I’m honestly not too sure how I feel
about Mosquitor. I mean, I like him well enough that I feel he is a
must-have figure. He is a part of the Evil Horde, after all. And no
matter how many Mansquito jokes you might want to make the
thought of a human-sized, bloodsucking insect is pretty terrifying.
But Mosquitor is a tertiary character at best and is simply not all
that essential to Horde operations. I am working on two different
stories – for my own amusement – involving the Evil Horde and
Mosquitor has yet to show up in either of them. And I’ve mentioned
Multi-Bot and Peekablue.
Matty experienced yet another shipping
issue with their December releases. Granted, it wasn’t as bad as
last year’s where we didn’t even get our December figures until
January, but it was still a problem. I received the e-mail notifying
me that my order was being processed on (date) at (time). But then,
at (time) on the same day I received an e-mail stating that the
warehouse deliveries of Procrustus and Granamyr had been delayed and
that they could potentially be 2-3 weeks late. I felt fairly certain
that mine would be about a month late since Matty has already set the
precedent that my figures will come about one week after everybody I
know receives theirs (despite the fact that we all chose the same
shipping method).
Mine still came about a week after
Beau, Evil, and Monkey received theirs, but it ended up being mostly
on time. For me, anyway.
Oh, and I received Stratos as my
apology (or whatever) figure. I was actually hoping for Mer-Man after
reading that that’s what most people were getting. I already have
two Mer-Men, but one is the regular release with the gold accessories
from one of the Weapons Packs and the other is the blue release from
the DC/MOTUC 2-pack. Mer-Man is sort of an army builder, so I
wouldn’t have minded a third with the normal accessories and the
vintage head. But I got Stratos. I shouldn’t mind since the Stratos
I have is the one from the DC 2-pack and has the reversed color
accessories, but I just don’t need another Stratos. And I haven’t
had luck selling figures on eBay, let alone ones that Matty is giving
away in bulk for free.
Looks like I have the first prize for
the Royal Rumble game…
First Glance: Mosquitor
looks mostly just like the production photo except that it is much
more obvious that his chest is inferior to the vintage release.
Wow. That is really bothering me more
than I thought it would. I should have been prepared, what with
Mattel stating three years ago that there would be no action
features. If MOTUC has a byline, it’s “Manage Your Expectations”.
That’s not fair, really. They make
tons of rad toys. I’m just having a shitty day. By the time you
read this today will be long gone, and that comforts me a bit.
Whatever score I give this guy, you can probably add a point to it.
Unless it’s a “4”. This fucker does not deserve a “5”.
Articulation: Mosquitor
features the same great articulation as the rest of the line.
Head – ball joint
Shoulders – ball joint
Little bug arm shoulders – ball joint
Biceps – swivel
Elbows –pivot
Wrists – swivel
Abdomen – pivot
Waist - swivel
Hips – ball joint
Thighs – swivel
Knees – pivot
Boot tops - swivel
Ankles – rocker joint
Mosquitor’s head has a great range of
motion due to the fact that it isn’t limited by the need to reflect
the human form. It pops off easily, but stays on just fine when
you’re not moving it. It isn’t going to just fall off or
anything.
This guy’s arms aren’t as
restricted by his giant, thick chest armor as some figures’ are.
They can almost get down to the point where they hang by his sides.
His little bug arms move around fairly well. They can’t move as far
forward as I would like, but that doesn’t bother me too much. Not
as much as, say, his blood-free chest thing.
All of the other joints work well and
are nice and tight.
Sculpt: Mosquitor has a
new head, upper torso, biceps, calves, and feet. He uses King Hssss’
shoulders, Kobra Khan’s forearms and hands, and standard human
lower torso and upper legs.
This figure has an awesome head sculpt.
It’s such an alien, menacing look. I love the long, barbed
proboscis and the shape and size of the eyes. This is another unique
look among the Masters of the Universe Classics and one that really
draws you in with its weirdness.
The new biceps are cool and distinctive
– very Horde-ish. The new boots are awesome. I love that they look
kind of like huge robot shoes. If it weren’t for Mosquitor’s
muscular thighs you could believe that these are some kind of special
shoes to support his tiny insect legs.
The rest of Mosquitor’s parts work
well together. The forearms are believable as insectile and the
shoulders work in conjunction with the regular parts. They look like
segmented exoskeleton parts or something.
Coloring: Overall I like
the colors they used for this guy, but there are a couple of things
that are bothering me. First of all are the eyes.
They do not make a
bit of sense. What the fuck is he looking at? The pupils should be
positioned toward the front of the eyeball. As it is Mosquitor goes
beyond goofy into the realm of just not making sense. There is no way
you can look at those eyes and think they are reasonable.
I also don’t like his little gloves.
They look kind of dumb. If they had just made his hands black and the
bracelets red I think I would have liked it more. But now it looks
like Mosquitor has little, red Mickey Mouse gloves on. Especially
with the sculpted portions on the backs of his hands.
I do like the varying shades of red
used and all of the painted portions have tight applications. The red
triangles on his boots look nice. Aside from the pupils his head
looks really good as well. I might just white out those pupils and
see what that looks like. I dunno. Probably not.
Flair: Mosquitor has
what I believe are new trunks and little insect arms on his
shoulders of the new chest armor.
The new chest armor does look really
cool even if he doesn’t have liquid blood swishing around inside.
The Horsemen have created the illusion of that chest chamber
having blood inside and it’s going to have to suffice. The
texturing of the torso is sort of plated and weird and looks buggy.
The inside of the chamber looks like muscle tissue or something. It’s
creepy. For the most part I’ve got to say that the Horsemen did
they best they could have.
The insect arms look great and are a
nice nod to 2002, but they are uneven. And not the warped uneven that
I’ve come to expect from additional extremities in this line. They
seem intentionally uneven. Not a huge deal, but it is noticeable and
weird.
I think the trunks are new. The look of
them is solid, but I can’t decide how I feel about the colors. The
purple and grey do break up the rest of the figure, but I wonder what
he’d look like with black (or maybe even silver) trunks with a red
belt.
Accessories: Mosquitor
comes with a new blaster that matches his personal aesthetics. It
looks awesome. I like the colors and the detailing and the sculpt is
absolutely vicious. It also fits in the figure’s hand quite well.
I am, however, going to have to agree
with Beau Brown on this one. As he said on the first episode of the
Needless Things Podcast, a gun that stabs you - I believe that's called a knife.
Packaging: It’s the
regular MOTUC blister card. Still neat and still effective. Here’s
his bio:
Bliddeon Black isn't the worst Masters name ever, and I think it's hilarious that it is stated that he's a moron.
Value: Due to his
particularly wacky head, fancy chest, little insect arms, and even
his stompy robot boots; Mosquitor feels like a slightly better value
than some other MOTUC figures. I think I am growing to accept the
twenty dollar price tag just in time to start paying twenty-two
dollars. Dammit.
Overall: I’m cool with
Mosquitor. I can’t help but be disappointed by the lack of blood
swishing around in his chest, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen.
And never mind what I said about adding a point – I ended up
finishing this review a few days later. This is the solid score:
4
out of 5
If you’re a Horde guy like me you
obviously have to have Mosquitor. He’s neat, but I can’t say he’s
a must-have. Check BBTS or eBay if you missed the sale on Matty.
-Phantom
No comments:
Post a Comment