He has CLAWS and he's AWFUL

Sometimes I'll completely miss something obvious. It took me forever to realize the pun in Clawful's name. You see, he's a bad guy, so he's awful. Also has claws. Admittedly it's because he came out when I was a kid and completely oblivious to such things. Regardless, despite being such a silly idea, Clawful is a pretty great toy. 

As a member of the Evil Warriors, Clawful is a crab/human hybrid. You'd think he'd be more aquatic based, but nope. He's just walking around anywhere. Ready to pinch Fisto's ass and hit him with that shell cracker. Considering the majority of clothing on Eternia, it makes sense as to why he's so threatening. 

Depending on the fiction, Clawful is either a serious threat or an idiot. Sometimes Skeletor's right hand monster and other times not trusted. I'm pretty sure they wanted to eat him. The right claw alone could feed Snake Mountain for days!

King Hiss Will Punch You With A Snake Bite

I've made several jokes about He-Man fighting living Halloween decorations and Eternia being a constant freak show. Here's King Hiss. King Hiss is the leader of the Snakemen and pure nightmare fuel. One moment he's standing before you, a dude in weird armor. The next... A GIANT PILE OF FUCKING SNAKES... WITH LEGS.

King Hiss and the Snakemen came around later in the line. Clearly intended to take Hordak's place as the new badass other faction for He-Man to deal with. He wasn't featured on the cartoon until the 2002 series, but got a healthy amount of coverage in the mini comics and other media. Mattel was clearly putting their eggs in the Snakemen basket. I guess none of them were from farms.

As a toy, King Hiss was similar to a Transformers Pretender in that he had a removable outer shell. It encased the upper body of the figure with the arms snapping on separately. When it was time to kick the battle into full gear, King Hiss could transform into his true reptilian form by taking off said shell parts to expose his weird body of giant snakes... with legs. In human form he carried a snake staff (which most Snakemen had) and a shield. In snake mode he could hypnotize his foes and attack him with a GIANT BODY OF SNAKES... WITH LEGS. Know what's worse than getting punched? A snake bite. Think about getting punched by a snake bite. Damn. Why does he have snake heads for fists? Because fuck you, that's why.

King Hiss is from a race of space snake people who came to conquer Eternia. Because Masters of the Universe. He-Ro and Eldor defeated him and then trapped him in a limbo like dimension. Around a thousand years later, Skeletor freed him and the two teamed up to defeat He-Man. Of course once this was done, the alliance would be over and then one would kill the other. This is all assumption because He-Man just kicked their asses as usual. In the 2002 cartoon he's not to dissimilar, just falls under that shows general vibe. However he does take over as the main villain, which is what Mattel was clearly aiming for in the 80's. When the line was shifting to the 'Powers of Grayskull' spin-off/hail mary, it was taking place on prehistoric Eternia where King Hiss was the central villain. I guess it does make sense that the guy who lives in Snake Mountain be a GIANT PILE OF FUCKING SNAKES... WITH LEGS.

Eternia Minis Series 2

There's a problem with Eternia Minis, and that problem is that you have to strike when the iron is hot. They don't languish on the shelves. When news of series two already hitting Walmart shelves, I mobilized. Thanks to the help of an patient wife, I managed to track down the entire batch last Saturday across two different Walmarts.

Something I wish I had done with the last series, I did this time. I took the display box home. Just look at it. It's majestic. Before any of you get the wrong idea, I just got one of each figure. I left the rest behind on the shelf. 

One of the more cool things about this line is the castle themed capsules each figure comes blind in. Series one was Castle Greyskull. Series two, Snake Mountain. These little capsules are perfect little recreations of the original castles. I've been seeing folks get creative and give them paint jobs that look great. They also make a good stand for the figure.

As you could expect with the Snake Mountain theme, this is a villain heavy set of toys. There's two repeats from last time here. Regular He-Man and Skeletor, it's safe to say variations of the main two will appear in each batch. This time it's almost double as you get Faker and Golden Armor Skeletor is the set as well. Faker is a different character, but still basically He-Man and Golden Armor Skeletor is a straight repaint. If repaints bother you, there's only two molds that haven't been released already in this series. You also get First Appearance Trap Jaw and Snake Armor Man At Arms which are straight repaints from the last set. For me funky colored recolors are part of the fun in stuff like this.

Trap Jaw appeared in a slightly different color set in his mini comic debut and that's fully represented here. Snake Armor Man At Arms is a throwback to the snake armor variations of the Heroic Warriors from the 2002 MOTU line. The two new molds are Beastman and Stinkor. Stinkor is one of my favorite classic MOTU characters so having a little one of him here is awesome. No signature stinky smell unfortunately. Can you imagine opening that little capsule and getting a face full of skunk funk? I think about it all the time. You can probably tell by the picture mine got a little over spray on his face. I may take a sharpie and fix that eye later. The original Stinkor was a Merman repaint with Mekanecks armor. These are solid body molds with parts swapped, so I'm guessing both Merman and Mekaneck are on the way.

Beastman looks great. I've always liked his armor and everything just comes together perfectly here. I'm pretty surprised he wasn't in the first series as he's one of those main guys you expect in a first batch. I wonder how many repaints his mold will get as the upper body is pure Beastman. The original mold reused parts to make Stratos and flocked without armor to make Mossman. These solid body parts throw a wrench in that old method, so we'll have to see where the parts end up. I kinda hope they make Grizzlor and later use his head on this mold to make a movie Beastman figure. 

As with series one, these are great figures. So far I love collecting them even though it can be a headache. I hope after the Walmart exclusivity ends they'll be easier to get. Something like this has Walgreens or Five Below all over it and I'd be all over that. There's a pretty easy code system of letters printed on the bottom of the capsule. You can either go by the list I've got for you here or just keep count of A-H.

A: Faker

B: Golden Armor Skeletor

C: First Appearance Trap Jaw

D: Snake Armor Man At Arms

E: Beastman

F: Stinkor

G: He-Man

H: Skeletor

A Mountain Of Snakes

Hey Rob, are you going to make another comparison to He-Man's villains and Halloween decorations/satanic panic? Yes. Since Skeletor was inspired by a skeleton in a haunted house that scared a Mattel toy designer when he was a kid, it's only natural that he would live in a haunted house. Rivaling Castle Grayskull as the headquarters of the evil warriors on Eternia, is the freaky Snake Mountain. Once again as an adult, I kinda see where some of those parental groups were coming from. That talking mountain face you saw in the commercial above? It's literally a demon. It's one of the toys selling features on the box.

Just look at that thing. A scary bridge to cross in front of terrible monster faces, evil lurks behind every corner. Somebody chained Man-At-Arms up by his arms. Or by his At-Arms. Does he have legs or At-Legs? Look at the front door on top of the mountain. Big bat adorned gate with a wolfs head door and guarded by a giant snake. Classic spooky shit. Like I said, Skeletor was inspired by a prop at a haunted house, so he naturally lives in one. Makes me wonder what that haunted house the designer was at looked like. Because if it's anything like this, I kinda want to go.

In the cartoon, Snake Mountain was basically just that. A mountain with a snake on it. I don't know if that's due to designs not being finalized at the time of production or somebody at Filmation got the creeps. Thinking about it, the toy line and it's assorted artwork is a lot more scary looking than the cartoon. As if somebody thought to sanitize it out before putting on TV. For example, let's look at Skeletor. Below is a head shot of his toy, a story book, and the cartoon.

see what I mean?

I've always wondered, ... is Snake Mountain alive? When my cousin would come over and we'd play He-Man, who got to be Snake Mountain was a regular subject. For those who are either not in the know, or couldn't tell in the commercial. The wolf head was a microphone that you could speak into and a speaker would amplify it in a 'scary' voice. The mountain was covered in heads, a wolf head, a demon face, a few other faces, and the giant snake.

Now the snake was probably alive as it could move around to attack heroic warriors. Or solicitors. The demon face's mouth can move, which would make you think the scary voice is coming from it. I guess. I wonder if the demon uses the wolf head as a conduit for possession. I mean, just look at the kid using it in the commercial. Forever cursed. Forever dammed. Forever the voice of Snake Mountain. Giant asshole.

Running Wild On Rattlesnake Mountain

I had totally assumed Masters of the WWE Universe was going to end when MOTU Origins started, but here I am being wrong and happy about it. Previews of the new Rattlesnake Mountain set have been popping up on various toy news sites and let me tell you something brother, I want it. My luck with the line has been pretty spotty unfortunately. So far I haven't been able to find anything past wave one. Which is pretty disappointing as I've really wanted figures like Macho Man and The Undertaker.

I'm hoping this set will be like the Grayskull Mania bundle from last Christmas. They were pretty easy to find and hung around for awhile. You can get a Greyskull ring no problem, but the set with Terror Claws Triple H and John Cena was only around then. It just makes sense that this would be on a pallet for the holiday season. Give me a hell yeah. The theming of a Snake Men Stone Cold to match one of his shirts vs. Hulk Hogan as early He-Man is pretty great. And that's the bottom line, because Stone Cold Rob said so.