Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Mosquitor By Mattel

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.

But ultimately you have to judge these as the action figures they are, and as an action figure Mosquitor is pretty awesome. Nowhere near as good as the original thanks to the lack of the blood pump, but still pretty cool-looking.

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