Mattel MOTU Chronicles Movie Figures

The "hero with woman at his feet" trope composition is certainly a classic. You may be on the money saying it could have originated with Earl Norem. He's the oldest of the artists I can think of that have used this composition in their paintings. Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, have both done similar paintings, and homages range from Star Wars to Army of Darkness to National Lampoon's Vacation. But Norem did a Conan painting that probably outdates all of them.
 
Found Trap Jaw at Target yesterday. They had 2 of him, but no sign of Skeletor. Of all the Targets that have gotten these figures in, Man-At-Arms and Tri-Klops still haven't moved in about 2 weeks. I thought Tri-Klops was kinda cool the closer I looked at him; don't know if I realized his arms were robotic.

Anywho, now my He-Man has someone to fight. Very colorful guy, this Trap Jaw. Very fun, cool looking figure if nothing else. Now to just track down the two Skele-Bros- Skeletor and Scareglow.
 
NORM said:
The "hero with woman at his feet" trope composition is certainly a classic. You may be on the money saying it could have originated with Earl Norem. He's the oldest of the artists I can think of that have used this composition in their paintings. Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, have both done similar paintings, and homages range from Star Wars to Army of Darkness to National Lampoon's Vacation. But Norem did a Conan painting that probably outdates all of them.
Click to expand...
There's an Alan Davis cover of Excalibur that pays homage to this as well and while Kitty and Rachel aren't exactly "at the feet" of Nightcrawler, they are present and scantly clad. Great stuff!
 
Conan the Adventurer came out in 1966...did Norem do anything that predated that? I thought most of his Conan stuff was for the Marvel comics in the '70s.
Conan_the_Adventurer.jpg
 
IF Norem did that style of illustration before Frazetta, I'd say it probably wasn't a Conan piece it appeared on. As Poe noted, most of Norem's Conan art was in the 70's and after. The only one of Norem's illustrations I can think of that featured that pose was actually a Star Lord cover, which was obviously much later. That isn't to say he didn't do one before that. as I'm definitely no expert. He very well could have done that pose before Frank's Conan painting, possibly on one of the various "men's magazines" he did the covers for. Frazetta is the oldest illustration I've personally seen to feature that motif.
 
joshsquash729 said:
Found Trap Jaw at Target yesterday. They had 2 of him, but no sign of Skeletor. Of all the Targets that have gotten these figures in, Man-At-Arms and Tri-Klops still haven't moved in about 2 weeks. I thought Tri-Klops was kinda cool the closer I looked at him; don't know if I realized his arms were robotic.

Anywho, now my He-Man has someone to fight. Very colorful guy, this Trap Jaw. Very fun, cool looking figure if nothing else. Now to just track down the two Skele-Bros- Skeletor and Scareglow.
Click to expand...
Those two I think are the weakest. Man at arms I find just doesn’t look that good. The likeness is not as good as he man (imo) and they missed the mark with the armor somewhat.

It’s got so much green wash on it
 
Mr_Saver said:
Those two I think are the weakest. Man at arms I find just doesn’t look that good. The likeness is not as good as he man (imo) and they missed the mark with the armor somewhat.

It’s got so much green wash on it
Click to expand...
I'm not familiar enough with the characters or what they normally look like to really have an opinion one way or another. I will say, Man At Arms does perhaps look the most "plastic-y", perhaps due to the color of the armor and the wash, but it still looked decent. Apparently there's another version coming out in a wave or two- maybe that'll fix things?

Did end up finding a single Skeletor at an out-of-the-way Target tonight, so I snagged him. Just gotta track me down a Scareglow and I'm set for now! If nothing else, the packaging has really impressed me; feels like it's been a while since this much effort was put into the box- glossy parts, embossing, different characters facing off, things facing a completely different way for heroes than they do for villains. Makes there be, like, zero uniformity on the peg, but I appreciate the effort!
 
I haven't bought him yet but I think Man-At-Arms looks fine. In a bare-bones, space-saver MOTU display, he is always on my short list of heroes that will back up He-Man, along with Teela and Sorceress. I'll probably end up getting him once Teela hits.
 
I'm holding out for the second version of MAA, to see if he is more to my liking.

I still can't bring myself to get that Tri-Klops. He's just off model enough to not fit *my* mental image of the character...plus, I can't get my brain to square the idea of him NOT being a swordsman. I don't really have an issue with him using some sort of sniper rifle, but he should also have a sword because...TRI-KLOPS! He should always have a sword!

Still hoping for Scareglow to show up in my area. I'll be traveling next week to another part of Texas, and I'm hoping I find him in one of those stores. Distribution is SO weird.
 
TheGillMan said:
but he should also have a sword because...TRI-KLOPS! He should always have a sword!
Click to expand...

I keep hoping he busts out a sword at some point in the movie and we get a Tri-Klops v2 down the road with the new accessory. I doubt it, but a man can dream.

I'm surprised so many people seem underwhelmed by MAA. Seems pretty on-model to me. But I am not much of an MAA fan so I'm always pretty whelmed by any figure of him.

I wish I knew what was going on at Walmart. I've been to very store in my city (driving around a lot for work, not because I'm doing some insane toy runs or anything) and the toy sections are fucking traaaaaaash. Even when they clean them up and re-set the aisles, there's no pegs anymore for Star Wars Black, G.I. Joe, Marvel Legends, and they still don't have any MOTU merch at all. It's like Walmarts in this city just gave up on trying to sell any toys that aren't Mario or WWE, or whatever JP and Transformers stragglers are still kicking around.
 
Damien said:
I'm surprised so many people seem underwhelmed by MAA. Seems pretty on-model to me. But I am not much of an MAA fan so I'm always pretty whelmed by any figure of him.
Click to expand...
He isnt BAD, he's just full of missed potential.
He has a collapsed version of his mallet on his leg, stored, but it snt removable for when he is using it. The gun stores, but sits weirdly high because of where the peg hole is. The gun is gummy. He has no trigger hand, so he looks weird holding it. His wrists pegs are tighter, making it harder to change his hands. They're simultaneously slightly loose, so when holding the mallet it tends to slowly rotate the wrist down with its weight.
None of that is a deal breaker. And there's a lot of good; he moves well, he's painted well, the likeness is good. But he just feels LESS in a line that has, so far, produced amazing toys.
 
Wonder if they made Tri-Klops a sniper just to give the line a bit more range in terms of weaponry. The whole "seeing far into the distance" thing makes sense with a long range weapon, but not so much a sword. Maybe they'll give a sword with another character that could work for him?

I don't really have any WalMarts in my area here, but yeah, even when I visit my family back home where there's a ton of WalMarts, their toy sections are always underwhelming. I don't remember the last time I bought any figures from a physical WalMart store
 
Yeah, I told myself that I wasn't going to buy any movie figures from this line and guess what, I've got all that have been released so far.

I'm certainly looking forward to the movie, but I'll probably wait for streaming. Any trip to the movie theater in my hometown for my family always ends up being well over $100. It just never seems worth it anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top