Disco Skeletor riding a purple cyborg velociraptor

[Earth 2 Chris]

It's easy to look back at the "pre posed" 90s/early 2000s figures and scoff at them, but I look at it now as a natural in-between stage between standard POA, vintage Star Wars-like figures, and the Marvel Legends standards we expect now. These figures were frozen in the poses you can achieve with the super-articulated modern figures.

Of course the odd thing is, GI Joe: RAH was pretty well articulated at nearly half the size. It's weird that kind of figure design was all but abandoned for the better part of a decade, and not pushed forward.

Chris

[B-Lister]

The armor on those was pretty cool. And homaged the old battlearmor figures without being complete retreads of them.

[Werewolf]

Of the variants I like the Battle Sound figures the best. They look pretty sharp and the talking action feature is really nice

[B-Lister]

I wasn't a fan of all the variants, though Ice Armor He Man is badass.

But Imlove the sculpts and details. I wish they had been as articulated as the original sculpts. I really think it would have avoided the comparisons to crap like Total Justice and GIJoe Extreme. The sculptors wanted these to have knees, and elbows, but Mattel nixed it.

[Werewolf]

Dun..dun..dun!! Rambo He-Man!

rambohm.JPG



See, I wasn't joking. Okay, he is actually called Jungle Attack He-Man but you get the idea. He's not terrible. Certainly way better than Samurai He-Man. The figure is kind of a pain to stand, though. That pose is the only way I can get him to stand without falling over.

Odd variants aside, I think one of my biggest pet peeves of the 2002 line is they made the new figures bigger than the originals but made Battle Cat and Panthor slightly smaller than the original ones. So He-Man and Skeletor look a little awkward riding Battle Cat and Panthor. I do give them credit for flocking Panthor. That was cool.

[Werewolf]

The one thing I really liked about the line was the Shazam-inspired update of Prince Adam.

I think the design worked better in the toon than as an action figure. The entire design was so obviously heavily umm lets say inspired by Luke Skywalker in Bespin Fatigues. Seriously the darn thing looked more like Mark Hamill than most SW figures did at the time.

I don't love or hate the 2002 cartoon. It was alright. I think the show jumped the shark when they retooled it to MOTU vs the Snake Men. I do think the voice cast did a really nice job and tried their best to sound like the Filmation characters.

Neat bit of trivia: Cam Clarke did record the entire Filmation intro and not just the first few lines they used in the series intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AilvHKOc_cM

[B-Lister]

Some wild decos on some variants, but sculpt wise, the characters never looked better. 200X is my favorite era of MOTU. The cartoon was amazing...miles ahead of the Filmation show in regards to plot, story, and animation. The toys were fun, creative, and amazing updates to familiar classics.

[PNGwynne]

The one thing I really liked about the line was the Shazam-inspired update of Prince Adam. I thought the 'toon was great fun, too.

[Werewolf]

^They honestly aren't that far removed from the look of Total Justice or G.I. Joe: Extreme, if you think about it.

Yeah they kind of were the last gasp of 90s EXTREME.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^They honestly aren't that far removed from the look of Total Justice or G.I. Joe: Extreme, if you think about it. They didn't get as much guff, just because folks were happy to have MOTU back.

Chris

[Werewolf]

I really don't think ANYTHING in that line truly worked. 4H's designed kinda sucked IMO.

I think they were too Spawn influenced. The tiny heads, hunched backs, one big boots and ridiculously oversized asymmetrical armor. No way Man at Arms could even stand up with that giant armor on his left shoulder. I think the weakest re-design was He-Man and when your main character doesn't work that's not a good sign. The 2002 designs overall have not aged the greatest.

[ODBJBG]

I really don't think ANYTHING in that line truly worked. 4H's designed kinda sucked IMO. Figures were less poseable than the originals too, which was an odd choice given the time. Disco Skeletor was arguably the most panned figure of the line and yet, has somehow become the ONLY lasting legacy of that toy line, as it's been remade in many of the newer lines and homage figures.

Ice He-Man was the best thing this line made though.

[PNGwynne]

I never saw it here. When it showed up on German ebay, I thought it was an overseas release.

[Werewolf]

I'm missing one Euro playset.

The Battle Station? I did manage to get that. Was that Euro only? I could have sworn it got a limited release in the States.

[PNGwynne]

lol I worked to get all those Euro-released Snake Men, etc. I'm missing one Euro playset.