The Energon Pub

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:11 am

I was going to preorder it but decided to wait, I figured if I had the book I wouldnt need to buy the toys...it's not working out that way for me at the mo. there was a SDCC version which included some pages for the character companion book but don't think I'll ever find that version of it.
I might get it through WH smiths depending on pricing.

trying to find the kickstarter palitoys action force toy book is a pain so i'm glad the He-man book has a general release.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:15 am

A book is one thing, but the figure in your hand/on your shelf is something more fulfilling. I bought the Character companion book for an ex years ago. I heard the new volume contains stuff on MOTU video games, board games etc

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 2:03 pm

As a kid I actually had way more MOTU toys than Transformers, because they were generally less expensive. My mom was pretty smart. Early on she saw my interests branch in several directions (Star Wars, GI JOE, MOTU, Zoids & The Other World). I could watch them on TV, but as far as toys I had to commit to one, and thus it was MOTU (that decisions actually made in 1983 prior to TF even coming out).

But basically as the only Grandson at the time, I was pretty spoiled by my Grandparents and my aunts/uncles who didn't have kids until later. I had pretty much everything from 1982-1986, and about half of the 1987 line. The only major things I never got was the Eternia playset, and maybe 6-8 of the last figures to come out. By 1987 my focus had shifted fully to Transformers.

Still I was at SDCC in 2001 when the new line came out for the 20th anniversary. I got the commemorative releases, and pretty much all the 2002 line. But eventually sold them all as well (but that 2002 Animated series is still amazing). I never got any of the 4 horsemen statues, or any of the MATTY collectibles.

However seeing the new toys in stores NOW definitely is giving me a nostalgia pull like no other. I simply have no room to start another collection. Still, I saw Roboto at Target a couple of weeks ago (he was one of my personal favorites way back when), and Hordak now just a couple days ago....Man that was tough, brought back a flood of memories, but I resisted. The toys are pretty great, and I hope they do well, and satisfy both collectors and new fans.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 2:09 pm

It is funny you mention about room for another collection. Currently I have Storm Collectibles' Mortal Kombat, Beast Wars Masterpiece and BFS' Bucky O' Hare (whenever they restart that?). They are my ongoing collections.

Then I have New Adventures Space Mutants, which is nearly finished. Plus the Super7/Neca Shredder (and Krang, by extension) variants set to complete.

I also recently pre-ordered the first wave from Defenders of the Earth and will likely also pre-order the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets/G-Force set that Storm Collectibles teased a while ago. Finite room is starting to shrink even further...

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:10 pm

Nostalgias a big part of why I'm getting the castle (sorceress figure helps too) despite already having two of the 200X ones. Plus it's cheaper than the megablox one or the £600ish classics version. Hopefully they do a point dread too -which if megablox and classics had one...crosses fingers as it will all depend on how ell Origins vehicles are selling.
Also if the castle does well maybe a Snake mountain that doesn't cost a fortune will follow.

As for new collections, I'm yet to start movie TMNT figures and falling way behind on the toon ones. I'm at the point where I have so many tranformers I can be more picky on the ones I'm picking up (even if there is usually plenty I want out of aany given line). MOTU origins will get more expensive as it goes along for me as i've been able to skip some figures I have or want alternate versions of.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:19 pm

Both the Classics Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain do look really nice. The prices are unjustifiable to me though. Can you imagine how much Classics Eternia or NA Nordor would have cost?!

Growing up, we had an original Castle Greyskull. It came from a boot fair, in the early 90's. I only remember it was cheap and was simply both halves of the castle and the shelf that was the second floor. No drawbridge or anything more. We didn't care, we loved it.

As far as Transformers goes, now I have the four City Bots I think I'll leave it at BW Masterpiece alone. Obviously MP Galvatron is a pipe dream, being my favourite G1 character. But no one else beyond that. I haven't been tempted outside of MP for a long time.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:26 pm

Yeagh classics Eternia/Nordor would have been crazy. the daft thing is Funko already showed it was possible to have cheap playsets with DC Savage Lands Batcave (Which I still want for Hordak) but becasue of its size and lack of a release over here makes for an expensive purchase like with the MOTU WWE rings at the moment.

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:33 pm

I'm glad there is some fondness for NA, even though I personally didn't care for it. It was something I watched early in the morning before high school, and always thought. "Well, it's not MY He-Man, but it's all I've got", and of course was never into the toys. (Did they make a Nordor playset originally?) I am glad however that overall the Classics line did integrate the characters from NA. I would have gladly bought them along with all the classic ones had I had the time/money/space. I do have the DVD sets from BCI Eclipse, and though I very rarely watch them, I do appreciate the voice cast more now than I did all those years ago knowing many of them went on to work on several Mainframe shows.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 3:48 pm

The original Eternia playset is virtually mythical itself. I didn't even know it existed until reading up on it online in the last decade or so. In light of the price of Classics Snake Mountain, I dread to think of a price tag for a Modern Eternia.

I don't get the current valuations for these playsets (looking at the Super7 ThunderTank as an example). They should be the cheap bit. A plastic house/cave/sewer/etc is only that and nothing more. All the old play features of the originals, that used to bump up the price, don't exist in contemporary toy design anyway.

o.supreme wrote:I'm glad there is some fondness for NA, even though I personally didn't care for it. It was something I watched early in the morning before high school, and always thought. "Well, it's not MY He-Man, but it's all I've got", and of course was never into the toys. (Did they make a Nordor playset originally?) I am glad however that overall the Classics line did integrate the characters from NA. I would have gladly bought them along with all the classic ones had I had the time/money/space. I do have the DVD sets from BCI Eclipse, and though I very rarely watch them, I do appreciate the voice cast more now than I did all those years ago knowing many of them went on to work on several Mainframe shows.

In contrast, NA was MY He-Man and I hold it a lot higher than Filmation. Campbell Lane was Skeletor to me. More so than Alan Oppenheimer. NA had quite a lot of playsets and vehicles, considering how small the line was. This was Nordor:

(no idea why, but YouTube only seems to have ads for Nordor in Spanish or German :???:

)

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:02 pm

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

(no idea why, but YouTube only seems to have ads for Nordor in Spanish or German )

Was it perhaps only released in Europe? I know some very late releases of the original MOTU line (The Laser versions of He-man & Skeletor as well as the Giants) were released only in some European countries. To be honest, I wasn't paying attention at toy stores when NA came out. I do remember the individual action figures vaguely, but nothing else.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:08 pm

Well I also only ever had the individual figures, growing up. But my cousin had a lot of the playsets including Starship Eternia, the two shuttles and a Terror Tread. I assume, as most images I saw had them advertised together, that Nordor would have been as available as Starship Eternia? Especially considering that the Space Mutant mothership never had a toy.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:30 pm

No place over here has even had preorders/availability of the Mythic Legions She-ra/Hordak tributes and already up for preorder by NECA is the next allstars wave featuring Mossman and Stinkor tributes

https://news.toyark.com/2021/04/02/myth ... 556#images

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:32 pm

Mossman looks cool. What is wrong with Stinkor's face though... :shock:

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Sun Apr 04, 2021 11:30 am

Becasue the various toylines are too many and varied for me to get back into, I guess the next best thing are the books. i have (I believe?) all the books Darkhorse has published so far.

1. All the Mini-Comics
2. All the Newspaper Comics-Strips
3. The art of MOTU
4. The Complete Guide to he-Man & She-Ra Animated &
5. MOTU Character Guide and World Compendium.

These all came out in pretty short order a few years ago. Now finally a 6th book is coming out covering all the toys themselves on April 27th. "The TOYS of He-Man & MOTU". Looks like it (hopefully) covers everything from the original through Classics 2.0 (or whatever it was called). Basically everything up until the "New For 2020" line came out at retail stores, at least that's what I'm hoping, and probably why this book was delayed so much longer than the others because they were waiting for a stopping point so it could be as comprehensive as possible.

I know a Book is no replacement for the actual toys, but it definitely saves on space and Money, and is definitely nicer than all the pics I took of my own collection before I sold them on eBay well over a decade ago.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Sun Apr 04, 2021 2:08 pm

I think that's all of the books. I'll be picking the toy book up as soon as I can stop spending money on toys.

The DC comics/MOTU crossovers were pretty good but I don't tend to spend money on comics/graphic novels.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Fri Apr 09, 2021 1:25 pm

Sad times, MOTU WWE is already on its seventh wave before UK has even seen the first wave released.

Hoping Origins spikor isnt as bad as the spikes theyve used on junkyard dog

Sgt Slaugthers pretty cool, not much effort put into him but not really any needed.

Hitmans head gimmick ala Triclops is okay but no wow factor unlike New Day or Jake

Andre the Giant is okay but head sculpt looks way off but paves the way for Origins to get the Giants (Classics Giants had bad articulation so they might even tempt those who have classics collections)

https://news.toyark.com/2021/04/08/mast ... ter-423027

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:16 pm

My recent tower of power...

If I find a flocked panthor I might customise the standard version as Catra.

Mini comic with this wave, once again pretty good at featuring all the characters with a Hordak cameo (not sure what order the waves are)

Roboto
Despite his shoulders being a bit Kingdom galvatron ish the nostalgia hits all the notes as my bro had him when we were kids and he's got the cogs an all. His left hand looks like all his fingers were broken but hey, might be able to set them with a bit of heat.

Zodak
Still has the hairy chest behind his chest plate, one of my first original heman figures so this guy is cool to me. His little finger on his left hand is a bit out of shape. His gun looks pretty bad and even worse than the original but it was never a good looking gun to begin with.

She-ra
Okay, so I thought the knee joints looked awful on the female figures. In hand, yep they still look bad. It's probably pretty easy for me to use this as a netflix Shera but the female figures are slightly smaller than the males. They could have probably used a wwe body for these figures.

Sorceress
Nice to have in all white like the movie

knee joints still bleargh.

Panthor
With just a few more articulation joints this would be amazing. It's still amazing compared to the price of classics though.

Grayskull
The great:
Fabric flags on two pieces, really nice touch
So much carried over from original castle
The material, the plastic on 200x Castle goes pretty brittle hopefully this one holds up.

The ugh???
The castle still needs to be opened by the power sword or a thin sword but you don't get one with the castle haha

The door... Once it opens the door the base is the jaw Bridge but it has no trap mechanism. It just seems on to have it done that way. The pro of it is that nothing protrudes when the door is closed.

The bad
A few slight imperfections on paint/rubs. Only one part of the cressy and two parts of the jaw bridges teeth so not a big deal but they are there on mine. Others might have them more noticeable or in different spots.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:46 pm

I probably dont need a 24 inch shogun warrior skeletor...but it's soooo prettty.

My friend has picked me up some of the WWE Motu stuff form one of her many thousands of trips to Walmart (but she has told me two of the figures) and the Snake Rattler Ring

sadly looks like I have missed out on Mr T and Jake but some is better than none.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Tue May 04, 2021 11:51 am

Masterverse in packaging.

seem more inline with 200X with additional joints/hand options so pretty darn good.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Tue May 04, 2021 11:57 am

Ohhh! Moss Man looks great. Skeletor also seems to have a better proportioned torso than the initial images.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Tue May 04, 2021 12:00 pm

yeagh mossman looks awesome

My 200x one will probably never be opened so he might be joining my 200X just hoping for a bit of scale witht he bodies not being generic reuses (Joe and Rangers have me bored of that already)

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Tue May 04, 2021 12:06 pm

I tend to lean towards the one-off or unusual character designs, like Moss Man, Trap Jaw, Modulok etc. It is one of the reasons NA appealed to me so much. There was no uniformity and virtually everyone had some kind of asymmetrical aesthetic. The generic molds put me off collecting Marvel Legends back in the day, too.

News Credits: 19 · by **blackeyedprime** » Tue May 04, 2021 12:33 pm

Same for me with marvel legends but I had a vast toybiz collection (though it has been left with my son) so I wasnt in a rush to replace them (fortunately as marvel legends is a money pit and then some) -though I was almost tempted by a discounted silver samurai with the toybiz one being a bit basic.

My friends stashed a motu Steph Mcmahon ( Using it my William Stout Evil Lynn for Origins along with Grayskulls white sorceress) and Ultimate Warrior for me, I'll worry about the favors she will request of me later -tho I'm a little worried at the mo hahaha.

News Credits: 6 · by **AllNewSuperRobot** » Tue May 04, 2021 12:40 pm

Favours from friends are always a slippery slope :lol:

I called it a day at the BAF Sentinel/Galactus/Apocalypse (whichever came last, I can't recall now). I was half tempted by some of the modern BAF's like Sauron. But I just don't want the waves that come with them.

I'll keep an eye out for the Revelation line (probably alongside the show) and take it from there. I still have to finish my Classics Space Mutants at some point too.

News Credits: 56 · by **o.supreme** » Tue May 04, 2021 11:13 pm

My copy of the Darkhorse comprehensive guide:The Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe came today. It is absolutely beautiful. So many memories. It's the next best thing to having the toys, which I just don't have room for unfortunately.