Speaking of those googly eyes, there’s another paint issue with Spikor that is downright confusing. Spikor’s limbs are molded black and painted light purple. I have no idea why this was done, whether it was planned by Mattel or the factory being chincy (purple is a difficult color to match across diffrent plastic consistencies), but it kinda sucks. As you can see, I’ve already got some paint damage on the joints and there’s a scratch on the right hand already too. It just seems like an odd thing to do and kinda makes Spikor feel like a custom figure in that regard. It’s a shame too because other than his eyes (which were better on my second Spikor) this is a nice looking figure that time and use will really wear on.
Ah, so here we are at the trident hand. The action feature being impractical for this line, it requires three newly tooled pieces to accomplish. You can imagine my joy at the use of those tooling dollars! The red attachment and then retracted and extended versions of the trident. I’m still not a fan, but Mattel did do something I wasn’t expecting – Spikor comes with a regular ol’ left hand. This was done so that he could also look like he appeared in the cartoon (which is apparently an episode I missed), but I don’t really care about why it’s here. I’m just happy to have it.
When I opened Spikor, I played with his interchangeable parts (all of which are deliciously Robot/Trap Jaw compatible) and ultimately configured him exactly as you’d suspect I would and put the trident pieces to the side. He’s been sitting here for a couple weeks and during that time, something has clicked in my head. Sans the “noisy-offensive” trident hand, Spikor looks pretty cool. He’s got a fun color scheme, the spike-theme is about as basic/fun MOTU as you can get (even if it makes absolutely no sense) and his head sculpt looks like he needs a day off. Toss in his big-giant-orange-kill-you-dead club, and Spikor really rose up out of the ashes of my disinterest. I even find myself wondering just how cool the NECA staction might’ve turned out, maybe he would’ve been awesome enough to overcome that silly trident hand too?
The point is that the trident was getting in my way. I knew this was a figure that other people wanted, that they loved as a kid, that were really excited to finally have happen the way I wanted all those Tracks updates. But I just wasn’t with those folks, at least in spirit. As a subscriber, I wholeheartedly accept that some months you get the bull and some months the bull gets you. I got mine earlier this year with Kobra Khan earlier and I was able to cobble together a gorgeous Man-At-Arms from Snake MAA; but not every month can be a winner for me, or for any of us for that matter. This month belonged to Spikor fans.
But, the subscription insured that this figure made his way into my collection. My purchase subsidizing him for his fans (not that he neccesarily needed it, though many others do). Still, I know enough to know I should give each figure a half a chance. In this case you could say Mattel gave me an extra hand if you prefer, but a figure I originally didn’t want has turned into something I’m happy to have. Sure, he doesn’t hold the same nostalgic affinity as Kobra Khan or Man-At-Arms for me, but he bought himself a nice spot in the collection nonetheless.
For more MOTU reviews, check out our
MOTU Classics Collector’s Guide.
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Great review. I laughed at that last series of pictures, those are hilarious.
I had Spikor as a kid, and there was always something off about him. His rubber band legs gave out while I was playing with him (which is weird because other of my old figures still stand perfectly today), and his paint kind of chipped off easier than on other figures too.
Sadly, somehow they managed to give me a Spikor with a few QC issues this time around too, which soured me a bit. He has the expected googly eyes, but he also has a fully fused foot joint (that isn’t budging even after hot water), one arm that doesn’t turn and a few paint chips in the purple. Not even counting his badly warped club, which was easily fixed. The worst thing though is that he has a very noticeable mold line across his cheek, which looks like a wrinkle.
A bit of a dissappointment.
Put your Spikor in the freezer for 20 minutes and I bet that fused ankle becomes unfused.
Funny how both of us didn’t find Optimus and end with a Tracks toy 😉 he was soo cool then and now.
for me it was the opposite… as a kid i tried hard as heck to find tracks and i never got him until the reissues…i got optimus on a birthday run where i got to pick any toy i wanted…
he is probably my second least favorite next to spector
that is spikor my second least favorite ..not tracks.. what is not to love about a flying car
Stop convincing me to remove the pupils of my toys!
great review! now i feel like removing pupils on a lot of figures;D no pupils work better for many of my favorites(hal jordan, batman and of course the ninja turtles:D). spikor is awesome i have him i cant stop fiddling around with him. i wish my trident was extendable;D
I’m one of the last guys that will take a vintage re-hash over some 4H added flair or a Millennium design, but I really ended up liking Spikor. I like his grumpy as hell face, and the trident just reminds me of a more aquatic theme. If he’s another race like Merman, it makes sense, and his spikes make sense as he’s like a blowfish man or something.
In the “Separation” episode of the MYP cartoon, there’s a big underwater frieze showing what looks like a battle between Mer-Man’s species and Spikor’s species (back before he became a one-off curse victim). I always assumed they were Urchin Men, but blowfish could work, too.
Urchin makes more sense. I knew there was a better example than a blowfish.
I still have my Spikor of old. I don’t recall how I got him but I grew found of him via the terror claws being made by him. Wish matty put those in as a bonus with Spikor. I’ll have to watch the eyes when looking for this guy. Dug the review and laughed at the one picture. Which one, schwing give a hint.
You turned down Metroplex for one of the smaller Joe vehicles? Metroplex? The gigantic Autobot City? DUDE!
Seriously, you are a master storyteller. Great segue between Tracks and Spikor there. I never had ol’ Spiky as a kid since I had given up on the line a while earlier. Still, he seemed one of the most menacing Masters from the middle years. Kind of a cross between a blowfish and a porcupine with a bad attitude. I like how you tricked him out with two maces, he looks way meaner that way. And even though I might be in the minority, those pupils make him look creepier to me. Sort of like a demonic Muppet or something.
Oh man, Noisy, I love the nostalgic stories about youthful toy-collecting. I do want to hear more about how you decided you didn’t need a bunch of Tracks, or why you hated Spikor!
Assuming there was more than Spikor not looking cool, lol.
Also, love the Stinkor sulk.
Nice review and pics, Noisy. Yeah, Spikor was not one of the “have to have” figures when I was a wee lad, either. He was one of the goofier looking Masters, along with Snout Spout and Buzz-Off, and even as a youth I knew the guy was kinda dorky. That said, I had hoped the 4H would work some magic with him, and show us how cool this character could be. Maybe give him a “bald” head, or a head with smoothed down spikes like a porcupine you could switch out with his classic “pissed-off” head when it’s time for fightin’. I don’t know. I mean, it looks like a Classic-cized update, and that’s about it. It’s not a bad figure, it just seems like ol’ Spikor was just kind of “phoned-in.”
“Phoned-in” is about the best way to put it IMO.
i feel like those last two photos were taken just for me… and i thank you from the bottom of my old black heart, even if they weren’t… but they totally were, weren’t they?
i passed on spikor, as the next few months expenses are forcing me to be more selective than i’d like to be (why, why am i being forced to dread december? there are so many cool pieces out in dec, and i feel like a schlub even asking the family to accommodate that much product “just for me.” am i the only matty custom who isn’t a self centered prick?) but i have always liked spikor… i was more than a tad peeved at the MYP when tri-klops, my favorite barbarian mercenary swordsman turned into the snake mountain mechanic while spikor, the REAL guy behind the skele-tech, got completely blown off.
as usual Noisy amazing job here!
Great review and great pics! (As always.)
Unlike many here, I was a fan of Spikor as a lad (and still am, apart from the ridiculous Filmation portrayal of the character), so was pleased to get this guy added to my collection. His head is a little smaller and less spiky than I’d been expecting after owning the original, but I’m not traumatised by it. If he’d only had a spring-out trident, I would’ve been thrilled. Your picture of him battleing the Vykron posse depicts him how I’d always imagined him: one of the baddest, most dangerous mammajammas on Eternia.
I didn’t know that about his skin being cast in black and painted purple. That bites! I’ll have to be careful, then. Having said that, I didn’t have any paint issues on mine with his skin or eyes like many people had. I was annoyed by the fact that the proximal edges of his studded bracelets weren’t painted well, and that all his weapons have “CHINA” blatantly printed on them.
Actually, I kind of like the way your examples have his eyes looking downward. For one, it makes a change from the usual Mattel “looking up” problem with painted eyes. And for another, it makes him look like he’s sneering down at you, adding to his grumpy appearance, with a hint of “I can lick you and your whole damn family, now get out of my way before you get a telescoping trident where the sun don’t shine” thrown in.
But I’ve gotta say I was impressed with the number of different metallic paints used on him. He’s got silver on his trident, metallic red on his belt, copper on his bubble-warped thagomizer*, metallic teal on his breastplate studs, and a really, really subtle metallic dark purple on his bracelets.
* Ever since I found out from the BBC Planet Dinosaur series that scientists now call the Stegosaurs’ spiked tails “thagomizers” in honour of a Gary Larson The Far Side cartoon on the subject, I’ve taken to referring to spiked clubs like this as thagomizers. I imagine Spikor holding it aloft for all to see, in the manner of Bruce Campbell, and saying: “See this? This is my THAGMOIZER!” I have a vivid internal fantasy life.
Looking forward to the Vykron review now!
“Ever since I found out from the BBC Planet Dinosaur series that scientists now call the Stegosaurs’ spiked tails “thagomizers” in honour of a Gary Larson The Far Side cartoon on the subject, I’ve taken to referring to spiked clubs like this as thagomizers. I imagine Spikor holding it aloft for all to see, in the manner of Bruce Campbell, and saying: “See this? This is my THAGOMIZER!”
i like the way you play.
Thank ‘e, mate! };D
Also thanks for correcting my misspelling on the final “THAGOMIZER.” My keyboard dyslexia is getting worse.
I am one who really was hoping to see a Staction version of this guy.
From the 4H’s concept art:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/Sephron13/IMG00540.jpg
it almost seems as though they’re suggesting a spiky torso with spikes poking through armor that’s been sealed and locked on top of him, presumedly some spell to keep him in line.
At least that’s my take. 🙂
That looks like a damnn nifty on the character, but the trident arm looks way too big on that version.
there is something about that trident arm in the concept arm that just looks a little too “red rocket” for me to take seriously. i know i have a fixation, but for real, it looks a little too much like a meathammer and not enough like a weapon… on the other hand, that version of the thagomizer looks fly as hell.
honestly though, it’s too much of the same for me. he looks like vintage spikor, just bigger. just being bigger isn’t cool. if they intend him to be in armor, then he needs armor that’s not colored like his skin, for starters. then, we need the trident to either be a real weapon, or an artificial limb… and just imagining the horsemen doing a really gnarled, mutilated stumpified hunk of limb hanging, and then the expertly crafted mechanical limb attached to it via spike and straps that are in no way friendly looking… that could be double live gonzo. or to put it another way, look at how much cooler trap jaw’s mechalimb came out… why didn’t they do something like that for poor spikor? instead the concept art gives us the great red knot, which sounds too much like the title of my bestiality porn.
Yeah, they definitely could’ve done more with the trident on that to make it more gruesome. After all, by the the time MO2K got to the Inaction Figure stage, they didn’t have to worry too much about traumatising the kiddies with Dave Kronenberg / Clive Barker body horror imagery.
nothing to do with Spikor, but I remember having Optimus Prime, the dinobots, sunstreaker, and sideswipe. I remember having no other autobots. Even then I was obsessed with the Decepticons
As a character I have no love nor hate for Spikor. I could go along with ‘Blowfish Man’ on him, I could see cartoon writers having a field day with ‘puffed up self importance’ and sudden shocks making him go BWOOMF!!
Saying that, the pic of him with the twin clubs, he suddenly strikes me as a brawler, a guy who just wades into a melee and whomps on everything and everyone around him. You send him in to break up a bar fight. He doesn’t CARE, he just wants to hit things.
I think taking out his pupils does wonders for his overall look, even if it does risk leaning to the ‘cartoony’ that made some people wince with Clawful.
I had Spikor as a kid, and I enjoyed playing with him alot. I never saw the cartoon episode with him until recently, but for me he was always matched up against Fisto, because of his spikes He-Man couldn’t punch him, so that left Fisto with his giant metal fist as the only master who could take him out without hurting himself in hand-to-hand.
Can’t wait to get Spikor in hand (in Australia, so should be here in a week or so).
It’s funny how so many people have different favourites. I was never a huge fan of Spikor as a kid, but really looking forward to the classics figure.
On the flip side, Kobra Khan, who Noisy likes, has never been a favourite of mine. I’ve always found him just dull. Then again, I’ve never been that big on Snakemen. Not sure why. I do love the Snake Face staction though (hated the vintage figure however).
I used to call Spikor “Grape-Man” when I was kid b/c of his purple color. Glad that FH made a left for him in Classics. Cool pics by the way!!