While everyone knew Trap Jaw and Battle Cat were going to be same-day (and as it turned out, same-hour) sell-outs, the vanishing of the Grayskull stands was something of a surprise. Of course, they are much better stands than the boring translucent blue ovals for DCUC and JLU that have been sitting on Mattycollector.com for more than a year.

While Mattel has already confirmed that Trap Jaw and Battle Cat will go back into production (and perhaps already have), on the question of a second run of stands Mattel’s rep ToyGuru wrote, “We don’t have confirmed plans right now, but with the quick sell out we will look into it.” I imagine Mattel may have been even more surprised than the fans by the sell-out, given the poor performance of the DCUC/JLU stands. If I had to guess, though, I imagine the stands will be back by the end of the year. (more…)

Trap Jaw is easily one of the most popular and iconic Masters of the Universe characters. In a line where the star was a fairly plain-looking (if incredibly muscular) barbarian hero, Trap Jaw stood out as a multicolored monstrosity, wielding a robotic arm with three, count em, three different attachments—a gun, a hook, and a clamp—and even having an articulated jaw. The swiveling action of the attachments and the jaw gave the 1980s Trap Jaw two additional points of articulation beyond the MOTU standard.

Like many aspects of MOTU, Trap Jaw may have borrowed from Mattel’s 1970s “Big Jim” line. But rather than being a straight repaint of a Big Jim toy (a la Battle Cat or Zoar), Trap Jaw quite possibly owed his inspiration to the Big Jim figure Iron Jaw (who may never have gotten past the prototype stage). Both characters, however, may have been partly inspired by the James Bond villain “Jaws” from The Spy Who Loved Me. Of course, aside from Roger Sweet writing in his book that Jaws was an inspiration for Trap Jaw, most of this is speculation…but there’s no question Iron Jaw and Trap Jaw look an awful lot alike. (more…)