“I am Saurod, evil reptile with the laser-shooting mouth!” – Saurod, MOTU: The Cosmic Key Mini-Comic (1987).
This summer, I’d been running a few MOTU Classics Catch-Up Weeks to take down the pile of unopened figures. Then I let things get away from me again and the pile got even more massive. (It could be worse, I’m too broke to buy the Talon Fighter this month). So I’m gonna put my MOTU Goggles back on and attack this stack. There are 14 figures total, pretty much every figure since July minus the pain-in-the-butt-to-get SDCC Tops 2pk and Light Hope, because I apparently skipped him last year. My plan is to get caught up on all those before the end of the year so I can do my Year-End Top 10 lists appropriately.
I thought about hitting them up in chronological order, but then I looked at the stack and wanted to start with Saurod. And, hey, there’s no rules here. So Saurod it is. If I screw up and call him Sauron, will blame Marvel. Or Tolkien.
I never hard Saurod as a kid. I never had any of the movie figures. Heck, I never had any of the 1987 figures (I found Scareglow at a flea market years later). I did watch the movie though and knew about Saurod as a kid, but I can’t say I cared a whole lot? He doesn’t talk. He gets punked fairly easily & dies quickly – hey, if this were Star Wars, he’d be Boba Fett! If only, Saurod, if only.
The old figure was cool though. Somewhere along the line, not in the movie, Saurod picked up the ability to shoot frickin’ laser beams from his mouth. And his toy? Well, his toy approximated that by shooting sparks. It’s cool that it came about this way, because if not, Saurod would be called Dinosparks or Electro-Dile instead of a one-letter-off LOTR name. The after the fact action feature was pretty cool though and it makes me wish I’d had a classic Saurod. I miss the days when toys could emit sparks.
Umpteen years later, we’ve got Saurod in Classics. Unlike Blade & Gwildor, Saurod ended up not reverting back to his movie costume. He’s definitely update with a great sculpt. Tons of detail from the movie costume has been layered back in, but he’s not as screen accurate as we’ve seen with the other two figures. In some ways, it could because of the “Classicizor” machine simplifying some of the more ornate details. Continue to Page 2…
uh, you missed the “Comic-Con Sale” email from Matty this past week, didn’t you? They had the tops available again.
tops- http://www.mattycollector.com/store/matty/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsPage/ThemeID.1298800/productID.319252000
full list- http://www.mattycollector.com/store/matty/en_US/DisplayCategoryProductListPage/ThemeID.1298800/categoryID.70628600
anywho, this guy looks cool, but I can see where you were going with the strip: He doesn’t quite fit in anywhere. MOTUC’s version of the Island of Misfit Toys?
Excellent review and comics!
I think this is one of my favourite figures in the line. The only way it could be better is if it had a snap-on spark effect and smelled of friction-burnt flint and steel. };D
Great review!
That just proves it, Hsss is the biggest dick in all of MotU.
Talking about being very particular about snakes, when acompanied by a gecko and a robot. 😉
The smarmy smile is just the cherry on top. Great comics!
I’d been looking forward to this guy for so long. One of my favorite designs from the movie, second only to Skeletor, and I always wished he had more scfeentime. And it’s one of the last vintage figures I don’t have, so I’ve been doubly wanting this one. And continuing the recent trend in this line, he does not at all disappoint. The only thing I would say could improve would be if he had a spark effect piece you could put in his mouth, but considering that he and Chooblah (released in the same month) were both virtually 100% new tooling, I’ll allow it.
hahahaha I love that Snout Spout is around to put out the fire on Blade.