PGPoA art director MechaShiva whipped (ha!) up this spud-tacular rendition of a MOTUC-ized Mr. Potato Head for PGPoA Power Pal PrfktTear. Totally tuberoid, dude. I’ll stop now.
MOTUC weapons pack priced at $12
Most of us thought the MOTUC weapons pack was going to be $15, but apparently it’s $12. I bet those $3 make a huge difference to the wafflers. I smell another sell-out.
They’ve also added a page for Evil-lyn and pushed the sale back to April 19.
She-Ra packaging reveal
Mattel unveiled She-Ra’s packaging on their Facebook page yesterday.
Here’s the bio:
Channeling the combined Power of the Universe and the Wisdom of the Elders of Eternia, Adora transforms into She-Ra, the most powerful woman in the Universe. Her strength comes not from brute force but from sheer will and her cunning magical powers and healing abilities. She also has the power to communicate telepathically with animals. As both She-Ra and Adora, she helped lead the Great Rebellion of Etheria against the Horde invaders. Later, when Hordak found an escape to Eternia, she followed him along with several of her friends and allies. Once there, the Princess of Power joined forces with her now-renegade Masters of the Universe, who without King Randor, had become outcasts in their own land, fighting against Hordak’s new tyranny!
Wow. That’s a lot more history than I think we’ve seen revealed in any of these bios–renegade Masters? No King Randor? Hordak ruling Eternia? It sounds like they’re borrowing from the Horsemen’s original concept for the 200X storyline, where Skeletor had the Power Sword and the heroes were in exile, fighting a desperate rebellion.
Eldor prototype card-back revealed
Hollywood Heroes posted this great scoop on the He-Man.org forums–the prototype card back for Eldor. I’d kill for an Eldor in MOTUC (all fantasy realms need a bearded old wizard), so I hope this helps inspire Mattel to get around to him.
As some of you know I represent many former Mattel engineers and designers. We recently found this while cleaning out a storage room inside one of the client’s homes.
Here’s what the text on the back of the card says:
The Book of Living Spells contains the ultimate secrets of Preternia – the Secrets of Transformation. Thus, whenever Eldor opens it, he can uncover all the secrets of the past, present and future Eternia – AND CHANGE IT! For nothing on Preternia stays the same – as you will soon see!
As someone in the He-Man.org thread pointed out, this could be an amusing way to explain all the different MOTU canons…I sincerely do hope we get an Eldor in MOTUC.
Mattel MOTUC & DCUC news roundup
Scott Neitlich, a.k.a. ToyGuru, has been pretty chatty over on the Mattycollector forums lately. Here are a few tidbits:
Responding to a question about the card art for Wun-Dar and Trap Jaw, and whether we might see a re-release of the minicomics:
The Wun-Dar art was new, the Trap Jaw art came from a vintage source.
We are looking into way to re-release the old mini comics, but not as pack-ins with the figures. Stay tuned.
If it turns out to be a trade paperback edition of 5,000 copies sold only at SDCC, I will not rest until I have made Mattel dread the name “Poe Ghostal.”
Mattycollector release schedule
Mattel has provided an update on the Mattycollector.com release schedule for the next few months.
Toy Fans,
We do our best to plan when products will be released, but sometimes the production and delivery gods have other ideas. We’ve been doing a bit of the release date shuffle lately and thought it would be helpful to print our complete schedule through June:
March
MOTU Classics: Stratos (re-issue)
MOTU Classics: Moss Man – Flocked Ears
MOTU Classics: Moss Man – Unflocked Ears
(Club Eterniaâ„¢ monthly figure)
DCUC Wave 12 Boxed Set (Darkseid)
The Dark Knight Scarecrow
April
MOTU Classics: Wun-Darâ„¢ & Map of Eternia
(Club Eterniaâ„¢ subscribers only – items not available for sale)
MOTU Classics: Hordakâ„¢ (re-issue)
MOTU Classics: Evil-Lyn (Club Eterniaâ„¢ monthly figure)
MOTU Ultimate Battle Ground Weapons Pak
Ghostbustersâ„¢ 12″ Peter Venkmanâ„¢
The Dark Knight Batman (Night Vision)
May
MOTC Classics: Mer-Man (re-issue)
MOTU “Oversized”: Tytusâ„¢
MOTU Classics: Optikkâ„¢ (Club Eterniaâ„¢ monthly figure)
Ghostbustersâ„¢ 6″ Walter Peckâ„¢ (with containment unit)
The Dark Knight: Two-FaceJune
MOTU Classics: Faker (re-issue)
MOTU Classics: She-Raâ„¢ (Club Eterniaâ„¢ monthly figure)
DCU JLU Lobo
Ghostbustersâ„¢ 6″ Peter Venkmanâ„¢ with SlimerAs always, these dates are subject to change, but we’ll let you know as soon as we know if anything changes.
Happy collecting!
—Matty
The only news here is the April Hordak reissue and the June Faker reissue. I imagine the latter is the more exciting reveal for many people.
Ask Mattel > March 1 Answers
1.) Extremely nerdy question: Now that we’re getting a He-Man/Superman 2-pack at retail, does that mean the events of DC Comics Presents #47 are canon in the MOTUC universe–or is this a “What If?” scenario?
There actually isn’t an official 100% canon for MOTU. Each tale, whether told in a movie, TV series, comic book, toy bio or your imagination is its own story and equally valid. [Poe’s note — I was asking whether this story was canon in the specific MOTUC canon they’re building in the bios.]
2.) Is there any chance of other DC/MOTU collaborations now–perhaps a trade paperback reissue of the original DC 3-issue MOTU miniseries, or even a new MOTUC comic series? (more…)
Review > Castle Grayskull Stands (Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel)
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…)
Review > Trap Jaw (Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel)
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…)
Gygor – 100% new tooling confirmed
Though I’d heard Gygor was completely new tooling and not a DCUC Gorilla Grodd re-use, I wasn’t sure and wanted to get it straight from the (Four) Horse(men)’s mouth. So I did.
Gy-Gor is indeed 100% new tooling. He’s much larger than Grodd, so none of Grodd’s tooled parts could be used to create him.
So there you have it. As I suspected, the similarities between Grodd and Gygor–and Cy-Gor II, for that matter–are simply due to stylistic similarities in the way the Horsemen sculpt gorillas.
The question is, did Shane Dittsworth–the Fifth Horseman–sculpt Gygor’s crotch?