I waited a very long time to open this
guy. I even tried to unload him on eBay at one point. It’s not that
I don’t like the Shadow Beast, it’s just that in the cartoons
there were a lot of Shadow Beasts and I like to have at least
four of any kind of character that there are multiples of. Vipers,
Stormtroopers, zombies, Daleks; whatever. I need four to feel
complete. I didn’t think it would be practical to buy four Shadow
Beasts and I certainly didn’t want to spend ninety more bucks on
them, let alone however much it would have been with secondary market
markups and shipping. So I decided it would be easier to just sell
the one that came in my sub.
But I didn’t want to take a loss on
it. I listed him for about $36 – a reasonable price given shipping
and whatnot. I figured somebody out there would want to build an army
of horny monkeys. Er… horned monkeys.
So the other night I got drunk and
bored and decided to go ahead and open this guy, Battle Armor
Skeletor, Adora, and Sy-Klone. I only got through the first two
before I got bored with opening figures and taking pictures, so I
might still try to sell the latter two. Lord knows I don’t want to
end up selling Sy-Klone at a massive loss like I did those wretched
fucktards Clawful and Snout Spout.
First Glance: Gygor
is on the bottom shelf of my MOTUC setup with the other big guys and
my variants, so I don’t see him all the time. That’s why I was
somewhat surprised at how big the Shadow Beast is. He’s big. A big,
horny monkey. I like him.
Sculpt: This guy shares a
lot of parts with Gygor, but has enough to distinguish himself as
much more than a repaint.
Shadow Beast has the same hollow
rotocast body, along with the plastic arms and legs. The arms are
ball-jointed at the shoulders and have single pivot elbows. The
shared parts are nicely hairy and bulky and all of the joints work
very well. You’d think the change in mediums from torso to limbs
might be an issue, but they look great together.
The new parts are the head, hands, and
feet. Those may not seem terribly significant, but they make a huge
difference, even when Gygor and a Shadow Beast are next to each
other.
The head is ugly and awesome. I love
the brutish, mean face underneath that almost regal unicorn-like
horn. It’s just shy of being cartoonish and works tremendously
well. The hands and feet are thick and primitive clawed things. They
look great and really add so much to making this guy different. I
especially like how much further the Shadow Beast’s feet extend out
of the furred legs compared to Gygor. The wrists swivel and the feet
are on what are essentially ball joints.
Design: The Shadow Beast
paint is about as basic as you can get, and in this case it works.
He’s a whole lot of brown with some fleshy colors in the right
spots. The claws on his hands and feet are dark and help bring those
extremities out more.
The face is detailed very nicely. The
fleshy tones are just right and the eyes are just glistening with
evil. I kind of wish the horn was a slightly different color, but at
the same time it matches the claws, so it works.
All of the deco on my figure is great.
I don’t have any blotches or bleeding.
Accessories: The Shadow
Beast comes with a big ol’ honkin’ club that looks amazing. This
is one of my favorite MOTUC accessories now. The sculpt on it is
fantastic; with the bark on the outside and the wood grain at the cut
portions looking great. I love the little stumpy part sticking out of
the one side. It gives it a more natural look and a whole lot of
character. The spikes look mean and managed to be sharp enough
without breaking any of the painfully restrictive US toy laws.
Packaging: The Shadow
Beast comes in the standard, large beast packaging. I am a big fan of
the Masters of the Universe Classics packaging and this window box in
particular. Everything has a very uniform look regardless of size and
I love the look of full MIB collections even though that’s not my
thing.
Overall: Once again, the
Four Horsemen did a great job reusing parts to make a new figure. I’m
definitely glad I went ahead and opened the Shadow Beast and I really
dig him on the shelf. Once I get the Gryphon I might even just make
some kind of Beast Man display. If you like cool, big figures or
happen to collect monkeys (or monkey-like figures, I guess) you need
a Shadow Beast in your collection. There’s not a thing I would
change about this guy.
5
out of 5
You can easily get a Shadow Beast cheap
on eBay, and BBTS might even have them marked down. I know they got
stuck with a TON of 2011 MOTUC figures. My big problem now is going
to be resisting the urge to buy a couple more.
-Phantom
I almost got this guy when he was on amazon for about $24 (with free shipping). The only thing that kept me from getting him was that I already had a Battle Cat, and he has sat in his box since I got him. Sure I've taken him out a few times and admired him, but I have nowhere to display these larger creatures, so I knew Shadow Beast would just be relegated to living in a box in my closet. Anyway, he does look cool, and I'm glad you like him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I got Stinkor and Slush Head in today. I have only opened Stinkor, he was a must-have figure for me when this line first started. The backwards forearms on Stinkor bother me so much more in person than they do in photos. I now completely call BS on Matty's story that they did this on purpose, because if there actually is somebody on a design team that thought the forearms looks better, or even decent, being swapped; then they need to get their ass chewed out.
I love Stinkor, and was very much looking forward to getting him; but the backwards arms, blue plastic accessories that have zero paint apps, and the fact that the 200x head has a very off-center white stripe, have me strongly considering putting him up on ebay.
Dude, Stinkor tore me apart. My review will be up Monday. Oddly, the forearms bothered me not at all. Lots of other issues, though.
ReplyDeleteI'll look forward to your Stinkor review. Overall he just feels like a cheap figure to me. However, I really like Slush Head, so if you open him I'll be interested in your thoughts there too.
DeleteI did go ahead and swap the arms and paint new stripes on Stinkor. I'm not a customizer, so all I had was some cheap acrylic paints from walmart, but I'm happy enough with the results. The off-center stripe doesn't bother me so much just because that could easily be a variation in the way his fur grows (kind of like your punch-drunk Thunder Punch He-man?). Maybe later I'll decide to invest in some quality paint, but I'm just not really wanting to go down that road.
Looks just fine to me. Nice work.
Delete