Last day to vote for Man-E-Faces’s colors

February 25, 2011 | Poe

Just a reminder–the poll about the colors for MOTUC Man-E-Faces ends today. Vote now!

The Four Horsemen and all four Roast Gooble hosts have stated they want the flesh-toned MEF. I voted for the middle ground, which should be classic Poe to those of you who know me personally. Anyway, barring a big last-minute surge, it looks the middle ground is going to win.

1,200 votes seems surprisingly low to me….far more action figures will be produced than there are people voting for it.

That said, we can always get the flesh-toned MEF in a DC vs. MOTU 2-pack with Two-Face–if those keep going. Given my inability to find on at any TRU anywhere, I’m not sure what the likelihood of that is.

Review > Preternia Disguise He-Man (Masters of the Universe Classics)

February 22, 2011 | Poe

I covered the origin of Preternia Disguise He-Man pretty thoroughly in an earlier post, so I won’t rehash that here, aside from mentioning that he’s based on the characters appearance in the 1980s minicomic “The Powers of Grayskull – The Legend Begins!”

PD He-Man is the 2011 subscription exclusive figure, a decision which made most people happy, since people who bought the subscription are generally big enough fans to want the figure, while those who didn’t were happy not to get another He-Man variant; and those who did buy the subscription but didn’t want PD He-Man could easily sell him to those who didn’t buy a sub. Which is an incredibly complicated way of saying yes, he was a good choice for a subscription incentive figure.

The “Powers of Grayskull” concept came about very late in the MOTU line in the 1980s, just as the movie was flopping. As such, it makes use of some of the movie’s ideas, including the Cosmic Key, a device which can open a portal to other worlds–including Earth, which conveniently lets you film 90% of your epic fantasy movie on the streets of Los Angeles. Mattel got a bit more creative with the concept, sending He-Man back to the time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth–I mean, Eternia. (more…)

Aquaman vs. Mer-Man

February 19, 2011 | Poe

As many have pointed out, the art for the new DC vs. MOTU 2-packs is rather unimpressive. For example, here’s the Aquaman vs. Mer-Man art:

It’s just not very good. Aquaman’s right hand looks oddly twisted, his spear is an inch thick, Mer-Man sword is too narrow and the blades are parallel rather than inclined, and most importantly, Mer-Man is green. The whole point of the set is that he’s a blue repaint!

To show Mattel (or DC, since they provided the art) what the set could look like had they hired a more–experienced?–artist, former Masters of the Universe comic artist and walking MOTU encyclopedia Emiliano Santalucia produced his own version. Feast your eyes upon this, my friends.

(Click the image for a super-hi-res version)

Matty News Roundup

February 18, 2011 | Poe

Mattel has dropped a few bits of news here and there over the last few days, so I thought I’d round them up for you. (more…)

MOTUC Bio Discussion #37 > King Hssss

February 17, 2011 | Poe

Inspired by He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner podcast, welcome to PGPoA’s latest MOTUC Bio Discussion!

King Hssss Bio

Real Name: Hssss of the Viper House

A servant of the Unnamed One, Hssss was chosen to lead an army of Snake Men to the planet of Eternia to plunder its magical secrets. He ruled Eternia for three centuries until a rebellion formed under D’vann Grayskull. Soon afterwards, the Horde invaded and Hssss was drawn into a three-way war. All three sides agreed to a temporary truce in order to construct the Three Towers, but Hssss was betrayed by Hordak and in time was banished to the Void by the Elders and Zodak. For five thousand years he and his army waited until Evil-Lyn and a Snake Men descendant named Kobra Kahn opened the Snake Pit to free them. King Hssss often tricks foes by appearing heroic but then transforms into a seething mass of serpents and leads the Snake Men into battle!

Portrait art source: Original card art

(more…)

Review > King Hssss (Masters of the Universe Classics)

February 16, 2011 | Poe

I’m fairly certain King Hssss (then known as harder-to-trademark King Hiss) was the last Masters of the Universe action figure I owned as a child. I have a distinct memory of playing with him at my family’s first house, which we moved to a year or so after I’d mostly lost interest in MOTU. Somehow, King Hiss had an appeal beyond being part of the MOTU universe; I think it was the sheer awesomeness of the three-snake inner body. I was also quite fond of the green color scheme and the generally reptilian looks.

I know this is blasphemy to some, but I was never all that fond of the 200X King Hiss. From a design standpoint, they turned him into the standard D&D mummy-lich creature, a tenth-generation photocopy of Xaltotun from Robert E. Howard’s Hour of the Dragon (200X Hiss also has quite a bit of Mumm-Ra in there, though obviously Mumm-Ra has quite a bit of Xaltotun as well). As the brief comic strip on the original card art shows, the play pattern of the original King Hiss figure was that he was an evil snake-creature masquerading as a heroic-looking character (note the similarity of his mask to another famous master of disguise). Even the first minicomic to feature King Hiss played on this idea, and his packaging referred to him as the “dreadful disguised leader of the Snake Men.” 200X King Hiss, though? You see him coming, you reach for your sword hilt.

Again, I know many of you are going to disagree with me on this, but I actually prefer this look for Hiss. Er, Hssss. (more…)

Toy Fair Day 2 > Masters of the Universe Classics

February 15, 2011 | Poe

DSCF0248

First off, just so you all know, I only went to Toy Fair for Saturday and Sunday. But I’ve got plenty to write up about–so much that I’ve decided to break it down. I’m going to discuss a few topics, like MOTUC, in its own post; others, like NECA’s licenses, I’ll group into one post.

First up, we have Masters of the Universe Classics (you can see my pics gallery here). Previously unannounced/unrevealed figures:

Before we go any further, be sure to vote on the Man-E-Faces color issue (this is an official vote by Mattel). What’s all this then, you say? Well, the original Man-E-Faces figure had a blue-and-orange color scheme. But anecdotal evidence, such as the vintage packaging art, suggests the orange parts were actually supposed to be flesh-colored. The figure on display at Toy Fair had a sort of in-between coloring–orange-ish pink–and I thought it was a great compromise, so I voted for that. But you should vote as you think best. (more…)

Happy Bow Day! (+ contest)

February 15, 2011 | Poe

I have no idea what made me use this pic. Other than it obviously being funny, while not obviously riffing on the usual Bow-is-gay cliche. Which I don’t buy, by the way–look at that ‘stache. Dudes with his build and facial hair hanging around extremely hot chicks all the time screams “porn star” to me.

Oh Bow. Why can’t we all just leave you alone? (BTW, in that shot above, I can hear Bow making the Peter Griffin “purring walrus” noise.)

Anyway, it’s Bow Day, though it’s also Shadow Beast Day, Keldor Reissue Day, Tytus Reissue Day and Grayskull Stands Day. No non-MOTUC items this month. Here’s the link to the all-in-one page.

And hey, to make it interesting: I’ve got a MOC WWE Mattel Randy Savage for the person who guesses closest to the exact time Bow sells out (guess a particular minute of the day). Entries must be submitted by 12pm ET. Everyone’s eligible except me and my monkey. Good luck!

Submit your QC issues for Mattel

February 9, 2011 | Poe

As some other sites are doing, I’m willing to present to Mattel a list of common QC problems on their figures. For most of you I’m guessing this will be related to Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics, but any Mattel product are welcome. Here’s Scott Neitlich’s note (this one was to AFI) about it:

I know you’ve been asking for a way to get more input into the DCUC line and I have a challenge for you (as a site community) that works well for a dedicated site like this!

Clearly there are a lot of design and engineering issues fans have requested reviewed over the last two years (and many many if not all have been). However, our design and engineering staff has less time to surf the boards and I can only explain so much without images and details.

So here is the challenge. As a website community, put together a one page letter (along with any needed visual photos of product) and I will deliver this to the engineering and design group. Outline in a straightforward way design issues you have or requests (such as weak ankles, bobble heads etc..) But try to keep it on issues that are relevant, not ones that have been resolved. Also, this is design issues only, not shipping or customer service related to Mattycollector.com or retail inventory.

Have a representative who will be at NYTF deliver 4 copies of the letter/visuals to me there at our fan night on Sunday the 13th at 3pm. I will bring it to design so we can all review (along with the Four Horsemen).

I’ll leave it up to you all as to who actually writes the final letter, but as a web site community lets hear what you have to say.

Remember, visuals help a great deal. Try to keep the letter to one page max but attach whatever visuals are needed.

Together we can work to make this line even better! Lets hear what you have to say.

So here’s what to do: just shoot me an email (poe AT poeghostal.com) with a couple of photos of any and all QC problems you’ve run into with a DCUC or MOTUC figure, and then also describe the problem. I’ll write up a letter, print it out along with all the photos, and present it to Scott at Toy Fair.

This is your chance to make a real impression on Mattel regarding this issue–let’s do it! The deadline is 7pm Friday evening.