Then you get to the noggin. It’s there. It works. The spikes are a fun faux-hawk, the mask has a great death metal feel, he even has this fantastic, probably unintentional, dissatisfied (“like, really, dude?”) look on his face. I love the expressiveness of the sculpt. But it just doesn’t all gel. It ends up as a somewhat gummy-looking cartoon head on a figure that was otherwise translated well. I don’t know if it’s just the gloopy paint (particularly on the ears), or the necessary-rounding of the spikes, or what, but the head just doesn’t live up to the potential of the body. Or even other figures – look at Plundor or Fang Man as examples. Plundor didn’t get a smooth cartoon bunny head, he got fur. On Strong-Or, rivets were added throughout the body, why not a few smartly placed on the mask? It’s not bad, but I just feel meh about it. Moving on.
Strong Arm also wins me over for his color palette. I think that’s been the great thing about the Filmation line really. Figures like Icer or Batros bring these new color combos after dozens of figures. It’s really refreshing. Some of these Filmation guys just pop on the shelf. I love that. Strong Arm is a new featured member of that club too. He draws the eye with his (I’m hoping, nipples aside) orange jumpsuit, the blue armor, the blue metallic highlight. He’s as sharp as the points on his head aren’t!
The flipside of the color is the paint. Boy howdy, did I end up with a particularly sloppy Strong Arm. I’ve only ever returned a handful to Matty, typically I intend to fix the paint myself down the road, but Strong Arm… I prolly shoulda, There are a few stray marks in the orange plastic here and there on his legs, arm, and head. His head, by the way, is molded blue and painted over. It’s a shame because I think it’s a duller gray than the arm and that doesn’t help his head sculpt one bit, but scratches also show the blue underneath. Stinky. The worst area for me was the metallic blue spikes on the head though. That paint’s kinda splattered all over the back of his head. Doh.
In addition to the sweet extended arm, Strong Arm gets this awesome ray gun. One of the highlights of Club Filmation was the accessories, or artifacts, from the cartoon. I loved getting these in the second half of the year and this rifle is no exception. I had thought it was the Ray Gun used to teleport people to another dimension from Teela’s featured episode, but the internet tells me it’s just a shrink ray. Either way, it’s an awesome piece and looks great. I’ve handed it off to some other villains though as it looks best when held with two hands and well, Strong Arm isn’t good for that.
Overall, I guess I shouldn’t knock the head sculpt too much. I just wish it were as detailed as the body. The boots, loincloth, and armor look so great and it just clashes to my eye. Strong-Or is still a solid contender and a great ending piece to the Filmation Club though. I can’t believe it took nearly thirty years for a guy with such a great look to get a toy! The extra gun is a nice touch and the two arms were fun for the pics, but I think the base figure is the real sleeper here. This is a figure you could really come to appreciate over time, particularly if you get one actually painted well. It makes me feel like Strong Arm coulda been a contender if he’d just gotten more screen time to shine thirty years ago. Luckily, this figure is doing a good job of making up for lost time.
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Bad Noisy! Bad!
Man you had me rolling on your second page pics lol!
LOL Thanks, Templar!
He does kinda pop, color-wise, but that paint slop and asymmetrical-ness* kinda ruin it for me. (Spawn’s design drives me insane.) Maybe if that bright yellow glove had a blue cuff and silver hand? something to match the rest of the color scheme.
Also I can’t help but hear that “Strong Arm” name and remember firstborn’s Gung-Ho was re-christened that. yeah, like looking like a Village People reject was helping the shirtless guy in a teal vest/cap combo. LOL
that last shot tho? LMAO!!
*(auto-corrected spelling on this word and it still has a redline! wtf?)
“Asymmetry,” dude.
Dear Strong Arm,
How do you type with a giant metal boxing glove on your hand?
Crapfully yours,
Blot
Excellent photos as always Noisy! I may not be able to collect this line anymore (being an international non-subber) but looking at the figures is fun.
The reason Strong Arm only popped up once seems to be that he was a prototype version of Fisto OR Jitsu (or both). There’s some production notes about him having a “spring-loaded” arm action, which seems to indicate the note came from Mattel and that he was included in the hopes it would promote his toy early.
The same thing happened with Fang Man. Fang Man was a prototype version of Kobra Khan, clearly revealed by his production note of “able to spray a sleeping mist from his mouth”.
Again, great review.
Great review and pics, excellent comics! Laughed out loud on several, especially the last one!
Love this figure. If only they’d vac-metalled his photanium bits. Drag about the slop on yours, mate. I don’t think anyone’s Strongarm’s head-spikes were painted very well.
Dude looks like a bruiser alright. I was gonna ask why he didn’t get a figure if he made the cartoon back in the day but Sandman just answered my question and then some. Thanks, man!
The head sculpt is really weak though, and the paint blotches pictured here give me further pause to sub up again. You’d think QC would be a lesser deal by now but no such luck.
QC has been pretty shocking of late. I got a Batros with a knee hanging off its hinge (just a case of heating up the leg and pushing the pin all the way through, but I shouldn’t have had to), a Spirit of Hordak with two right shins, a Horde Prime with a nearly featureless face, the paint was so thick and sloppy. If you’re capable of a bit of scraping, repainting, and heating-and-popping, it’s easily fixable, but it’s a needless annoyance, nonetheless.
Having said that, little short of the Apocalypse will prevent me from subbing until the line dies.
I don’t think that’s a Jumpsuit… Them Catra pics made me spill my latte.
You said roboto/two-bad…..I think you mean roboto/trapjaw
Phenomenal pics on this one. well done!
I did not sub to Club Filmation (although I would have liked to) but I decided I wanted to have Strong-Or.
Most filmation designs just look really uninspired to me. Like what a five year old would concoct after playing with his MOTU figures.
Lay ze man would likely say the same thing… I’m of two minds on the topic. Is it hard to conceive how you grow up fang man and an adult collectible worth buying? Yes, but strong arm? He’s a whole other matter. A few sharp lines and additional details like rivets on the face mask, and he would absolutely look badassed. And there is an element of notoriety to the filmation designs that is hard to come by in any market, so in that sense, even if we’ve grown up and moved on, they are successful in that a glance is enough to identify the design, the design house, and the era. That’s brand success right there.
So I would, but so would anyone when they consider what Filmation was up against in terms of turnaround time and budget.
It’s not like they themselves even preferred those designs, they just had no choice. (Of course, there is this early Filmation footage from a commercial that’s been floating around that’s more mini-comic/toy accurate that looks awesome!)
But that said, yes, Strong Arm was definitely a contender for “bad ass figure” in my mind’s eye and I can’t begin to say how disappointing the final figure looks.
Maybe if we’d been able to see a 200x take on him, the purists could’ve softened a bit on their cheap cel animation-accuracy hardline once they saw the potential for awesomeness that exists here.
This is the one I’ve waited for since he showed in that one episode and this has been my dragon I’ve chased all my life. Only compliant is the neck was too short. But, I bought two and the one I opened I popped the head off and just let it rest posed on the peg and he’s perfect.
Long Live STRONG ARM!!!!!