We interrupt our regularly scheduled Guest Review Week with some images from the Four Horsemen booth at El Paso’s Epcon! Joe Amaro sent along some pics from the show featuring 2ups of the Raven, the Vampire Lady, and more from the Seventh Kingdom & Masters of the Universe MO2k!
This weekend Epcon 2012 took over the El Paso Convention Center and in what was surely the best thing ever this weekend, the Four Horsemen sent Shane Dittsworth & Owen “O-Dawg” Oertling to the event along with a good crop of their 2ups for display. Joe Amaro helped get the 4H out to the Sun City and was kind enough to pass some pictures along. I’ll post the full gallery below, but I have to direct you to this picture first and foremost:
After you get a towel to wipe up the drool, check out the rest of the gallery:
For more pics from the full event, check out the El Paso Times!
RAVEN!!!!! VAMP LADY!!!!
Also, those MotU prototypes are so damn glorious, I’ll never get tired of seeing those.
Even that unpainted Hordak is one of the coolest things ever.
And seeing that Mek makes me care even less about missing MOTUC Mek. 😉
So, those MOTU designs are new or old from the statue line they released?
After SDCC did release any new OSM or 7th Kingdom figure? I want to order the new ones as soon as they available, so Noisy I’m counting on you for some news 😉
Here’s the rundown on the MotU stuff to the best of my memory:
1) Mekaneck and Orko: these are painted 2-up prototypes that were made into the 200x figure line, but like pretty much every figure from that line, they dulled down (or arbitrarily changed) many of the 4H’s original paint decos. So like with Mekaneck who has nice vivid reds in the prototype, his toy had more browns, could only extend his neck by turning to the side, had his visor changed to translucent green, and just ended up looking very toy-like and obscuring too much of the 4H’s awesome detail. Or as with Orko, whose toy was forced in a staring into the ground pose. So it’s always nice to the original vision for these figures before Mattel got their grimy mits on ’em.
2) Fisto: same as above, but the unpainted prototype. The main note here is that he’s shown with his sword accessory that Mattel nixed, something that caused such a furor among the fans that there were at least 2 custom versions created, semi-mass produced, and sold to fans (among the earliest 3rd party accessory stuff I had ever heard of, and definitely the 1st one I bought) and the demand had lasted so long that the 4H were finally able to deliver it via the extra accessory for the MOTUC version, but that’s the original version of that sword design.
3) Hordak and Snout Spout: these are two of the unpainted action figure prototypes that were shown off at SDCC way back in 2004 when Mattel had the line on the chopping block, and the MotU team wanted to try and use fan enthusiasm and reaction to potential new stuff to help keep the ball rolling. (You can see the other unreleased prototypes in this gallery http://afigures.com/g/?mode=album&album=2004_SDCC%2FMattel%2FMOTU ) Those were the days of petition after petition, and yes, it was about as annoying as it’s been with MOTUC, haha.
So pretty much all of those shown were eventually released as Stactions (though lacking articulation, these were seen by many fans as vastly superior to the figures, specifically due to how much more faithful they were to the 4H vision, paying attention to scale, paint, and sculpt fidelity in a way the figures never could/did). But as you see in those shots, Clamp Champ uses Fisto/IA He-Man parts, Sorceress has Teela parts, Stinkor shares with Stratos, and so on. But their Staction versions had the added benefit of 100% unique sculptures, something that gave each character their own just due, and something that for many has been a hard road to come back from with the share-heavy MOTUC line.
I still want that sculpted hair She-Ra! Bummer we never saw her as a Staction!
Anyway, turned out way more longwinded than I intended, but hope that helps! 🙂
Wow, amazing! Thank you very much for all the info 🙂
No problem. As MotU 200x was my first “official” introduction to the 4H (after years of buying their kickass McFarlane work without knowing who they were) I was drawn in pretty heavily to the 200x line.
They’ve done awesome work on every job they’ve had, but IMO they truly shine when they can just go to town, not having to worry about any restrictions, such as inappropriate safety standards, or fan expectations, or forced parts sharing, or character models that need to be adhered to.
And IMO the only arenas they’ve been able to really do that have been with the 200x stuff (particularly the NECA releases) and their own in-house lines: 7th Kingdom and Gothitropolis.
It’s the difference between seeing something commissioned versus what the artist truly wants to say with their work.
I can tell already I’m gonna be buying Raven and all his birdy brethren. And all the ladies too; the new crop ladies have that perfect combination of classy, sexy, and terrifying. The 7th Kingdom womenfolk have done a great job of breaking up the sausage fest that is my MOTUC shelf.
Alas, the one race I don’t have represented are the minotaurs. I’m not greedy, just one cow-man and I’d be happy. Unfortunately, those guys are a rarity on eBay.
I really wish those would somehow go back into production. I only have Xetheus, but I’d love to have the other minotaurs as well.
I hear you. Toss in a couple hundred with the Gothitropolis production. It would be nice, and I’d dbe happy to buy one of each.
Yeah, there’s definitely enough fans out there wanting new Mynos that at least one or two more variants wouldn’t hurt.
There’s been discussion on the 4H’s FANEx boards for years now about what would make for the coolest new ones.
Now THAT’S how you make Snout Spout cool. Awesome stuff, guys.
you know, i am already as whipped up as i think i can be for the raven and the vampire queen without further details about release: when, how much, how many. i just can’t invest more till i know what i’m actually investing. raven in particular look like, visually, the greatest action figure i’ve ever seen. no amount of re-showing him to me is going to change that, if the horsemen want me to do the work to go from super saiyin 2 to super saiyin 3, i’m going to need a price point and a release date… and they can’t even’t imagine super saiyin 4 without the variants being announced, ALL of them.
now, that said, the mo2k stuff hurts, because it’s so easy to see the potential there to use some of those details to make motuc even better than it is… but that’s not how the cookie (or snout spout’s trunk)crumbled. showing these now is like taunting me w/ cool toys i can’t have… that’s just mean man. like shooting holes in my alligator bags mean.
Had the Millenium figures been released with full articulation, it would have been the line of the decade. As it is, if Mattel decides to release these with full articulation once MOTUC is done I would be the first to sign up for them.
Not only full articulation (which incidentally the 4H originally intended!) but the figures in proper scale to one another, and nice matte paint ops as opposed to fields of unpainted plastic or too many glossies.
those damn ravens always looking so ill