Finally...
I'm so excited: I pre-ordered the "Masters of the Universe Classics Ultimates" in November (I guess) last year and they finally arrived. I just picked them up from the customs today. The figures were pre-paid ($175 + $48,- shipping) and I had to pay roundabout $44 when picking them up from the customs, so with a total of $267 ($53,40 per figure = 43,-Euro) they were quite pricy...but I totally love them :)
As
these are the first Masters figures from Super7 I had concerns they
would differ from the Mattel style or quality, but be sure: They don't.
They fit right in and there's no difference between these figures and
the ones Mattel produced.
The figures are packed very well inside a fitting box holding the 5 mailer boxes with no air in between. I just came in from the rain, so the box is still a little wet on the photo, hope you don't mind :)
The figures are packed very well inside a fitting box holding the 5 mailer boxes with no air in between. I just came in from the rain, so the box is still a little wet on the photo, hope you don't mind :)
The mailer boxes were in totally fine condition and I just couldn't wait to unpack them.
The first figure I unpacked was He-Man. He comes in a blister packaging with the classic 80's design (not the usual Classics' green brick design).
He-Man is displayed inside the blister with his alternate head, but also brings the original Classics head as well as the Oo-Larr head with him. He comes with his power sword, his half-power sword, an Alcala style power sword, his axe and his shield. Nothing new here. In He-Man's case the most noteable differences are the paint details on his belt (different colours) as well as on the Classics head (much darker hair, cleaner face paint). I'm glad Super7 changed some of the paint details on these figures compared to their original releases. So you can easily see (if they're loose and unpacked) which one is the Mattel released figure and which one is Super7's Ultimates figure.
As for He-Man the differences (at least to me) are not huge enough to have a second one on display on my shelf, so I leave this one unpacked in it's beautiful package. Note: The blister packaging is non resealable - so if you unpack, it's final.
The second figure I took from it's mailer box is Skeletor. Skeletor is pretty much of a mix and match here. The figure uses the Dragon Blaster Skeletor's body with original Classics Skeletor's armour and Keldor's Cape. He also comes with a Keldor Head and an Alcala style head.
Accessoires include his havoc staff, his power sword and his half-power sword. In addition we get an Alcala style power sword which is brand new to this figure (we got a similar one with NA-He-Ro, but never had a purple Skeletor style one). I think this is a great addition, but again no huge enough differences here to justify an unpacking of the figure to me and I could easily build an "nearly" Ultimate Skeletor by using the mentioned parts from pre-existing figures and put them together. No need to rip off the beautiful case.
There are very little differences in some of the colours they used (a brighter "gem" for example), but nothing too outstanding and I think (at least on this figure) it's not by choice, but simply because of a different colour.-brand the factory used or different plastic as in 2008. Overall this variant of Skeletor is a great figure, but I'm fine with leaving him inside the blister packaging.
The third figure is Teela...and omg...I love love love this one.
Teela comes with her snake armour head, her regular red headed head, a blonde repaint of the regular head and the BG-Teela long haired blonde head. She also brings her sword, her snake staff, a speer (which formerly came with The Goddess figure) and her shield.
The speer, though it comes from a different character, makes sense, because in the prototype artwork and sketches Teela was displayed with that speer instead of the snake staff. Teela was originally supposed to be two figures in one: A female warriour (Teela) with a speer and a Sorceress with snake armour and snake staff. With this great set you have multiple possibilities to display Teela and finally this is a figure which really makes sense to me to unpack and display though I already have original Teela on the shelf.
Her red-brown parts are much lighter and more red-brown than brown-red like the original was so this makes the first difference. Displayed with her blonde repainted head (which is a hint on the early minicomics by the way), and her speer, she's almost like a totally new figure (well, or variant). I love it and I wish I had bought a second one...I really hope to get my hands on one more one day as these are not for sale anymore at Super7 (they were made on pre-order...did I mention?).
Teela comes with her snake armour head, her regular red headed head, a blonde repaint of the regular head and the BG-Teela long haired blonde head. She also brings her sword, her snake staff, a speer (which formerly came with The Goddess figure) and her shield.
The speer, though it comes from a different character, makes sense, because in the prototype artwork and sketches Teela was displayed with that speer instead of the snake staff. Teela was originally supposed to be two figures in one: A female warriour (Teela) with a speer and a Sorceress with snake armour and snake staff. With this great set you have multiple possibilities to display Teela and finally this is a figure which really makes sense to me to unpack and display though I already have original Teela on the shelf.
Her red-brown parts are much lighter and more red-brown than brown-red like the original was so this makes the first difference. Displayed with her blonde repainted head (which is a hint on the early minicomics by the way), and her speer, she's almost like a totally new figure (well, or variant). I love it and I wish I had bought a second one...I really hope to get my hands on one more one day as these are not for sale anymore at Super7 (they were made on pre-order...did I mention?).
The fourth figure is Faker.
I think this is a really awesome figure, too, because like with Teela - or even more - you can build a totally new variant.
Faker comes with his power sword, half power-sword, Alcala style sword, axe, shield and 3 heads in total. The Alcala sword is totally new to this figure and the shield is totally differently painted than the one that came with the weapon's pack back in the days.
The included Classics head is orange haired (the original one is dark red haired).
The hair on the battle damaged head is much better glued on spot and the face has a different (human) eye paint on the blue side of the face other than the one that came with NA-Skeletor.
The 80's style head is totally new to Faker and makes a nice addition (remember: we only got that one for He-Man with the Oo-Larr figure).
So this set again is really great to create a totally new variant of Faker as you can see on the picture above. The painting on the figure is much simpler than on the original Faker, as the belt and wristbands are simply just black and the armour is missing that "dirty-goldwash", but this is fine to me, so it makes an even bigger difference to the originally released figure and totally justifies buying another Faker figure (to me).
I think this is a really awesome figure, too, because like with Teela - or even more - you can build a totally new variant.
Faker comes with his power sword, half power-sword, Alcala style sword, axe, shield and 3 heads in total. The Alcala sword is totally new to this figure and the shield is totally differently painted than the one that came with the weapon's pack back in the days.
The included Classics head is orange haired (the original one is dark red haired).
The hair on the battle damaged head is much better glued on spot and the face has a different (human) eye paint on the blue side of the face other than the one that came with NA-Skeletor.
The 80's style head is totally new to Faker and makes a nice addition (remember: we only got that one for He-Man with the Oo-Larr figure).
So this set again is really great to create a totally new variant of Faker as you can see on the picture above. The painting on the figure is much simpler than on the original Faker, as the belt and wristbands are simply just black and the armour is missing that "dirty-goldwash", but this is fine to me, so it makes an even bigger difference to the originally released figure and totally justifies buying another Faker figure (to me).
As you can see, they also painted different parts of the axe with the orange-gold paint compared to the earlier released one. This does not make a huge difference to me but I thought it deserved to be mentioned.
The fifth and final figure in the Ultimates wave 1 set (well, I call it wave 1, because I really hope there will be a wave 2) is Ram Man.
Ram Man is a figure I never cared much about and I don't think there's much "ultimate" about him as he simply just brings his regular alternate head and his axe. Anyway seeing his as a variant, not an ultimate, he's pretty nice and I think many people are very happy to see Ram Man in his minicomic colours for the first time in figure form.
I'm very happy that this bulky figure - remember: Mattel sold him as an more expensive oversized figure - is sold equally priced as the other figures in this set. I guess I'll display him with his alternate head, so I have two very different Ram Men on the shelf...by the way, looking at these pictures, I recognize I really should dust my figures off someday soon :)
Ram Man is a figure I never cared much about and I don't think there's much "ultimate" about him as he simply just brings his regular alternate head and his axe. Anyway seeing his as a variant, not an ultimate, he's pretty nice and I think many people are very happy to see Ram Man in his minicomic colours for the first time in figure form.
I'm very happy that this bulky figure - remember: Mattel sold him as an more expensive oversized figure - is sold equally priced as the other figures in this set. I guess I'll display him with his alternate head, so I have two very different Ram Men on the shelf...by the way, looking at these pictures, I recognize I really should dust my figures off someday soon :)
Wow, I'm more than happy with the Ultimates though I was very much of a skeptic in the beginning. I kind of wish there were some more paint differences on some of those figures to seperate them more from their original releases, but overall this is an awesome set. I have to say the paint jobs on these figures, especially when it comes to the heads/faces are very clean and in some cases better than Mattel's ones. It seems (at least on the figures I received) quality control is superb at Super7. What I love most about these figures is, that you can build "real" variants with most of them, which (at least for me) justifies buying theose characters again and Overall I'm very satisfied how these figures turned out.
What about you? Do you like this set? And if there was a second wave of Ultimates...what would your choice of figures be and why? Let me know in the comments :)
And please be sure to check out my brand new MOTU CUSTOM INDEX PAGE, a guide to all the customs I posted here (so far): Motu-Index
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