ROBOTO — 200X

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE ORIGINS (MATTEL)

Remember two weeks ago, when I was talking about Masters of the Universe and the three characters I’m bound to buy in pretty much every incarnation?  Well, let’s circle back to that.  Two weeks ago, I was looking at an Orko figure, based on his appearance in the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, which served as my introduction to the franchise.  Origins, which spun-off a “Cartoon Collection” for specifically animation-based figures, is quite a ways into a run of 200X figures, which includes not just the previously reviewed Orko, but also Roboto, who is one of the line’s deluxe figures.  So, today, I’m looking at that figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Roboto — 200X is a deluxe release for the Masters of the Universe Origins line, under the Cartoon Collection banner.  He was announced alongside Wave 30, but released off on his own, albeit in close proximity to their release.  And why is that?  Size.  Yeah, this guy’s kinda huge.  The figure stands just over 7 3/4 inches tall and he has 28 points of articulation.  He dwarfs the rest of the line, by quite a bit, and it’s sort of an interesting dilemma.  In my last Roboto review, of the movie figure, I noted it was rather underscaled for the movie version, who should really tower over the rest of the cast.  This figure not only towers over the other figures, but it’s about twice as wide as well, and while Roboto is certainly larger than everyone else in the 200X, it feels like this sort of exaggerates things a bit.  He almost feels like he’s from a different line of figures.  Not helping matters is that, in many ways, he quite literally feels like he’s from a different line.  The Origins figures have a certain way they’re assembled and, well, this guy doesn’t really follow that.  I got a lot more of an early Masterverse vibe from him, especially when it came to his joints, which have that kind of gummy feeling to them that I remember cropping up in Masterverse.  His sheer size, coupled with gummy joints, means that it’s a pain to move him, for fear that the relatively small and gummy joints might tear or break.  I found this to be especially and issue on his elbows, which either don’t have much range, or have a range I’m just not comfortable reaching.  Also, though he’s huge, he’s also got a lot of hollow parts, making him lighter weight than you’d expect.  This has an especially odd feeling when it comes to the legs, which kind of swing around a bit on the hips.  It’s odd.  Issues of scaling and construction aside, though, how’s the actual sculpt? Well, I must admit, he looks really cool.  Since the proper 200X Roboto wasn’t actually based on the animation model, we never really got a version of it in 3D form.  This one does very well, and certainly looks the part.  The sculpting is clean and nicely symmetrical, as he should be.  Roboto’s coloring is on the basic side, but matches his sort of washed out palette from the show.  Application is mostly clean, but there was some stray spots of red on the side of his head that shouldn’t be there.  Roboto was packed with his shoulder cannon and a swappable arm cannon for his left arm.  The shoulder cannon can go on either shoulder, but struggles staying in place securely, due to the rubber shoulder pads.  I do like arm cannon, though it’s a shame he couldn’t get one for both arms, since he uses both in the show.  Also, interesting to choose the left arm for the swap, given it’s classically the right one he does it with.  I guess they were going for some variety.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I saw this figure when he was unveiled, and the prototype really didn’t sell the size of him.  I meant to get him, but he, like Orko, kind of got pushed off a bunch.  I’d heard from others he wasn’t *great*, so I held off, ultimately snagging him because I was already buying some other stuff from my friends at All Time Toys.  In hand, he’s…well, he’s got issues.  I knew that going in, and I expected them, but they’re still very definitely there.  It keeps him from being as cool as he could be, and I don’t think he’s as nice a figure as the other two Origins Robotos.  That said, I do love this design, and I think it looks really cool as a figure, so perfect or not, I’m happy I have him.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased this figure for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.