Just a quick note on the ever-boring articulation category. Demo-Man is a buck figure, so you know the drill. The only things of note here are that the head has some really nice range, particularly in the tilt category which I always enjoy. Two points of articulation are also missing from this figure as the new full shin/calve piece means no boot swivel, which I don’t enjoy. On the bright side, I didn’t have a single stuck or loose joint.
While I really enjoyed Demo-Man’s figure, his accessories are the icing on the cake. Depending on how you look at it, Demo-Man either came with two accessories and two heads or three accessories and one head.
I really enjoyed the mace in particular. It’s got a nice sculpt, particularly the scratched and dented business end, and I’m glad it was made with a harder plastic. The crook in the length of rope is believable – though it only makes physical sense in a couple poses. Demo-Man holds onto it tightly in those gigantic mitts of his. The scimitar is a similarly well-sculpted weapon. It’s got plenty of battle damage along the blade and a great dinosaur head on the hilt that evokes all manner of questions which will never be answered…
The best thing I can say about the weapons is that I can’t pick one. I don’t really want Demo-Man shelving around with his hands all loaded up, but I just can’t narrow down which piece I prefer to be his primary weapon.
In the original concept drawing, Mark Taylor tossed a skull & helmet in the background. I have to laugh, wondering about how much thought he put into that little skull. Was it there purposefully? Was it just something to break up the ground? Did he ever, even just once, think that would end up being an accessory for the character he was drawing? Granted, it did take 30 years, but it’s been realized. It’s another nice accessory with quality sculpting and mostly good paint (the silver overfloweth a bit). If you were so inclined, the little half-head does include the standard head cavity, so you can place it on any figure, though it will look a bit odd as the skull is missing its lower half. I much prefer it as a prop/accessory and I wish there was a better way to hold onto it.
Lastly, Demo-Man included a nice little year-end bonus in the form of an extra Skeletor head based on the art of MOTU mini-comic artist Alfredo Alcala! My go-to Skeletor head is still the one from the TRU 2pk, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love this one. I went down into the cellar and freed my original Skeletor and popped the Alcala head on for permanent display. It’s that cool. The lack of symmetry, the complete wreck in the dental department, this is one appropriately creepy head and I love it.
A year ago I was extolling the virtues of Vikor and I find myself doing the same thing a year later with Demo-Man. There were some duds this year (and, no Icarius wasn’t one of them people, c’mon!), but had Demo-Man come out when Mattel intended, he and Vikor would have made fine bookends for 2011. The figures are free of vintage-homage limitations and the detailed sculptwork makes them two of my favorites for 2011 by a large margin. The sculpt, the colors, and the accessories are great – if he were painted a tad less sloppy, he’d be a five-star figure hands down. That just makes the wait for more of these concept characters all the more difficult though. Can Mattel get through 2012 without doing Red Beast? And we have to get to that Horde Mummy sooner or later, right? And, yes, we still need Ram Man too, I haven’t forgotten…
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So, let’s see if I have it right…
Conceptually, Vikor is the He-Man that wasn’t (and fuel for the “Conan license turned into MOTU” thinking), Demo-Man is Skeletor that wasn’t and Barbarian Teela is the Teela that wasn’t, kinda-sorta (at least visually, stylistically similar to Vikor), and they ALL could actually be Dino-Riders in PreTernia.
Well, that’s nice and all, couldn’t they go ahead and just call it a sub-line?
Oh, wait. MATTEL! 🙂
On my Demo-Man, the red shirt had too much of a tendency to ride up and give him a belly shirt look, so I just ditched it and put the shoulder armor on his bare chest. I like that look a lot; makes him seem like more of an evil monstery minion than a supernatural evil force, but that’s the role I want him to play, anyway.
me too
Agree with pretty much all the sentiments of the review!
Instead of the scraping paint with a razor, I highly recommend attempting a retouch job with paints for those so inclined.
The results are really great and of much better service to such a great head sculpt.
Also did some retouches on the Alcala Skelly to bring out the creepiness even more and to tone down the heavy green.
I also agree the tuft of hair is a little bizarre.
I get they were trying to be exhaustively thorough while adapting the Mark Taylor drawing.
And for that it’s even kind of a nice in-joke.
But when I first saw it I was like “What the?!” and had to look at the drawing again to figure out what it was supposed to be. 😀
I gave him the silver horde crossbow from the weapons pack and his skimitar; he looks good as Horde background fodder. The loin cloth and lanky, non-boot cut legs irritate me. The tuft of hair looks like a nasty skin tag more than anything else.
The little streak of paint on Demo-Man’s nose bothers me too, but since he has the same dark coloring around his eyes, I can pass it off as war paint (kind of).
Demo-Man, I think, is the best looking bad guy on my MOTUC shelf. Trap Jaw looks crazy, Hordak menacing, Grizzlor bizarre, but Demo-Man is the only one who really looks like he has no qualms about gutting anyone who gets in his way. (The wash on the scimitar which looks liked dried blood can attest to that.)
My Alcala Skeletor head isn’t as evenly-colored as yours is. Mine is mostly green going up to about the eye sockets, then goes much yellower at the forehead. It’s not bad–the transition is much smoother than it is on my Battle Armor Skeletor, who has solid breaks between the colors, so I’m not going to fault it for paint.
The Alcala head really makes me want to pick up another Skeletor so I can display it with the Havoc Staff and everything. All I need is the first-release “open grip” Skeletor and I’ll have every version of him so far!
Man it’s great to finally have both original versions of He-man & Skeletor in this line. Even though his color is totally different from the 1st version that we seen at last years SDCC Demo-man is still cool. That 2nd Skeletor head that comes with him needs Mo-Larr dental work asap!! Cool review by the way!!
The cucumber bit made laugh pretty damn hard.
not directly related to this review, but have you guys talked to SMC about when we’re getting a weapons allotment for the girls? just struck how many awesome photos have been snagged of vikor and DM w/ the new SC bits, and poor BB teela still hasn’t been thusly blessed. i mean come on, her boobs only hold appeal for so long, then she needs some weapons!
sorry, that should be “SMC bits”
“True evil knows the value of genital coverage.” Man, that quote belongs on a Transformer’s tech spec. Erector, perhaps?
I think it’s universally agreed that the Alcala head is an unprecedented and unexpected treat in a line where there are more than a few wrongs to be righted. I too used it to replace the TRU head. I have the original Skeletor head still on the original figure, but I’m considering ordering another Skeletor for the Kevin Kosse Filmation head I ordered after I forgot about the Alcala head.
The ghoulish green doesn’t bother me either. Given his “forgotten but powerful” persona, I consider him to be an obscenely powerful undead spirit like the Dead Dunharrow men in the LOTR movies.
Even given your usual great reviews, this one is one of the very best in months! I can’t tell you how long I laughed at the “cucumber” panel, because I’m still laughing as I type this.
Love the old-style Skeletor head, which only further reinforces the idea that we should get a massive Alternate Heads Pak. I actually like the ultra-bright green on this figure, because I remember owning a fantasy-type character back in the 1980s (can’t remember which one, but it was someone other than Whiplash) who was almost exactly this colour. So it has a cozy feel for me beyond the usual “Vintage Prototype” fuzziness that some collectors get. Margaret Thatcher on the movie screens, lime-green monster figures . . . it’s like the Eighties never ended!
I think the brighter green was the right way to go, he is an awsome sculpt and his color really gives him this pop effect that stands out. That extra skeletor head is off the hook!