I've not been focusing much on my
MOTU Classics acquisitions these days. Maybe it’s because at the back of my
mind I’ve been constantly conditioning myself that the MOTUC line is coming
very near to its imminent end. What a ride it has been since 2008. That was the
year when I almost didn’t get into the line. Well, I’m definitely glad I did. I
would’ve kicked myself senselessly by now knowing that I’ve skipped one of the
most important nostalgic toy lines (albeit re-issue versions of the originals)
of my youth. The life of an 80s-themed toy collector devoid of the Masters of
the Universe action figures is simply unacceptable!
I haven’t been getting the time
to do full reviews like I used to. These days, I’m happy just to shoot a couple
of pictures of my toys without actually posing them like they are in some
‘retail product shots’. Like a blogger buddy of mine once said, most toy
bloggers are unfortunately sucked into the interactive worlds of instagram,
facebook and flickr nowadays thus neglecting their blogs. While this is true (I
am one of those guilty of these too!) I still feel that blogging on a real blog
page evokes a very strong geekiness feeling as opposed to the other above
mentioned social media platforms. But then, there’s always the ‘laziness’ factor.
But let’s not get into that for now (haha).
*Laziness kicks in*...how about
if we do a multiple review instead of individual MOTUC items? Sounds good to
me....haha.
Right. On to the toys. I’ve
really been on my best cherry-picker mode lately. Been skipping a lot of the
MOTUC releases (although I’d have to pick up a bunch of the Princess of Power
figures from my toy-pusher the soonest as my wallet gets extra cash injection)
prioritizing those which are deemed important first. Lately, I’ve picked up the
Galactic Skeletor (from the New Adventures of He-Man cartoon series) and Rio
Blast (one of my most favourite characters from the 80s toy line!). But what
amazed (and totally shocked) me most was my dearest wife’s choice of birthday
present to me late last month.....
Lo and behold!
It’s freakin’ Castle
G-R-A-Y-S-K-U-L-L!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
According to her she found this MIB
playset way below the market price. I think somebody must’ve wanted to clear
his extra Castle Grayskull in a hurry to make way for some other important
purchases so I thank my lucky stars that my wife was able to be at the right
place/space-time continuum to snag this one up for me. It’s official now you
know....my wife is the coolest person in the universe!
The castle has heaps of accessories
and play features. I think most of us have read about these already so I won’t
go into detail. All I can tell you know is that my 30-year itch has finally
been relieved now that I have this baby in hand. You see, I tried to lobby me
ol’ dad into buying me the original castle way back in the 80s but he couldn’t
find one (or so he claimed! Haha).
I’ll probably get into snapping
some pictures of this behemoth of a playset in detail sometime in the future
but for now it’ll be a great background for my MOTUC figure shoots. For
example, let’s take Rio Blast here for a test-photography against the Castle
interior as backdrop....
Rio Blast was one of the
must-have MOTU Classics character for me. But I don’t have much to say about him
except that I had such a great time playing with his action-figure in the 80s.
Unfortunately I didn’t have him in my collection hence I had to be content of
playing with him whenever I visit a friend of mine who seemed to have
everything from the MOTU catalogue! I love the Eternian cowboy concept and I
always had the feeling that someway somehow this guy was related to the
Bravestarr series. This was another dream come true for me as a collector even
if he was as late as Castle Grayskull!
Galactic Skelly.....or NA Skelly,
whichever way you want to call him, is simply a bad-ass figure in my opinion!
He’s been receiving quite a barrage of flak from hard core MOTUC collectors due
to his bulky appearance caused by his armour etc. Ain’t a biggie for me. It’s
enough that he has such a mean head sculpt, way creepier than how he looked
like in the cartoon series and that itself is a good selling point for me.
I actually enjoyed the early 90s cartoon
series and I don’t really care what some MOTU fans are saying or have said
about the show. I accept that some fans just can’t fathom He-Man in space and
all but that’s ok. It’s a case of hit or miss for some some. Nobody forced you
to like the concept but know that some fans actually cherished the show and it
forms part of the overall MOTU lore.
You can’t please every single
fan/collector in the world and Mattel knows this. I believe it’s better (and
comforting) to know that for every hate comment they receive for NA Skelly,
there’d be double or triple the number of fans actually liking the figure! At
the end of the day, we should all be thankful that Mattel (Matty) actually
revisited the property and gave us the Masters action figures while staying
faithful to the originals back in the 80s (here’s lookin’ at you Hasbro! Where’s
my M.A.S.K. Classics???!!).
Lastly we take a look at Two-Bad.
This represents one of the last few baddies that I really want to complete my
core evil Masters team. I’ve already missed a couple of ‘core’ MOTU Classic
characters to some unforeseen circumstances over at my toy-pusher’s end so I
made it a priority to get Two-Bad the moment he arrived. I was not gonna miss
him at whatever cost!
Funny how Matty seemed to be
giving every each of their MOTU Classics characters their own ‘real name’ in
their respective bio. Actually this time Matty didn’t do too bad (pardon the
pun!) with names like Tuvar and Badra for each of the heads. Whatever. We didn't give a hoot about them 'real names' when we were small and I sure ain't heck gonna burst my brain thinking about them now. It adds colour to the newly crafted back stories that Matty had been conjuring for us since the line begun in 2008....so let's just leave it to that.
Ok, that's it from The Rebel for now. I'll be looking into another 'classic' MOTU character next. Stay tuned.
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