removable, and the standard MOTUC/TC neck peg is there, there is a cap on top of it that accommodates the larger hole in the bottom of the head. I am not exactly sure why this was done other than to properly work with the armor fur piece, but if you were wanting to army-build the figure and not use the armor, this will throw off the look just a bit.
So, while I really dig this figure overall, I do have a couple of quibbles; one is definitely a nitpick, and the other is a classic example of getting “Matty’d” during the production process. First, this figure comes with swappable hands, just like Lion-O did, and I LOVE that idea. However, also like Lion-O, the hands are so similar, it is kind of a question of why they even bothered. You get grip hands, and loose grip hands, I guess, which I suppose is fine, but since Jackalman is, you know, a jackal man, maybe a clawing hands or something would have been cooler. Both grips can hold both weapons mostly fine, so I think it is going to just come down to tossing one set of hands in the bin and forgetting about them. Again, good concept, but so-so execution.
The bigger issue is that even the slippery Jackalman could not escape a part-swapping issue in production. Yeah, I am sorry to say that the upper calves, between the knee and shin guard, have been switched left to right. It is not immediately obvious (like most things of this nature), but if you look at the bone shape through the fur, you can see that it turns in the opposite way it should from the front. Additionally, it is really obvious from the back as the bulge of the calf is to the outside instead of the inside. This is a real bummer on an otherwise fantastic figure, so if you are noticing this for the first time because of reading this, I am sorry. The issue can be fixed with a hairdryer and some gumption, but know you probably have some work ahead of you as Mattel figures are generally very well assembled.
Finally, Jackalman comes with two weapons: his club and long-handled axe. Both of these accessories are extremely well done, both from a sculpt and paint perspective, and there is a ton of detail in both of those areas that make them great. The club is the weapon from the old figure, and it retains the shape and spike of of the original while having a nice dark wash that brings the out sculpt. The axe is his cartoon weapon, and probably my favorite of the two. It is unique in its size and I love the blade. It is well sculpted (duh) but the paint highlights on it are really great and blur the lines on wether or not the blade is metal or stone. It is really awesome and Jackalman looks great holding it with one or both hands.
Even with Lion-O, General Sundar, and Evil Seed already having been released this year, Jackalman is by far my favorite Matty Collector offering his year. I really love this figure, and it shows what the combined efforts of the Horsemen and Mattel can accomplish when they are hitting on all (or at least MOST) cylinders. I love the evil Mutants, so I pray to Grodd that Ssslythe, Monkian, Vultureman, Ratar-O, and all the rest can find a way to join Jackalman. If he is setting the standard for evil greatness in ThunderCats Classics, we would have been in for quite a ride. I hope it finds a way to continue. Listen, if you did not sub, don’t miss out on this figure. He is still available, and even as a stand-alone figure he is really, really great.
