Tag Archives: Thundercats

#1919: Mumm-Ra

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

MUMM-RA

SAVAGE WORLD: THUNDERCATS (FUNKO)

It feels a bit boiler plate to have to start every Funko review off by noting that the company has the license to everything you love, everything you hate, and just about everything in between, but that’s just how I do.  Apart from Pops, which seem to remain a fairly evergreen investment, Funko seems to slide from style to style.  For a while, they had their ReAction line, based on the Kenner stylings of the late ‘70s, but now they’ve moved forward a bit, with their new Savage World branding, which takes they stylings of Mattel’s vintage Masters of the Universe line.  So far, they’ve done Mortal Kombat, an assortment of slasher flick stars, some DC super heroes, and, perhaps most sensibly, Thundercats, which is the line I’ll be focusing on today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Mumm-Ra is one of the four figures in the first series of Savage World: Thundercats.  While some of the other lines have been sort of modifying the characters to better fit the Savage World style, the Thundercats line are more straight adaptations of the characters.  This Mumm-Ra in particular is based on his powered up “Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living” form, which is a sensible choice, given its inherently muscle-bound appearance.  The figure stands 6 inches tall going by the top of the horns (about 5 1/2 without them) and he has 6 points of articulation.  The sculpt is unique to Mumm-Ra, and is a pretty sensible recreation of his design.  Obviously, he’s super buff, as is the style for the line, but given the usual look for Mumm-Ra, it’s not much of an adjustment.  The detailing on the sculpt is clean and sharp, and the head in particular has a lot of really nice detail work on both the face and the helmet.  The cape is affixed to the torso, and not removable, which was slightly surprising, but I don’t mind it too much, since it means it’s not flapping all over the place.  Like the sculpt, the paintwork on Mumm-Ra is clean and sharp.  He’s bright and eye-catching, and he has all of the important details that he should.  He doesn’t really have any of the smaller details like the Leatherface did, but it’s befitting of Mumm-Ra’s cleaner design.  Mumm-Ra is packed with his double-bladed sword, which he has a little bit of trouble holding, but is otherwise a pretty cool piece.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve never been a super hardcore Thundercats fan, but I do have some of the toys from the 2011 relaunch, and I can certainly appreciate the style they’re going for with these figures.  This one’s not actually mine.  As with Leatherface, Mumm-Ra arrived at the store with a limb popped out of place (though it was an arm this time).  While I don’t know that I would have chosen Mumm-Ra on my own, I certainly like this figure, and I’m definitely planning to pick up at least the Tygra figure from Series 2.

As noted above, the Mumm-Ra figure featured here was provided to me for review by my friends at All Time Toys.  If you’d like one of your own, they still have them in-stock through their web store.  And, if you’re looking for other toys both old and new, check out their eBay store front or their web store!

#1202: Cheetara

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

CHEETARA

THUNDERCATS (2011)

cheetara1

You thought I was done with the Thundercats reviews, didn’t you?  Well, so did I.  But, I really don’t know how to quit buying action figures, and the more figures I have from any given line, the more reason I have to say “one more couldn’t hurt.”  Back in April of last year, I looked at Lion-O, Tygra, and the Tower of Omens from the 2011 re-launch of Thundercats.  Today, I look at yet another member of the team, Cheetara.  No points for guessing what cat she was.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

cheetara2Like Lion-O and Tygra, Cheetara was released as part of the first series of basic small-scale Thundercats figures from Bandai.  The figure is about 4 inches tall and she has 17 points of articulation.  After some genuinely impressive work with the articulation on Lion-O and Tygra, Cheetara is a real step down.  She gains bicep swivels lacked by the other two, but at the cost of wrist and ankle movement, and on top of that, the bicep joints are really ugly.  Also, instead of the nice hinged hips from the prior figures, Cheetara gets v-hips.  Oh goody.  My faaaaaavorite.  They seem to have attempted to make up for the v-hips by adding a pair of swivel joints to each thigh.  The first set of swivels are sort of the reverse ange of the v-hips, and the second is a more straight lateral cut.  In theory, they’re supposed to mimic the movement of a normal t-joint, I guess, but in practice, they’re just sort of a big mess of twisting meat.  And, they’re pretty hideous to boot.  But hey, I’m glad they didn’t ruin the figure by giving her those no good hinged hips from the other two figures; that would have been the worst.  Okay, I’ve ragged on the articulation, but what about the sculpt.  Well, for one thing, it’s pretty much torn apart by all that ugly articulation.  Even on its own merits, though, it seems like a step down.  The head is okay, I guess, and the torso sort of tries to capture her cartoon design, but the arms and legs are just a total mess.  They lack any real organic shape and seem to be out of scale with the head and torso.    Her hands are the same size as her head for pete’s sake!  It’s a sad state of affairs when a figure’s paint being “acceptable” is the high point of the figure, but here we are.  There’s nothing really spectacular about the work, but it’s mostly pretty clean, and the colors match up well enough with the cartoon.  There’s some slop in a few areas, but given the rest of this figure, it could be worse.  Cheetara includes one accessory: her staff.  It’s made out of soft plastic, which makes it look more like a brown spaghetti noodle than anything else.  Also, since she lacks any wrist joints, she can’t really hold it very well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I picked up Lion-O and Tygra two summers ago, I had also wanted to get a Cheetara, but Yesterday’s Fun didn’t have her.  In the year following, they must have picked her up along the way because I got her from them last summer.  She’s disappointing to say the least.  I mean, I’m glad to have her, I suppose, but after being pleasantly surprised by Lion-O and Tygra, Cheetara was a sad return to form for Bandai America.

#0916: Tygra

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

TYGRA

THUNDERCATS (2011)

Tygra1

They say that good things come in threes. Wait, no, I think they say bad things come in threes. Hmmm… Well, here’s my third Thundercats review. There may be some debate about which of those statements this review proves. Today, we’ll be looking at my personal favorite member of the Thundercats, Tygra, who isn’t to be confused with one of my favorite Avengers, Tigra. They’re very different.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Tygra2Tygra was released in Series 1 of Bandai’s small-scale Thundercats line. The figure is a little over 4 inches tall and he has 21 points of articulation. He loses the waist movement that Lion-O had and trades it for swivels right below the knees, which feels like a pretty fair trade off. The figure’s based on Tygra’s main, armored look from the show, as opposed to that totally clear, less armored look that I already reviewed. Tygra had one of the more radical redesigns of the main Thundercats, presumably to make him stand out a bit more from Lion-O, but it keeps most of the spirit of the classic Tygra design. Tygra’s sculpt is totally different from the one included with the Tower of Omens, even the head, which seems like a natural place for reuse. It does a pretty nice job of translating the design into three dimensions, though his hair’s a little more Wolverine-like than it was on the show. The sculpt is perhaps not as good a job as the Lion-O figure, but good nonetheless. His proportions are certainly well-handled; Tygra is appropriately a little heftier than Lion-O, offering some nice variety to the line. The belt is an add-on piece, which is a little bulkier than I’d like; on the plus side, it’s removable. The paint on Tygra is alright. Nothing really stands out as particularly bad, but the application isn’t super exciting. A figure with this sort of color palette would definitely benefit from some accent work or something. Tygra is packed with his signature whip, which is made out of soft rubber, and is a little difficult at this scale. He’s also got his blaster, which can be holstered on his belt.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, I liked the Tygra included with the Tower of Omens, but a totally clear figure is hardly a definitive version of the character. And, seeing as Tygra’s my favorite of the Thundercats, I kind of wanted a regular version of him. It was actually Yesterday’s Fun having this particular figure that prompted me to pick up the Lion-O figure I reviewed yesterday. Lion-O is the better figure of the two, but Tygra’s certainly no slouch. I’m glad to have him!

 

#0915: Lion-O

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

LION-O

THUNDERCATS (2011)

LionO1

Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats! Ho!

Hey, how ‘bout some more Thundercats? You guys like that, right? Sure you do. And, if we’re gonna look at some Thundercats, it might as well be their stalwart leader, Lion-O. Yeah, let’s look at Lion-O!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

LionO2Lion-O was released in the first series of Bandai’s smaller-scale Thundercats line. He, like the rest of the line, is based on his main appearance from the 2011 incarnation of the Thundercats cartoon. The figure stands about 4 inches tall and has 20 points of articulation. Lion-O’s sculpt is unique to this figure, and it does a rather admirable job of translating the modern Lion-O design into three dimensions. The general proportions have been tweaked ever so slightly (his arms are a bit bulkier than they were in the show), but as a whole, he really looks like the does on the show, which is a pretty cool look. The articulation isn’t clunky, and is worked into the sculpt pretty well, aside from a few spots where joints stand out a bit. The quality of the paintwork isn’t quite as good as the sculpt, but it isn’t bad. The base colors all match up with the source material and everything is applied pretty cleanly. The only real issues are that a few spots are missing their paint apps, and the joints are totally different colors from the plastic around them. Lion-o included both long and short versions of the Sword of Omens (the short one can even be stowed at the top of his gauntlet), as well as a clip-on Gauntlet of Omens.  Thundercats was very ominous, wasn’t it?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I bought the Tower of Omens, I had no other Thundercats figures. My dad took one look at it and said “you know you’re gonna end up with a whole collection of Thundercats, right?” I swore up and down that that wouldn’t be the case. And then I was at Yesterday’s Fun, and they had a whole shelf of these guys, and I kinda caved. I’m down on Bandai America most of the time, but Lion-O is a surprisingly solid figure, and is probably the best Bandai America figure I’ve ever bought.

#0914: Tower of Omens

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

TOWER OF OMENS (W/ TYGRA)

THUNDERCATS (2011)

TowerOfOmen1

Since fairly early on in the world of action figures, toy makers have recognized the need for said figures to have somewhere they could hangout. Why not create some cool locales for those figures? Well, they did, and that’s where we got playsets. Playsets made their first big splash in the 1970s (with Mego making some of the coolest), and really hit their stride in the ‘80s. They continued into the ‘90s (so I had quite a number of them), but have more or less gone away in recent years, due to the rising costs of manufacturing. They haven’t totally disappeared, though, and today I’ll be looking at the Tower of Omens playset from the recent Thundercats re-launch.

THE PLAYSET ITSELF

TowerOfOmen6The Tower of Omens was released as the largest item in Bandai’s Thundercats line from 2011. It’s based on the design of the Tower from the most recent cartoon, and is nominally meant to go with Bandai’s 3 ¾-inch line of figures, though it’s been scaled down a fair bit to make it more economically feasible. There are two main pieces to this set: the main tower and the gate. The tower is about 18 inches tall. It’s topped by a beacon sort of thing, which features the Thundercats logo on each side. The red of the beacon is translucent, but there’s apparently a light-up feature, but I didn’t put in any batteries to try it out. The top level of the tower pops open on either side, providing a flat surface for the TowerOfOmen2figures to stand on (though not a whole lot), and the front panel of the tower can be removed and placed on either side to act as a slide, though the effect is middling at best. At the base of the tower, there are four pillars, which I think are supposed to act as extra support, but just end up falling off a lot. The interior of the tower has an elevator. There aren’t any fancy mechanisms here; you just move it by hand through use of the handle on the back. The gate stands a little less than half the height of the tower, but it’s about 16 inches wide. It appears to be a bit closer to proper scale, but is still a bit undersized. The actual doorway is a pretty solid piece, and features some excellent sculpting, especially on the cat head. The Thundercats line tried to work in a weird magnetic gimmick wherever possible; on this set, when you TowerOfOmen5place the back of a figure up to the “nose” of the doorway, the doors pop open. It’s kind of a neat feature, but the doors have a tendency to get stuck open. The actual gate portion is made up of two fairly flimsy pieces attached to either side of the doorway. It looks okay from the front, but is hollow on the other side. Also, the gate falls apart a lot; were I planning to use this for any long stretch of time, I’d probably find some way of permanently affixing the gate to the doors. There’s not a whole lot of paint on this set; it’s predominately just molded in a dull brownish sort of color. However, there’s some pretty sweet metallic blue accent work, which adds some nice pop to the set. In addition to the two main pieces, the set includes a catapult, a three-wheeled vehicle, and a Tygra figure. The catapult is kinda boring, since there isn’t a spring-feature or anything. Also, the two boulders included are TowerOfOmen7each only half a rock. The vehicle is sort of interesting, but rather goofy. The front has a missile launcher, and there’s another magnet gimmick, where the cat head on the back pops up when a figure is placed in the driver’s seat. The Tygra figure’s actually pretty cool. The figure’s 3 ¾ inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation. He’s a different sculpt from the normal Tygra; there’s less articulation and his outfit is totally different. He’s totally clear, which seems kinda random, but I think makes him pretty nifty.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

At the time that I bought this, I owned no other Thundercats figures and hadn’t seen a single episode of the 2011 series (I’d probably seen one or two episodes of the original show, but I don’t remember them all that well). So, why’d I get it? Well, last summer, I was at an Ollie’s with my brother and Tim and I found this set for $6. I figured “why not?” and got it. It’s not as thrilling as the playsets I grew up with, to be sure. I can definitely see why it ended up at close out prices. Still, for the price I paid, it feels like I got a decent enough deal.

TowerOfOmen4