[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu1Ujp72TCM&h=284&w=500]

Mattel has posted a new video with Scott Neitlich explaining the Vykron SDCC exclusive and showing off the packaging.

One thing I didn’t initially realize about these figures – the boots and cuffs are half-parts that clip on, rather than full parts that encompass the limb and snap on a la the original Toy Biz Iron Man. I understand it as a cost-saving measure, but it makes the figures significantly more like “Cosplay He-Man.”

To be fair, I think this is a great exclusive, and this post by “Prince Adam’s Dad” explains it as well as I could:

Personally, I’m unlikely to pick it up. It’s a neat concept and a cool part of the line’s history, but it just doesn’t fit into what I’m doing with my collection. However, there are plenty of people who will be interested in him. More to the point, there are plenty of people who will be interested in three or four of him to display in each of his forms and MOC.

So it’s a non-essential figure that some people will buy multiples of – sounds like the perfect convention exclusive to me.

Scott Metzger articulates what I realized is the cause of my own (mild) disappointment with this exclusive:

It’s not a bad idea, and there is an old fashioned fun factor involved here. There’s just something not so thrilling here. […] There are a lot of other unused concepts we’ve seen that I would have no problem seeing in the line, up to and including the big blowhard guy who was supposed to expand like a puffer fish (never can recall the name). Yes, he’s silly, but he’s all MOTU.  I don’t get that feeling here, maybe because two of the figures AREN’T MOTU at all, and were never intended to be. They were alternate directions the line didn’t take. I know everything and the kitchen sink can go into MOTU; that’s part of it’s core concept. But somehow knowing what these are puts them outside MOTU for me[.]

I’ve loved every previous previously unproduced/concept figure, from Wun-Dar to He-Ro to Gygor to Vikor to Demo-Man. I’ve particularly loved the way these figures still work in MOTU – regardless of whether you go by their “canonical” MOTUC bios, they look fine alongside the other figures, and you could imagine whatever back-story you wanted (or just think of them as concept figures).

But while the barbarian in this set works okay with MOTU, Tank-Man and, to a lesser extent, Boba-Fett-Man look like exactly what they are: pitches that didn’t make the cut. Tank-Man in particular looks off because of the obvious U.S. military aesthetic. He’s not just goofy, he’s incongruous (and this is coming from someone who liked Fearless Photog).

I’ve previously discussed how “He-Man,” like G.I. Joe, Captain Action or Big Jim, sounds like a name for a generic action figure toy that could be dressed up in different outfits to play different roles and characters. I think it’s to Mattel’s and our benefit that it didn’t turn out that way, but the possibility was there, and this set reminds us of that.

Final word: do I like it? I just can’t say yet. I need to have them in hand. My hunch is that the mix-and-match nature of the outfits might be more appealing in person (especially when combined with the existing Weapons Packs). I’ll be buying one set (online, after SDCC), and I’ll review it on its own merits then.