UPDATE: I’ve bought a copy of ToyFare #150 and seen the pic, and my post below stands as-is, with one addition: the staff & head sculpt look great.
Also, in a Facebook comment, Mattel writes: “There are actually a few additional accessories that come with Evil Lyn, but we’re not ready to reveal them yet.”
The first photos of MOTUC Evil-lyn appear in this week’s ToyFare #150. Obviously I’m not going to post the pics here, and I encourage you to pick up the issue yourself if you’re interested (there’s also a reveal of two new DCUC two-packs, including a pouch-belt, black-bat-symbol Batman and a green-and-red Tim Drake).
[First, a caveat: I haven’t even seen the photos of Evil-lyn myself yet, and in terms of accessories I don’t know how complete ToyFare‘s information is.]
First off, the details: she’s yellow-skinned and her armor is colored like her original toy, not the purple of the 200X version. She comes with a full-length staff and a knife (presumably her 200X knife). However, there’s already a furor erupting over at He-Man.org over the fact the figure is apparently a straight repaint of Teela.
This is at odds with the way MOTUC has been handled so far. While the original figure was indeed a straight repaint of Teela, the original cross-sell art–which seems to have been the guiding design principle for the Four Horsemen thus far–is different, mostly around the “dress” area.
I have to admit, I’m pretty bummed out about this myself. I suspect the reason is that retooling the large one-piece outfit would be expensive, and it’s very likely we’re going to see a retooled 200X-style Evil-lyn down the road, so the decision-makers may have felt they could go the cheap route here. But it’s still quite disappointing.
I’m fine with the yellow skin and the knife. The staff I’m a little annoyed with. Is the top part of the staff detachable so you can turn it into a wand, to match the card art?
What bothers me is that Mattel and the Horsemen have done such a great job with balancing each MOTUC figure in terms of the look of the original toy vs. the original card art, offering both when possible (Mer-Man being the best example), but here they seem to have gone with a bad compromise. If they’re going to do a straight repaint like the original toy, then give us a wand, not a staff (if for no other reason than there are already so many staves in this line). We all know there’s going to be a 200X-style repaint down the line–the full-sized staff will make sense then.
Thoughts?
Mark
@PrfktTear@aol.com: Its nice enough, but I still think the face could have been better.
With the WWE figures comming out I think Mattel will be re-using a lot of the parts so there will be a lot more variety of parts in the MOTU line.
PrfktTear@aol.com
@Mark: Thanks! I found the pic. She's gorgeous! Honestly, the lack of any unique tooling for the body really doesn't bother me. I also don't really care that they didn't give her an open cast spelling hand. They def would have gotten points for including an additional hand, but since we haven't seen that yet in the line I don't think its something to hold against them. Plus, if she does have her wand/staff, it would have been annoying to not be able to pose her with the staff in both hands.