The Sliming Skull

I've spoken before about my love for The Slime Pit. Simply put, one of the coolest play sets ever made. At first glance, it just looks like a stone wall with a dragon's skull on top. Is it some sort of altar for magic rituals? However, you might find yourself lead there, a captive of The Evil horde! Hordak commands Modulok and Leech to put you in the device as a skeletal claw holds you tight. The skull tips forward as slime pours down coating every inch of your body. Your mind is no longer your own as you become a Slime Pit Zombie!

Mega Construx has finally gotten around to releasing a Slime Pit set for their brand of mini figures I so enjoy. It took awhile to get one, so imagine my surprise to find it in the pile of gifts from my wife Christmas morning. The Slime Pit is a Skeletor skull style set, normally restricted to recreating the accessories from classic MOTU. As the original play set was pretty small... it works pretty well. Included is enough blocks to recreate the Slime Pit within the inside of the color matching skull (including simulated slime!) and a translucent green He-Man as it's victim.

The included He-Man figure is along the same idea as the the Micro Action Figure I talked about last week. However, as a Mega Contrux mini figure, it's a much nicer toy. Heavily articulated and larger... it's kinda amazing just how nice these mini figures are. I've honestly have always been a little amazed by that. He-Man has his Power Sword here which can be stored on his armor. This armor originally gave him a force field... that doesn't seem to have helped. It's a really cool figure that's just a simple color swap... but effective. The set itself is pretty simple, but extremely awesome overall. It's hard not to like slime, yet alone a mind controlled slime zombie. The idea kinda sells itself.

Zodac Goes Swimming

Toy news is a fickle things. When it comes to big ticket, 'collectors' pieces, you'll know about a year ahead of time that it's coming. The other stuff will be discovered by news sites after you've already got it. That's the story with the newest Mega Construx MOTU set. The Skeletor head sets have been around since late last year. They're neat little sets that are basically a build-able accessory with a figure. The head can also serve as a means to display them. They also look cool. Who doesn't love a plastic skull?

The new discovery is that apparently in the current shipments, the Fisto set has been replaced by Zodac with SCUBATTACK! This is a certainly a welcome addition, but also a confusing one. In the picture to the side, I sloppily cropped out the new toy with arrows to point out what to look for. As you can see, it looks practically just like the other heads. Gold/Bronze face with light purple hood (enlarge the picture by clicking on it). 

Unless something was to alert you that this one was different than the others, you may not pay attention to the fact that it was indeed not. It's been the talk of Mega Contrux MOTU groups all weekend. There's two in a shelf pack, like there's two of each set normally. These sets are generally at Walmart and Target in my area and easy to come by, but only the older sets. I've got to basically wait for stock to get swapped out for the new head. Which may or may not be anytime soon. It may be a long game as it wasn't until spring when they showed up at my local stores. It's just a matter of regular checking until I get one, which a week or so later the news sites will report it.

Faker Than A Three Dollar Bill

On Eternia, if you see He-Man committing an evil act... and he only kinda looks like He-Man... you've just witnessed Faker in action. As his name and appearance would imply, Faker is an evil duplicate of He-Man. Obviously a blue skinned repaint of the classic He-Man toy with Skeletor's armor in orange and a robotic sticker on his chest, he is still pretty neat.

Faker didn't show up in a lot of MOTU fiction. Clearly the toy was a low budget solution to getting another figure on the shelves fast. So it stands to reason that not a lot of attention was paid to him afterwards. However Faker does appear in one episode of the classic cartoon. In it he's a near identical clone of He-Man causing trouble. This idea got revisited in 'The New Adventures of He-Man' with another near identical clone named He-Slave (no really). 

Faker does have various comic appearances, including a mini-comic late in the line despite being one of the earlier toys. His origins range from evil robot clone to magically created clone to random member of the Evil Warriors. I do like the classics take on Faker, in which he's a failed robot duplicate of Prince Adam. Man-at-Arms thought it would be a good idea to have a fake Adam to stand in while He-Man was off on adventure. The robot didn't work out and ended up in the hands of the Evil Warriors and reprogrammed. The idea is to fool the people of Eternia that He-Man had went evil. Pretty standard evil clone stuff admittedly, but it works. 

I mainly like Faker because of his colors. The blue contrasts with the orange in such a weirdly fun way. I've made my joke about Eternia being full of living Halloween decorations a million times before, and I'm going to make it again. It's most obvious in his Battle Armor variation. With it, Faker has an orange version of Skeletor's battle armor that makes you wonder why he wasn't a seasonal special edition. Despite the very basic nature of the toy, Faker is pretty popular and generally gets a good amount of merchandise. Which I'm sure Mattel is only to happy to produce.

Tri-Klops Saw It Coming... Or Didn't

When I think about Masters of the Universe... I usually don't think about Tri-Klops. Like Zodak, I mostly remember only seeing him at the odd drug store several years after he was released. Recently I got his Origins figure and really want the Mega Construx version which comes with the Battle Ram (I haven't found it yet). Somehow the lack of attention over time passed has made him more desirable. Admittedly it's a 'new to me' type situation. I did grab his 2002 version back then. So I guess I haven't totally ignored him over the years.

Tri-Klops's place in fiction pretty much varies on whomever is writing. In mini-comics and the original cartoon he was practically He-Man's equal (or an oaf), and in the 2002 series he was more of a mad scientist type. The classics version has him as a blind bounty hunter and his visor allows him to see. The visor is pretty much Tri-Klops trademark gimmick. Once again depending on the writer, it's either cybernetic or magical. Generally the visor gives him a variety of vision related special abilities. Seeing all around him, around corners, through things, great distances, optic blasts... you name it. Whatever the writer comes up to match the hunter/swordsman's abilities at the time.

Sometimes I wonder if Tri-Klops inspired Blade from the live action movie. They're pretty similar. Aside from the visor, the two aren't that different. Weirdly enough, in the Filmation series bible gave him a more interesting back story. Tri-Klops, Evil Lynn and Beastman were originally crew members on Queen Marlena's spaceship (she was an astronaut who crash landed on Eternia). They had mutated in the crash which somehow lead to them joining the Evil Warriors. This origin was abandoned. Probably because somebody realized the awkwardness of the Queen watching her son beat up former colleagues on a regular basis. "Go son, stomp a mud hole in his ass and walk it dry. He never paid me back for that Starbucks."

The Jet Sled Crowd

When it comes to Masters of the Universe, the Sky Sled is all anyone can seem to talk about. Sky Sled this, Sky Sled that. Never mind the Battle Ram is the rest of the vehicular package. It's not that I dislike the Sky Sled, I like it a lot. Just got the new Origins version and am waiting to get my Mega Construx Battle Ram set. I do have a more favored sled in the MOTU world, and that's the Jet Sled.

The Jet Sled is one of the various accessory packs Mattel released in 1986. These packs were sold at a much lower price than a vehicle and offered extra play value to go along with your MOTU figures. The Jet Sled for example was a basic sled that a figure could fly around on or wear as a jet pack with the included armor. 

It's a pretty simple idea and the sled paired pretty well with the standard He-Man figure, so much that a two pack with classic He-Man and the Jet Sled was also released. The accessory sets were pretty cool in all for not a lot of money.

The Jet Sled itself hasn't seen much love since. Aside from a Sky Sled released as the Jet Sled in the classics line, the toy hasn't had any new versions until now. The Mega Construx MOTU line has these awesome Skeletor heads showing up at stores any time. 

These heads have a small set inside with a figure. The Jet Sled and Cliff Climber are updates of classic MOTU toys while the Laser Cannon is apparently the Castle Grayskull cannon. Weirdly enough, these accessory sets make me think of Micronauts a little. While the prototype of Castle Grayskull used Micronauts parts for the laser cannon.

Mekaneck Can See You Read This

Mekaneck is one of the more fun Heroic Warriors that's generally well loved by fans. It's hard not too. He's this funky bionic dude who's a living periscope. If you ever need to understand the charm of He-Man, remember, robots and cyborgs are mixed in with all the swords and sorcery. It's weird and absurd, what's not to love? It doesn't hurt that he looks awesome. 

In the cartoon, Mekaneck was given his bionic neck by Man-At-Arms (who must have needed a Man-At-Neck) after his normal one was badly injured. This injury occurred during a storm in which he also lost his son. Later he found his son held captive by Count Marzo. 

Mekaneck also had issues with Count Marzo in the 2002 cartoon who takes advantage of our heroes insecurities. In that cartoon Mekaneck's bionic neck can seemingly stretch forever and bend all sorts of ways kinda like Plastic Man. He generally carries a big yellow club that I often used as the Cosmic Key when I was a kid. You'd think a guy who specializes in seeing things far away would be a sniper, but once again Eternia is a weird place. 

On his original toy you twisted his waist to extend Mekanecks bionic neck. He's had a bunch of toys since then and they've often used snap in extension pieces for the neck. I'm really looking forward to his upcoming Mega Contrux figure. I don't know if it's just my general favoritism to him and the line, but it just seems perfect. He'll come with the Battle Ram set that also includes Tri-Klops who also seems like a perfect fit in the mini figure line.

Talking New Mega MOTU Bloks

New MOTU Mega Construx toys are up for pre-order on BBTS. While I'll be content to wait for them to appear at my local Walmart, this is indeed exciting. Y'all read the site, y'all know. Two sets to be released in July and a new wave of figures in August. This is great. The first of the sets is Battle Cat vs. Roton. What's He-Man without Battle Cat? Not just another He-Man either, this time we get the Battle Armor version which looks great. Roton looks pretty good too, but I think the Mer-Man might be the spotlight of the set for me. For the record, auto-correct is still suggesting pee-order. I give up.

The other set is Panthor at Point Dread. This looks AWESOME. You get Battle Armor Skeletor and Panthor riding in to face off against Zodac and Temple of Darkness Sorceress. Which is Sorceress in her sometimes white attire as seen in mini-comics, the movie, or Universal Studios. The Talon Fighter with this set looks awesome. It can perch on Point Dread giving a location for the fight including that awesome rack of extra weapons. This is a cool set. I've always really dug that bat on Battle Armor Skeletor. See, he is a walking Halloween decoration.

Wave 2 of the figures is slated to come out in August. There's no pictures yet, but the assortment list looks pretty good. I'm not sure if Evil-Lyn will be the same as she was in wave 1, if so I guess I'll pass on her. Since this series is different than the standard Mega Constux Heroes figures, I'm assuming Teela and Faker will have new (and better) paint decos like Skeletor had in wave 1. Fisto and Stinkor are what I'm most looking forward to here. Despite the awkward name, I've always liked Fisto and Stinkor... he's probably one of my favorites. I doubt the skunk smell will be included this time, but the skunk colors and orange armor have always just looked great. I... kinda hope he stinks.

MOTU MEGA CONSTRUX SDCC

MegaConstrux Heroes is getting 2 full-MOTU waves with new MOTU themed cardback! Here's the other one of the new waves!#SDCC #MOTU pic.twitter.com/z8kcS8Jz3U

— Pixel Dan (@PixelDan) July 18, 2019

DUDE

All the Powers of Grayskull

Man... man... MAN I want this. I've been a steady fan of the Mega Construx Masters of the Universe figures, they're exactly what I've wanted in a He-Man line as an adult. The upcoming Castle Grayskull set looks amazing. I'm firmly rooted in classic He-Man and this nails that right in the head. Not just is it a great recreation of the classic play set, but it's even full of nods towards the original mini-comics and toys.

The included figures not only contain the Sorceress, but figures of Man at Arms, Teela, and Beastman as they originally appeared in those mini-comics. Man at Arms doesn't have his mustache like the original toy! Of course this version of Duncan also comes with the Battle Bones set, so they'll make for some great soldiers.

Things like this are really fun and get me excited anticipating future releases. I'll be honest though, Grayskull commands a hefty price and I'm likely to wait for a sale or even an appearance at Ross to get mine. Regardless, it's things like this I really like seeing and can only hope for more great stuff like this in the future.

What the heck did I do this weekend?

This weekend was pretty chill. The wife and I did our weekly shopping Saturday morning when I got home from work, leaving the rest of the weekend relaxing around the house. We stopped by Target to look at all the cool Halloween stuff they'd put out since last weekend. On the Transformers front they still hadn't stocked the last wave of Primemasters or Optimal Optimus. They did have Shadow Striker and Grimlock from Cyberverse in the larger $20 scale. I plan to get those, just didn't right then. I've got a few items coming from online purchases and I really don't like to spend too much at a time. Most notably from my online purchases coming is the bucket of monsters pictured above. I don't know what type of toy you technically call a green army man, but toys along that type are something I'm very fond of and jump on the more random assortments. In the past I've gotten great selections of robots, ninjas, zombies, skeletons, pirates, and all sorts of wacky designs. This set is really amazing. It's a large tube full of various monsters like Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Godzilla, and all sorts of cool monsters. It's coming Friday and honestly I'm having a hard time waiting. We also picked up out Walmart grocery order as well as a trip inside to peak the Halloween stuff. A nice supper from Zaxby's and a great weekend at home.

Some stuff did come to my attention over the weekend. Just as I completed the first wave of scouts from Cyberverse there's been reports of wave 2. Now, there's just 3 figures I need from this set as I already have Bumblebee. I'm looking forward to the cool recolors of the Starscream mold for Windblade and Slipstream, though I'm a little hesitant to fiddle with them. My Starscream's wings kept popping off and his left arm was pretty loose. I'm hoping I don't have that same issue with these two jets here. The QC issue was a bit of a bummer for me as I've mentioned it's the recolors that make little toys like this fun and I'm betting the jet mold is going to get the most mileage. I really don't want to have the same issue with a million jets.

Pictures of the upcoming Battlemasters in packaging went about the internet this weekend and man do they look great. The package art with the neat SIEGE logo makes it looks like a game for the SEGA Genesis. Just super sharp packaging. Despite the negativity floating around online around Siege (I just don't get it), I'm really looking forward to it. This looks like a great time.

Mega Construx has been showing off their new Breakout Beasts blind package line and I think they look swell. Little monsters and dragons in an egg with slime... what's not to love? I'll be sure to jump on these when I find them.

Friday I finally figured out what Instagram TV is despite it being as thing for a few months now. Despite being a regular user of Instagram, that one just passed me by. It's pretty neat and I plan on using it semi-regularly. I had tried on doing some sort of vlogs using YouTube but I just can't put into words what went wrong there. For some reason Instagram TV makes more sense in my head, so be sure to check out my Instagram page for updates (links are in the about section... mobile users, click the full web version down at the bottom of this page for the links) and go ahead and follow me as I posts regularly there. I don't know if I want to call it my photo blog, but it sure is something.

Mega Construx Heroes series 4

 

Just as I finally was able to track down series 3, series 4 should be arriving at my stores soon. I say should as series 2 and 3 took a bit of hunting. I've already seen online retailers pricing them around $16 each, which is a big nope as these things are generally $5-6 at standard retail. Though I am excited for them, or at least some of them. The big draw for me is the Masters of The Universe guys. I was a big fan of MOTU as a kid. The 2002 line didn't light much of a fire for me and while I think the current classics figures are super cool, mini figures like this is exactly what I want for updates of the characters. Though I'd really like to get the Super 7 ReAction versions, those are just neat.

The Terminator T-800 Endoskeleton is also a must have. He'll go with the other Terminator figures I've gotten quite nicely. As a Terminator fan, I'm mainly interested in parts 1-2 with T2 3D thrown in. The newer movies haven't grasped my interests as much as those two and these figures are really serving that specific want.  I may get Hellboy. Not sure about that one. I like the character, but have never been outright drawn to buy a toy of him. Kratos is cool, I've certainly enjoyed his games, but I'm not sure if I want a toy of him either. I wish I had any sort of enthusiasm for Assassins Creed, but I don't. It's clearly a popular series, but I've never been drawn to it.

I'm hoping with the timing of this series release, they'll be easy to find. Most online stores have them shipping in September, which makes a retail appearance realistically by October. I can see them in a stocking stuffer display at Target or Walmart and really hoping they aren't as challenging to find as series 2 and 3 was for me.

What the heck did I do this weekend?

 

Honestly, not a whole lot. Though it did seem like quite a bit. Perspective is everything I assume, and I was tired when I got home so I say a lot. After sleeping off my work night, the wife and I went out for a bit of shopping Saturday. Normally we order our groceries and schedule a pick up time, but this week we decided to physically shop for them. We do this occasionally just to see what all new might be in the store. We also wanted to get out for awhile to look for new Halloween stock and with the short week from labor Day, we didn't feel like doing our normal order list throughout the week.

Friday, the wife stopped at Kroger and found the remaining Mega Construx Heroes series 3 figures I had been needing. So far I had only found the T-1000 and was starting to feel a bit hopeless on it. I know that's some strong working, but I really didn't want to order figures that I should be easily able to find. Partially because the price gets jacked up and second the availability isn't always there. So if you're like me (and you're reading this, so presumably so) it's a bummer to miss out on stuff sometimes. I've been really enjoying this series, not buying everything... but close to it. Series 4 (post regarding it coming soon) has some good looking options in it, so I'm hoping it's easier to find.

Saturday when we went out to see what all Halloween stuff might be out and do that grocery thing I talked about above, we stopped by Target and they had restocked the Cyberverse toys so I snapped up the Scout Starscream and Megatron. I'm enjoying these Scout class dudes (as I've said before and before and maybe again before) and they're easy enough to collect. Though, it is a hard pill to swallow them being $8 considering a Legend was $10. Though, the toy economy is always changing and as I always say, you gotta pay if you want to play. I'm looking forward to the crazy recolors in the future. That's the kind of thing that really makes these smaller toys fun.

I had mentioned Zombot Friday night and found one right off the bat in the Hot Wheel section at the same Target. He was so under my nose this entire time that he was just right there on the hook as I walked up. Weird. I got the blue one, looked as hard as I could for the red version, but that wasn't in the cards (he's a chase item). I also grabbed this rad x-ray truck, it just looked too cool to pass up. We bought more Halloween candy than we should and a stop by Kroger to peruse their Halloween merch left to a new blow mold to go with out others and then a disappointing trip to Home Goods. Starting to think that store sucks.

This left us with a quick lunch and a few hours at Walmart for groceries and their awesome Halloween section where we once again bought too much (and made of list to get next weekend) stuff. Walmart had the Evil Red Ranger figure I've been looking for the past few weeks and for that I was happy. Aside from hoping to get the Bullrider Megazord sooner or later, that's probably it from Ninja Steel for me. Just one more stepping stone towards Beast Morphers! The Evil Red Ranger was pretty cool to me as I thought the Ranger clone army from the 25th special was really neat. Not to mention, I'm mainly a fan of MMPR first, so a evil version of the Tyranno Ranger is right in my wheelhouse. Right in it. Nothing but net.

I won't bore you with what we got for groceries (ok fine, we got bacon for Sunday breakfast) but we pretty much did that before going home. We tend to spend our Saturday nights at home watching spooky stuff and try our best to relax on Sundays. Just to get that recharge in before the work week. Oh, and Sunday night the first episode of Transform Squadron went up. That's the new podcast of Zone Base. Yep, that's it. I plan to have one at least once a month. Hopefully you all like it!

Power Rangers blind bag series 1

Mega Consrtux has released a line of Power Rangers building brick toys that are just fabulous. Before, as Mega Bloks, they released similar lines for the Power Rangers Samurai and Megaforce series. I enjoyed the blind bag mini figures from those lines, though doing a series based on the classic Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series is a solid way to sell me on your product.

While I'm still on the fence about the building sets (I may get one or two), I am definitely all over the blind bags. In my first sighting earlier today at Toys R Us, I googled up the id codes and got the complete set. I'm hopeful the following series will fill out and complete the cast. In fact I may get a few more Putties to make a sizable patrol. Hopefully future series will also have Z Putties and Super Putties.

The figures are pretty decent in their simple sculpts. I've done my best not to compare them to my beloved Imaginext Power Rangers (now those I plan to complete, just holding off on the rest of the Zords until I move this summer. They are huge. The entire line is wonderful). Probably because of their small size and charming nature.

There are some notable things to point out. The Red Ranger is translucent. He's like this on the package, so I don't think I got a special version. I'd assume this is because a solid Red Ranger is included in a few of the building sets. That and judging by the codes, he was one of the more rare figures. So I figure the translucent plastic is the reward for him being harder to find. The shelf pack I was going through was pretty full and mine was the only red one I found. The Putty Patroller and Green Ranger seem to be the most common. Which works for army building a massive Putty Patrol if you want. I'll probably grab two more. Three figures is the usually case in troop building packs and works for me as a rule to go by.

Green Ranger's dragon dagger seems to be a re-use of some other weapon mold. In fact, all of the weapons aside from Zedd's staff look like they could have been from another line. Mega Bloks has made plenty of fantasy themed sets, so I would imagine these weapon molds could be from those. Still, I posed Green Ranger like he was playing it as a flute. Somewhere the Dragonzord is responding I'm sure. The Pink Ranger's bow is almost bigger than her. It's a solid piece that she can hold, though it isn't exact. The tip is molded like it's on fire, which matches up to my mold re-use theory. Pink Ranger and Lord Zed seem to be the middle ground as far as difficulty in finding goes. There was just a couple in the shelf box.

Speaking of Lord Zedd, he's a little silly. He doesn't have much detail and kinda looks like someone wearing one of those zip up character hoodies. His plastic is a darker red and looks a bit like one of those chocolate covered cherry M&Ms that they sell. His staff is great though. White Ranger, I figure, is either equal to Pink and Zedd, or just a little harder to get than Red. I only found the one I got, so I can't speak factually. The included checklist doesn't specify which ones are harder to find than others. The White Ranger comes with a rough estimate of his tiger scimitar, once again possible from another mold. I still posed him holding the sword upside down so he could consult with Saba.

Like all Mega Bloks mini figures, the figures come with stands, which is extremely helpful. You can put them all over the place posed for battle or maybe posed for success. I suppose the Putty could be on his way to apply for a job. I hope at Panda Express. They never seem to have enough help when I go in.

Turns out my kitchen has good lighting.

Below is the list of codes I used when I found mine, allegedly there is another set of codes used on some bags, I have no clue, these are what worked for me. Feel free to copy them to a little note file on your phone so you don't have to play a guessing game when buying the figures. Unless you like that. That's fine, but if you want to use the codes they're on the back on the lower left corner in a black ink.

A17106ES - White Ranger

A18106ES - Lord Zed

A19106ES - Pink Ranger

A20106ES - Green Ranger

A21106ES - Red Ranger

A22106ES - Putty