We
are in the home stretch of Masters of the Universe figures. Some of
this year’s releases are long-awaited treats like Ninjor, Snake
Armor He-Man, and a decent King Hssss.
Others
are turd buckets like Blast Attak.
Blast-Attak
is basically a suicide bombing android. All he has to do is force his
way into the midst of some Heroic Warriors and detonate himself and –
KABLOOEY
– less
Heroic Warriors left to punch Mer-Man in the face. Presumably
Skeletor could even just toss Blast Attak off the side of a Roton or
something.
After
the detonation, Blast Attak has the ability to reassemble himself and
do it all over again. It’s a pretty great concept, but
unfortunately not one that lends itself to the restrictive ethos of
the Masters of the Universe Classics line. These guys can’t even be
bothered to put paint on a skunk-man’s blaster. Do you really think
they’re going to create an all-new torso just so some dumb android
can split in two?
I’m
sorry. My disappointment with this figure has left me in a really
unfair mood. Matty has done wonderful things with some of the
Classics figures – Modulok, New
Adventures He-Man,
Icarius,
and Grizzlor
are just a few of the cases where I truly feel Matty went above and
beyond. These show that they are capable of delivering the goods on
characters when they want to. Which makes this Blast Attak even more
frustrating.
This
is just a figure. An ugly one. It doesn’t bifurcate or do anything
that even comes close to resembling the entire
purpose of the character.
I know that this won’t bother some people. I’m honestly not sure
why it bothers me so much, but it sure does. This is the first figure
of the entire Masters of the Universe Classics line that I am
absolutely and entirely disappointed with. Plenty of them have had
their flaws, but to me Blast Attak is pure failure. If I hadn’t
committed myself to reviewing every MOTUC release for the line’s
final year I would’ve flipped this guy on eBay without a second
thought.
Blast
Attak also had the misfortune of being the figure that I forgot
about. I haven’t been checking my invoices and shipping notices
like I used to because, quite frankly, this line doesn’t excite me
like it used to. That’s not really so much a comment on the quality
of the line as it is a feeling of, “Okay, I’ve probably got
enough of these”. But I forgot who was shipping this month and
opened the invoice e-mail to see. Obviously I wasn’t happy that it
was this doofus, but then I took it a step further and glanced down
at the charges – $26.00 for the figure, $2.21 for tax, and a
ri-fucking-diculous $10.79 for shipping means this grey turd cost me
thirty-nine
dollars.
That’s
awful. I know the figures cost too much and I know Digital River
overcharges grotesquely for their slow shipping, but I am simply
aghast knowing that that’s what I’m paying for these. I really am
quite disgusted with myself over this.
Having
said all of that, I will still be reviewing the figure on the merits
of how it was intended by the 4 Horsemen and the Matty design team.
It was never going to have a satisfying feature, so I’m just going
to review Blast Attak as the figure it was meant to be rather than
the one I think it should be.
FIRST
GLANCE
This
is one fugly figure. The color scheme is displeasing to the eyes,
it’s clunky, and the golden torso is just a bewildering hunk of
brightness in the midst of a drab collection of clunky limbs. I don’t
like looking at Blast Attak.
PACKAGING
The
MOTUC blister card never disappoints. The contents are another story.
There’s
no need to bring nanites into this. Blast Attak does not look like a
nanite-driven destruction machine. He looks like Wreck-Garr and
Smurfette had a baby and buried in a trash can in Detroit.
LOOKS
The
head sculpt is distinctive, but not in a good way. The helmet
actually looks pretty cool, in a stupid way. It looks like somebody
trying to recreate Darth Vader’s helmet, but they only saw it once
and from very far away. The face underneath doesn’t look good, and
by that I don’t mean that it’s hideously ugly in the same way
that Krang is hideously ugly. I mean that Blast Attak’s face looks
like it was sculpted by a child. The contours and lines are just
rough.
The
torso is interesting. The base is a Horde Trooper body with rubber
underpants and torso armor. The sculpt is very cool and loaded with
detail. Unfortunately Matty design only allowed for one color of
paint, so the torso looks like a big lump of gold with a couple of
red spots and a belt. Just a little silver on the trim or wires would
have made a huge difference.
The
arms and legs are SO DULL. The sculpts are great, but the paint is
putting me to sleep.
The
arms are Roboto’s, which work fine for this turd muffin. I didn’t
bother checking to see if the hands still come off because I just
don’t care.
The
legs are all new and are, like the torso, quite interesting. The
detail of the paneling and tubes looks great. I actually quite like
the big pads on his thighs and the fact that they left the grooves on
them gray. The fact that big, black thigh pads are one of the most
interesting things about Blast Attak is pretty damning.
The
boots are cool, as well. They’re thick and have big details. They
look like robot combat boots.
ACCESSORIES
Blast
Attak comes with two items that, quite frankly, I am having a hard
time naming.
The
first looks like some sort of ax/rifle/pogo stick combination. I hate
it for its awkward unwieldiness. One of the ends on mine was bent,
but the plastic is soft so it wasn’t ruined. Well, more ruined than
it already was by its stupid design. Blast Attak can hold it a few
different ways, none of which looks any less idiotic than the others.
There are a few spots of metallic red paint on this. That should make
me happy, but instead it just angers me that they couldn’t somehow
figure out a way to detail Stinkor’s weapons. He’s a figure I
actually like. Blast Attak could have had a single turd brown paint
app and I would like him exactly as much. Maybe more.
The
other thing is sort of a whip. It’s actually like the fuse that the
vintage figure came with, except that this one doesn’t plug in
anywhere or do anything. It’s made of rubber, which is fine because
I don’t care.
I
don’t blame modern Matty for these dumb pieces of crap because they
are updates of what the vintage figure came with. Although I do think
they could have at least made the whip thing plug into the figure’s
back:
FUN
Blast
Attak is the opposite of fun.
For
the first time in a long time I’ve got a figure with loose joints.
But it’s not just an elbow or an ankle this time – all
of Blast Attak’s joints are loose. It’s really odd. He feels like
a used toy.
Even more strange is the fact that I didn’t really have
any problems posing him or getting him to stand up. Maybe it’s just
because I wasn’t all that inclined to play with him. I dunno.
I
will say this – thanks to the reduced profile of his torso and
armor, the proximal joints work much more nicely than they do on most
Classics figures. His hips and shoulders have a great range and Blast
Attak’s arms can hang naturally at his sides.
While
he looks very stupid holding either of the included accessories, he
can hold them. And I have to admit that I did have fun trying to
figure out how to get a picture of him riding his pogo ax:
OVERALL
In
case I was being too subtle for you – I don’t like this figure.
It’s ugly and I don’t want it crapping up my Masters shelves.
However.
It
is a successful visual
representation of the vintage Blast Attak. That figure was
butt-frigging-ugly:
So
as far as this being a successful Classics-style update, I guess it
gets a 3 out of 5. The face sculpt could be better, they could have
done more with the functionality of the accessories, and there could
be more paint. It really feels like Matty phoned it in on this one. I
understand. I’m sure he came this late in the line because they
just didn’t know what the heck to do with him.
As
far as being a desirable toy that I want to have on my shelf, Blast
Attak gets a
1
out of 5
I
know that seems harsh and I hardly ever rate figures this poorly, but
I’m just dissatisfied with this guy in every way. I’m going to
put him up on eBay with a Reserve Price of twelve cents. This is the
first figure of the entire Masters of the Universe Classics lien that
has just straight-up made me sad.
Don’t
buy Blast Attak. Go to Amazon and buy this instead:
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