This month offers what the real fans of MOTU have been waiting too long for, it’s Thunder Punch He-Man! A quarterly variant and not the figure for April. The Matty morons screwed up on the entire years line and release dates, so because of the situation Thunder Punch He-Man will now be the April figure regardless of what Mattel’s ringers and the dweebs that think they are the ultimate fans of the line say.
One of the coolest figures from the early/mid 80’s, the original figure could have a ring of caps loaded into his backpack and when the figure was turned at the waist and released, the cap would spark up and cause a thunder punch! There was also a wheel on the backpack that could be turned to cause multiple pops from the cap ring.
This Classics figure is really well thought out, Thunder Punch He-Man includes armor and the backpack which is now removable. The backpack opens as it did on the original figure to load a cap “slug” (fake cap) also included; it can then be closed. There is no thunder punch, but the thought and appearance is still there, including the wheel that spins, but does nothing.
Thunder Punch He-Man also includes a translucent yellow-ish sword as the original had and a chrome vac-metal shield that can hold the fake cap as with the original which held an extra cap ring in the bar shaped piece on the front. New for this figure is a snap on punch effect of translucent yellow–an interesting extra considering that the actual pop of the caps is gone.
A lot of people will find that the included mini comic which came with the original 80’s figures to be the best piece in the package (it’s neat, but not me). This comic is a remake of the final story “The Powers of Grayskull” this was a three part story of mini comics that was never finished, only one was produced. This comic has nothing to do with the original except having He-Ro in a shadow and Bionatops. Skeletor is once again shown as weak and I’m sick and tired of it. I’m also tired of the Mattel executives trying to re-write the history of Masters of the Universe, they have no right. If they want to sell toys, work on the quality first.
Loose, Thunder Punch He-Man is not doing to well, the vac metal on his armor is chipped out of the package and his eyes don’t appear right. I would have exchanged it, but Mattel’s customer service is a nightmare, it’s not that bad…At least the sword is awesome. The packaged TP He-Man is fine though, and that’s how it will stay.
The back of the package has another lame MOTU bio which refers to how Skeletor took over and the Masters of the Universe are an underground movement who fight against the Evil Lord of Destruction. Another way to make money, after all there is going to be a new comic line that has everyone losing their memory and Skeletor controlling the planet. It’s odd though, all of the stories had King Hsss and Hordak being the powerful ones and Skeletor being a joke, what’s with the sudden change? Of course Skeletor can take all of them, but…actually, who cares, if they wanted to revive MOTU properly they would have made a new cartoon that continued off of the 200X story.
I’m looking forward to finishing off collecting MOTU Classics, its become very boring and hoping that I won’t have any serious problems keeps me from having the last bit of fun I can get out of it. If anything, here is a shelf update…
Thunder Punch He-Man however, is awesome! Well, the packaged one…and he gets a…
GRADE: A+ (Because he’s that damn cool)!
Click all photos to enlarge!
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