The Cry of Hordak

Yesterday Mattycollector  secretly released a new figure in it's store causing controversy and much outcry.

First let me take you back to 2012, to the New York Comic Con. Mattycollector was present and revealed the Masters of the Universe Classics (MOTUC) figures that we would see through the first quarter of 2013. On the last day a solitary item could be seen that would cause speculation, a white Horde crossbow. We all knew Mantanae would still be to come; however a white crossbow belonged to vintage Hordak. So who did this belong to or was a new weapons pack on the horizon?

Yesterday that question was answered when Mattycollecter silently put up for sale the Spirit of Hordak.

The concept for the Spirit of Hordak figure comes from the mini comic "The Secret Origin of Skeletor." In the mini comic Hordak's physical body is trapped in the dimension of Despondos and can only project an astral image of himself to contact the precursor to Skeletor, Keldor.

Keldor will later strike a deal with Hordak to release him from Despondos in exchange for saving his life.







For the lucky few who have managed to snag one they were greeted with "Congratulations! By magic or by luck, you’ve found a secret figure! "

"This all-clear figure features painted red eyes, chest emblem and removable armband, and comes with a fan-demanded Hordak® cross bow in vintage white. Trust us, this visitor from the dark dimension is up to no good… but you’ll have to get the figure to see his complete bio. Straight from the 2013 mini-comic, “The Secret Origin of Skeletor,” this highly collectable figure is not available with Club Eternia® subscriptions or even during regular monthly sales, so make sure you check back often to try to catch him the next time he decides to project onto this page! "



The back of the card for the Spirit of Hordak was briefly up which also showed his bio (oops).  After a short period of time the card back was removed from the website. His bio is available online, but that is part of the fun.

The Spirit of Hordak was only available online for about 40 minutes and then after being listed as "Sold Out" fans were greeted with a note that said "You're too late. Hordak is back in hiding."

There has been an outcry over how such a release was handled as sub holders, upon purchasing a sub, was told that they would get early access  to figures ahead of time if the were not part of the subscription. Many fans cried foul, that such a release was in violation of Mattycollector's own subscription agreement; however the majority of the response comes from people saying how great of an idea this was as not only to drive traffic back to it's website but also to bring excitement back to the MOTUC line and has not put everyone on a Hordak watch.

Kudos Mattycollector! This was a genius idea and a lot of fun. While I missed out on the sale at the website I will be on my own Hordak watch.

Toyguru of Mattycollector has in the forums stated that the Spirit of Hordak will be available again in the future and through the Early Access program so fear not, Hordak will return. ....which may be a reason to fear it's self.

-Nurd!



Granamyr the Wise

He's big, he's red, and he's expensive. He's Granamyr!

For the first time ever Mattycollector is offering Granamyr for the MOTUC toy line.

"Granamyr™ is one of the oldest and wisest of the Eternian Dragons of Darksmoke, an ancient kingdom in Eternia’s Dark Hemisphere. He greatly distrusts most men after the Great Wars between dragons and humans in ancient times. As one of the most powerful magic users on Eternia® he possesses such extraordinary might that even Skeletor® dares not challenge him. When Man-At-Arms® was turned to glass by an evil spell, Granamyr™ provided He-Man® with healing magic, but only after Eternia’s bravest warrior proved he had not only great strength but great mercy and wisdom as well. The ancient dragon Granamyr™ guards Eternia’s magical secrets and rules all of Darksmoke."

Fans were given the choice at Comic Con 2012 as to what color Granamyr should be. Green like he was in the DC and mini comics, or his Filmation red color. Fan's chose to have Granamyr in red and I can't say that I couldn't agree more.

Granamyr is also the first MOTUC figure that is noted for "assembly required." Granamyr comes packaged in an enclosed box and on the inside, he is actually in 10 pieces. The major portion of his body is poly bagged while the other 9 pieces are included into blister bubbles inside the box. You will need to attach the upper portion of his torso, head, arms, legs, wings, and tail but it's a small feat for this massive beast.

Granamyr is created so huge that he unfortunately will not be able to stand however is created to be posed in his iconic sitting position.

Granamyr is definitely one to add to the collection and I for one can't wait to add him next to the mystical Sorceress.

Granamyr is ONLY available on Mattycollector.com for $80 and goes on sale at 9:00 AM EST on Monday December 17th and is NOT part of the Club Eternia subscription.

Buy Granamyr the Wise here: Mattycollector.com

Visit the Mattycollector store for other MOTUC characters as well as other products: Mattycollector Store

-Nurd!

"Stinkorgate"

Mattycollector has done it again. They managed to bring us an amazing figure, however there is a debate in the execution.

May 15, 2012 will be Matty Day once again, where new merchandise is available to children and collectors alike and while there are some amazing items coming up the day is plagued by what is being affectionately referred to as "Stinkorgate."

Stinkor is by far a fan favorite in the Masters of the Universe history so everyone was excited to see him come to the MOTUC line. when announced at Power-Con in September 2011. I have to say that Stinkor is an amazing figure that comes with not only his classic MOTU look but also the accessories that give him his 200X deco.

So here is where the situation gets a little hairy (no pun intended). In the version showed at Power-Con you can see that his forearms have ridges that point outwards. This is a very standard look for figures with this formation on the arms, such as Skeletor and Merman.


These are newly casted parts as not to make Stinkor a straight paint swap to Merman. As you can see in the picture to the right there is molded fur coming out from the top of the glove to play more into the fact that Stinkor really is a skunk.

Press pieces have come out and the forearms have been reversed. Now this is nothing new because every time that there has been newly molded pieces they seem to be accidentally reversed such as King Hsss's shoulders and Roboto's shoulders.





Scott "Toyguru" Nietchlich, product manager of the MOTUC line, has stated that this was an intentional reverse to make Stinkor "pop" aesthetically.

Collectors cried foul knowing the track record with Mattycollector and newly molded pieces and claims that Mattel is simply trying to say that this was a design change to cover up for yet another reversal.

Toyguru stated that changes were made in the design phase however the 4 Horsemen, sculptors of the MOTUC line have always been on the front lines whenever there was a comment or concern about design in the past so this one has everyone crying foul. Especially since the anatomy of the arms don't match since reversed.

When asked on their twitter the 4 Horsemen simply states that “We haven’t seen a production version yet so we really can’t comment yet, but we can’t imagine why they would be switched.”

As far as my own thoughts on this situation, I also do not have a production copy in hand so I am laying my opinion to the side till I actually get him. I’m not saying fans and collectors should accept mistakes. It just seems like an ill fated gesture that didn’t pan out like they expected. I for one am happy to add Stinkor to my collection in any manner.

-"Nurd" Pat!

Upkeeping a Collection

Good evening fellow Nurds!

This update is all about keeping up a collection. No matter if your collection is open for display, just a collection in a toy box to be played with, or even keeping them in their packages, many things can ruin a collection.

If you do keep a collection and intend to keep it mint in package a couple things that you can experience is deterioration of packaging due to access to moisture or even the yellowing of the clear plastic that is the bubble showcasing your figure. Yellowing can be caused my age, access to elements like sun light, and even nicotine.

When you keep a collection out for display or even in a toy box there are other worries to consider. Not only can the color of your collection be tarnished by the elements but you also leave yourself open to wear and tear, scratches, nicks, and even breakage.

This posting happens to deal with Snout Spout from my MOTUC collection.

Snout Spout sits on my shelf. He has ever since I got him, and that's where he still sits as I'm writing this. If you checked out my MOTUC page then you would have seen this picture.

For those not familiar with Snout Spout, he has a robotic elephant head and is the heroic fire fighter of Eternia. He happily sits to the left on the fourth shelf down.

Still can't find him? Maybe this helps.

Snout Spout, from Mattycollector.com had an issue with his elephant trunk. The trunk was made of a spongy material like nerf and was able to be poseble able due to a wire in the trunk. After sitting on my shelf for two months, the material cracked and split. Obviously this is a problem.

With all the characters in the MOTUC line, most head sculpts are unique and every character generally sells out the day they are released. This type of a situation leaves you with few options. No other character has a head that resembles Snout Spout and since he is no longer available on Mattycollector.com the only way to get a replacement is on the secondary market.

Having to collect from the secondary market, for those not familiar, means purchasing from another private collector, secondary stores like BigBadToyStore.com (which usually sells out via preorders), or even ebay.

In my particular situation I was able to obtain one via another private collector and didn't have to pay an outrageous price for him. Matter of fact, I paid the $20 which is the equivalent of what he was priced at on Mattycollector.com. As of the time I'm writing this, I'm waiting for him to be shipped. It also took weeks to find someone who had one available for a price that I was willing to pay so patience is also a factor when looking to replace a piece.

Alot of different scenarios can happen when you try to keep up a collection such as I do, therefore not everything is so simple.

I hope you enjoyed this little insight as to what can damage a collection and a further insight as I had to replace a character in my own.

Fearless Photog

Happy Action Figure Friday everyone!

To kick off AFF (Action Figure Friday) I received Fearless Photog in the mail today. Fearless Photog is the first of the 30th Anniversary of Masters of the Universe line up.

As we covered in my Matty Sale blog Fearless Photog was created by a fan in a contest and has now been 20 years in the making. At first I wasn't sure how well I would enjoy this character once he was announced. I thought "Oh God, this is gonna be a crap figure." but now that I have him in my hands I absolutely love this figure.

Of course as with all MOTUC figures Fearless Photog comes in a white mailer box. Nothing fancy with this box. I will say that for the new mailer boxes he was relatively easy to remove, not like Demo-Man was.

So we do see printed on the box the Masters of the Universe Classics logo and the name Fearless Photog clearly printed on the front.

On thing I thought would be a nice touch is if instead of the Masters of the Universe Classics logo we got the 30th Anniversary logo on the front. It would really help set this collection apart from the normal subscription while still unified since it still says Masters of the Universe.

Here's the man of the hour, Fearless Photog. Ok, so I don't have a picture of him in his package. When I got him I wasn't thinking about a blog post and I was excited to get him out of the package.

The package is your typical MOTUC packaging so nothing special there. There is a burst on the package that would normally say "The Original" however for Photog is states "Created by Nathan Bitner."

Fearless Photog comes with what you see here, himself, a shield, and a blaster. Pretty standers type accessories since everyone has about two.

You can see the "running man" emblem on his chest. As you move Fearless Photog the running man actually moves as well.

Fearless Photog's head is shaped like a movie camera. Which is a really awesome design. The curvature at the bottom of ....only what I can assume would be a chin line does hinder the articulation a little bit when you try to move his head to the side.

One other notable feature is that his head also has a telescoping zoom with the use of a lever. The lever is hid near the back of his head and becomes visible in his profile as it slides forward.

From what I gather from forums and Mattycollector's facebook page is that some people receive Fearless Photog with a cracked lense in the front of his face. Taking a close look and under a light I didn't see such a crack in mine. I do see "inclusions" from how it was made in order to rest in the molding so the head can be put together, but no crack. Maybe I'm not seeing something that is there, but then again, maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones.

In this picture you can clearly see the running man on his chest and in the above picture, hopefully, you can see how it is supposed to move.

Fearless Photog's accessories are a shield and a blaster. The shield is made of two parts. The first is a grey backing and the front is made from a yellow translucent plastic to look like a camera lens.

His second accessory is one that wasn't created by Nathan Bitner. The original design of Fearless Photog did not include a blaster. The Four Horsemen (4H) have designed a blaster that takes its design from a movie camera.

One thing that I wasn't  happy with was that the paint app could have been better. Some of the back on his leg seems light and dirty and even the yellow seems a little dirty. I'm not one to really complain about paint apps, but this one is a bit of an eye sore.

In this picture you can also get a good look at the film reel style belt for Fearless Photog.

Overall, with Fearless Photog, the joints are solid and we get to enjoy the standard articulation as we get with most of the male MOTUC figures. While the paint apps leave a bit to be desired in some spots, Fearless Photog is  vibrant edition to the MOTUC line and a great way to kick off the 30th Anniversary of Masters of the Universe line.

Nathan Bitner, if you or anyone who knows you are reading this, thank you for this wonderful and completely original design of a character.

And to quote a follow collector that I read  couple days ago, paired with Roboto, "Yes, these are the droids I've been looking for."

-"Nurd" Pat!

Matty Day

Happy Matty Day everyone. What is Matty Day? Matty day is the day where we all run to our computers to purchase figures from Mattycollector.com and wait and wait and wait on the white screen of death.

Today is a big day on Mattycollector.com for a couple of reasons. Reason number one is we have the opportunity to purchase what was supposed to be the first official figure of 2012 in the MOTUC line the Sorceress and also the Febuary figure Fisto. In conjunction with these figures we get the first of the 30th Anniversary figure line with the Fearless Photog. Also on Mattycollector.com Blazingsword Voltron becomes available if you didn't pick him up at the 2011 SDCC and last but not least we get the Red Lion of the Lion Force and pilot Lance.

First up is the Sorceress. I was really excited to get this figure when she wasn announced into the line and kind of sad that she was pushed back into Febuary. This figure beautifully represents the way she looked back in the '80's Filmation series. Sorceress also comes with her staff and Zoar, the falcon she transforms into when leaving Castle Greyskull. Zoar also comes packaged with her perch and armor.

 

The Febuary figure to be released is Fisto. Fisto is the brother to Man-At-Arms who was beleived to have deserted during the Great Unrest but actually had amnesia. After shattering his hand while protecting the Masters from the Snakemen, he was given a mechanical hand by his brother Man-At-Arms.

Fisto is a great looking figure and I'm really happy Mattycollector recanted on thier postion to do away with anything that has to do with the 200X design. With Fisto not only do we get his deco of from the '80's, we also get a new head, belt, and sword for his 200X look. Both are impressive looking so it will be hard to decide how to display him.

The first of the 30th Anniversary of MOTU line is Fearless Photog. Mattel once held a contest for children to create a new Masters of the Universe character and the winner would not only have a figure made of the character but would also recieve $100,000 towards a college tuition. While Mattel did make good on the college tuition Masters of the Universe died out before a figure could be made. Here we are celebrating the 30th year of MOTU and Mattel makes good on its promise. I honestly can't think of a better way to celebrate than the release of Fearless Photog.

All of the figures above could be yours for the price of $22 if not a subscribed Club Eternia member ($20 for members) while supplies last.

This year not only marks the 30th Anniversay of MOTU but also the first year that Mattel has access to Filmation characters. The first Filmation character to recieve the plastic treatment is also the Club Eternia exclusive, and the number one fan requested character, Shadow Weaver.

I really like the Shadow Weaver figure. It very much matches the Filmation look. I'm a little be skectical on the solid base for legs because it doesn't leave much room for posability and i'm concerned that it will either be A) solid and heavy or B) be hollow and feel cheap. Only time will tell until I recieve it in my mail box.

I am displeased that they decided to make this figure the club exclusive. It would make more sense for her to be accessable to more people and to some who buy multiples. It didn't make sense to me other than to drive subscription sales. In the past we saw non essential characters for the club exclusive such as Wun-Dar and a Preternain He-Man, also known as Hamberlar He-Man.

Blazing Sword Voltron was first available at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con and later on Mattycollector.com There doesn't seem to be any kind of a change in packaging so essentially apprears to be the exact same offering. It is nice to see that Blazing Sword Voltron is avaiable again with the first Lion to be release in the Club Lion Force subscription.

Blazing Sword Voltron is available on Mattycollector.com $30.

Now we come to the big boy of the sale, the Red Lion of the Lion Force. I wish I could have picked up on this one but the price is overwhelming when you consider that I'm a Club Eternia member.

As part of Club Lion Force you will recieve the Red Lion, Voltron's Right arm, and the Red Lion pilot Lance. The will be boxed individually however shipped together. Once all 5 lions have been collected you can form Voltron, standing an amazing 23" tall! Each pilot also comes with a piece to create Voltron's blazing sword.

Words can NOT describe how disappointed I feel knowing that this is on item I will have to pass up on this sale. I was a fan of Voltron in the past and I love collector pieces. I wish I could have picked him up today, but the price point is just too much right now. Also not being part of Club Lion Force, there is always the possibilty of missing a lion in the end. Hopefully one day I will be able to pick up on this set on the secondary market.

The Red Lion and pilot Lance can be yours for the hefty price of $50.

MOTUC Demo-Man

So this is going to be one of those random posts but its one that I was looking forward to and honestly, one that helped pushed me to create this blog in the first place. This post may be late as it covers a December subscription figure in my MOTUC collection but its one that maybe not many have heard of and his name is Demo-Man.

Demo-Man is based on the concept art that was originally intended to be used for Skeletor as He-Man was based on a design that later became the figure of Vikor.

As you can see there isn't that much of a similarity. The only similarity is that of Vikor to Conan the Barbarian, but that's because that's who was the inspiration to create him.

So I was happy to get Demo-Man home because he is one of those obscure characters who really wasn't given an identity of his own until the back story of Skeletor was written.

The one thing that was obvious when I got him home was that this guy is GREEN! There's no mistaking him. I did also notice that I had a hard time taking him out of his white mailer box. I'm not sure if its because his packaging was larger than others or because the mailer boxes were decreased in size. Only time will tell as more boxes come later.

Here is Demo-Man out of his package and yep, hes still green. The green is so bright and neon that its the one thing you notice first about him. Taking a good look at him you could never guess that hes part of Skeletor. His face is a bit skull like but that's as far as it goes.

Demo-Man did come with a variety of accessories. He came with a sword that resembles a scimitar, his mace, a skull in a helmet, and even a Skeletor like face, but I will discuss that one later.
 

It was nice to see the level of detail in Demo-Man because you can tell a lot of care was taken to make this character a reality. His skin is toned in green to reflect muscle forms on his body and his armor and swords have dings and scratches in them. Even the skull in the helmet was a nice addition because it has nothing to do with anything other than its on the ground in the concept art and that it has a peg hole so it can fit onto another characters neck peg.

The head and armor are removable as with most MOTUC figures. The neck peg can be replaced with the alternate Skeletor head or the skull int he helmet.

The alternate Skeletor head is whats known as the Alcala head and that's because when the original He-Man mini comic that came out it was drawn by a man named Alfredo Alcala. His vision of Skeletor gave him a much more gnarly looking face with crooked teeth and these crazy eyes.

Overall I'm glad to have been able to add Demo-Man to my collection today because not only is he an awesome character, there is a lot of back story to him and how he actually came to be a character in the Masters of the Universe Classics line.

-"Nurd" Pat!

 

New Page

Today I added a new page called "MOTU Collection"

MOTU stands for Masters of the Universe if you didn't know. Here I will show case my favorite of all my collections, my Masters of the Universe, or for children of the 80's, He-Man.

The line was reestablished in 2008 as a collectors line (Masters of the Universe Classics, or MOTUC) and has subsequently grown from a simple "one figure per month" formula to a full scale subscription based collectors line. Feel free to check out the page for your enjoyment.

While it is everything from vintage to the MOTUC, the majority is MOTUC as every incarnation of the franchise is molded into one solid toy line.