The month that never had to happen, I didn’t want any of the pieces on the subscription this month—another reason why I am finished with subscribing this year. Anyhow, this is what we have.

The Griffin is an over-sized and over-priced beast monster that really had no purpose except in the 200X cartoon where the villains would ride it into battle. The monster itself is made from the body and front legs of Battle Cat and the wings of Swiftwind. The head, saddle and rear legs are new. The sculpt is very nice but I just have no real interest in it.

The back of the very large box has a bio and an “also available” and the extra space is filled with a picture of the Griffin.

GRADE: C (I just don’t care, but the sculpt is nice).

Next up is Horde Prime, Hordak’s brother and ruler of Horde World (Horde World is from the 80’s She-Ra—not the best name for a location, but whatever)…

Horde Prime is pretty vast in size, apparently a bit taller than most of the others but he’ll fit under Panthor’s paws just as well as any of the others—after all, Skeletor can easily whip Horde Prime and I would have displayed “HP” with Panthor stepping on him, but I didn’t want to soil Skeletor’s purple friends feet.

Horde Prime comes with a decent amount of accessories including a large cape that is removable, a crossbow that attaches to his arm and the hands are removable so you can choose which arm will take the weapon—it also means that he can fit the weapons that come with Roboto, Trap-Jaw and Hurricane Hordak and that is pretty neat.

Horde Prime comes with a second head that is sculpted to his appearance in a European comic book. He has a removable helmet and now revealed, is his mysterious head sculpt that no one knew what it would look like—unless you went on ebay where someone in China was selling the test-shot or prototype of the figure a few months before its release—the photo even made its way onto the internet in general, so no real surprise, however its nothing to get excited about because its just Hordak a bit older with longer ears and a beard.

The back of the package has an “Also available” and a bio—yawn!

GRADE: C (Another non-necessary figure, there are about 10+ unmade She-Ra figures, why not put one of them out instead, Frosta is coming later this year, but why wait)?

Snake Man-At-Arms—this is what happens when the ideas run out or a company wants to find a way to make more money. This year the Snake Men obsession is really out of control with a pair of snake warriors coming out in a few months (a slot that could have been used for 2 important characters) and now we have a Snake Man-At-Arms with the worse bio to date, well, there are crappier bios but this one is in the top 3.

The head sculpt is very good but meaningless because I just don’t care. So, what to do? Well, regular Man-At-Arms came with 2 heads, so why not use the mustache head and make 200X Man-At-Arms–and it looks great!

The body sculpt is made to resemble the 200X figure with the color scheme and armored arms and legs, so obviously the mustache head is perfect for the figure. Here is what is problematic, Snake Man-At-Arms has the same mini weapons rack that the original came with, except there are no weapons for it except his mace and like most people I didn’t want empty mounts on his back, it looks stupid. So, I figured that the Castle Grayskull weapons rack was just sitting at the back of the shelf pointlessly and I took the small red sword and the laser pistol and used them to fill in the missing spots—the red sword looks a little strange, but nonetheless, it works just fine.

The final piece included is the Serpent Ring which is what turns everyone but He-Man in the 200X cartoon into evil snake people; I figured I’d just have him hold it for the fun of it.

200X Man-At-Arms (you see what I did there, I dropped the “Snake” off and called him 200X—I’m the man! LOL)!!! Comes with the second of the 3 part mini comics, this one is called “He-Ro Unleashed” The art is great, really well drawn, the story and writing are horrible, as though a 2 year-old wrote it, the story is boring and pointlessly rushed, the book is more of an advertisement to buy the 30th anniversary created characters and also for people to buy into the lame changes that were made to the line as a whole—I call it a ‘propaganda rag’ because that is all it is—with great artwork though.

The back of the box has an “also available” and the third worse bio to date (the second is Dragon Blaster Skeletor—you’ll see that in a few months and the first is anything that calls He-Man Oolarr—stupid)!

200X Man-At-Arms is awesome once he is “repaired” by laying the snake head at his feet and attaching the mustache head in its place. By adding weapons to his mini weapons rack and having him hold the rubber snake ring; this figure goes from lame to awesome in a matter of moments.

GRADE:

FIGURE: A (With mustache head and added weapons). C- (Straight out of the box).
MINI COMIC: F (For the story and writing). B+ (For the artwork).

All in all, I was forced to spend a lot of money that I didn’t want to, but what can you do but try to make the best of it. I’m thinking of selling the Griffin for cost that is why I didn’t open it, but I’ll decide soon on that.

Here is an update of the shelf with Horde Prime in the back on the left and 200X Man-At-Arms—in the front! Wow! He went from worthless to one of the tops, that is really impressive!

Next month is Spikor with his horrible name, which makes him come off as a nerd who lives in their parents basement playing War Craft on the computer all day instead of making something of themselves, the figure is really nice though so he’ll probably be rewarded a front spot with Stinkor and Trap-Jaw as one of Skeletor’s bad-asses.

Until then…

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