AFI has MOTU, DC, Ghostbusters previews

January 18, 2011 | Poe

Keep an eye on ActionFigureInsider, because it looks like they’re going to have some pretty nice previews up soon.

Speaking of Bow, if you had your druthers, what would you have made his “real name” instead of Kyle Reccula? The best suggestion I saw on He-Man.org was “Bowen Fletcher,” although personally I think I’d have just named him “Flynn.”

Ask Mattel > Mid-January Answers (UPDATE: Roundup added)

January 14, 2011 | Poe

1.) AmericanHyena asks: If you gave Romat-Ru unique alien hands, why did Tomar-Re, who is the same species, get human hands?

Because that is how he looked in the reference material provided. There have been many artists over the years who have interpreted DC characters. DCUC is the Mattel/Four Horsemen interpretation.

2.) Mosh asks: What happened to the double articulation on Kyle Rayner? The proto showed double joints on a basic body which could have been the new mold for future figures, did you already ditch that idea? (more…)

Review > Buzz-Off (Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel)

January 11, 2011 | Poe

As a kid, I loved the Buzz-Off action figure. The colors were bright and appealing, the articulated wings were a unique feature (and looked a lot more flight-worthy than Stratos’s arm-feathers), and the claws were cool…to a kid. But I’ll admit that the 200X Buzz-Off was possibly the best redesign of the entire line, pushing the insectile aspects to the limit. MOTUC is meant to invoke the original line, not 200X, so I’m going to review Buzz-Off compared to his MOTUC brethren and the general concept of the line.

As much as I like Buzz-Off, he’s one of the MOTU characters whose name I see as a potential stumbling block to getting a movie taken seriously. As “codenames,” this sort of thing works in G.I. Joe; it works in Transformers because the Autobots are ostensibly replacing their Cybertronian names with Earth names that fit their character in some way. But I really can’t come up with an even remotely feasible fannish explanation for names like Buzz-Off, Two-Bad or Clawful. I suppose Mattel may be trying to get around that by using the “real names” on the bios, but if so, they’re not trying all that hard, since–well, see for yourself. (more…)

Keldor Swords are coming

January 10, 2011 | Poe

Never let it be said that constant campaigning doesn’t bear fruit:

But hey, to leave on a good note, we did just have our meeting with management to go over the 2012 line. We also discussed the 200X head design and weapon design direction. While we are still not going to explore 200X redesigned character heads in the online line, I did get some sway on the weapons and we are going to now find a way to do the “Keldor Swords” in Classic style. (despite what people say I am in there fighting the good fight!).

This isn’t indicitive of “rules changing”, I just made the case that enough fans want these and it doesn’t indicate a changed character design. So hey, chalk one up for a fan demand victory!

I was going to save this announcement for NYTF, but hey, you guy wanted a He-Man.org news break, there you go!

He-Man: Buy the Power of Grayskull

January 7, 2011 | Poe

Man this is hilarious. Well done, sirs!

Thanks to Mecha-Shiva for sending me this link weeks ago, though I only watched it last night for the first time. Yes, I’m that lazy busy.

Mattel unveils Panthor, King Hiss, & DCUC17

December 23, 2010 | Poe

I’m officially on vacation, so posts are going to be a bit sporadic over the next couple of weeks. For those of you who don’t bother with other websites for news, though, I thought I’d better post some of the stuff Mattel has been unveiling on their Facebook page recently.

Pics after the jump. Click any of the pics for a larger version. (more…)