Rant Review: Masters of the Universe Origins Tri-Klops figure

 Another core member of  Skeletor's  evil warriors has arrived! Released during the second year of the vintage line's run, Tri-Klops (along with Trap Jaw) was packaged with a cool glow-in-the-dark "warrior's ring," a presentation which gave the figure a "deluxe" feel in my mind. As most of Skeletor's group had monstrous or ghoulish appearances, his human look made him stand out among them. My immediate impressions of Tri-Klops were that he should probably be helping He-Man and his allies against Skeletor's legion of monsters, but that he must be especially bad since he was allied with the Lord of Destruction instead. The included minicomic presented a different scenario, portraying Tri-Klops as a mercenary hired by Skeletor to eliminate his hated foes. He was highly skilled and dangerous, and possessed a sense of honor. I found this intriguing, and it quickly became my preferred characterization for Tri-Klops. Subsequent portrayals have rarely embraced this interpretation, but it remains who the character is in my mind. The figure has been a favorite of mine since that day when I first saw him, so any new version has much to live up to. Does this newest version manage it? Read on...

The figure is the basic He-Man figure with a new head and armor, of course, which is no surprise. Those familiar parts are as well-sculpted as expected, and the newly tooled parts similarly hearken back to the vintage toy in most respects. The vintage figure famously had at least three distinct faces, and this one pretty much splits the difference between a couple of them. As with many of the core villains in this line, he has a more expressive face sculpt, a grimace that is well-suited for a mid-battle pose. The tiny teeth are distinctly sculpted. If you're expecting the cool little details the Four Horsemen hid underneath the visor on the MOTU Classics figure, however, you'll be disappointed; as with the vintage figure, his brow is devoid of detail. The visor itself is very faithful to its vintage counterpart, and rotates easily, though it's not so loose that it won't stay in position once you've fixed it where you want it. Each eye is traditionally supposed to represent a different vision-based ability-- x-ray vision, dista-vision, etc.-- but I, and I imagine many others, always used them to represent Trike's moods. Blue was when he was calm, red was for combat situations, and the fully red one only got broken out when he was seriously pissed off and ready to wreck someone! The tech-based details present on the 2002 and Classics figure are omitted in this vintage-based sculpt, so the eyes have the more organic appearance you'd expect from that approach.

The figure's paint apps, while few, are kinda all over the place in terms of quality. The teeth are perfect, and the eyes are very neat overall, but there's plenty of slop on the orange bits, and where the face transitions to the black headpiece. The armor also needed another coat of paint, as the green shows through the orange in several areas. There's a spot on the belt where the paint was apparently scraped off sometime before the figure arrived here. Things like this are pretty easy to fix, but then, they shouldn't have to be fixed. The stripes on the back of the armor are unpainted. It also would have been nice to have a slight gloss coat over the black area of his headgear to differentiate it from the black hair, but again, I get that they're not really doing things like that with this line. 

Unless you count his armor, Tri-Klops only has one accessory: his trademark sword. It improves on the vintage sword's sculpt by doing away with the holes that were molded into one side of the original one, and the plastic is stiff enough that it shouldn't wilt over time. It fits into a strap on the back of his armor, as expected. Alas, there is no warrior's ring. A doomseeker would have been an awesome inclusion. And yes, it's a 2002 element, but the line has included such things on occasion, so that sort of thing is clearly not off the table. Just one real accessory seems a little light for this line. The wave four minicomic is also included, and it's in line with what we've come to expect. There's just not much you can do when you have to feature so many characters in just a few pages. I still love that we're getting them, though! Tri-Klops has the standard articulation, with swivel & hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles, swivels at the waist and boot tops, and a ball-jointed head. He also gets an extra point of articulation with his swiveling visor. All of these joints work well, and the parts pop apart easily at all the usual areas. As always, I recommend heating the elbows, knees, and hips beforehand if you want to pop those apart. 

This is a pretty simple figure overall, so it would have been tough for Mattel to screw it up. I still feel they're playing things a little too safe at times with this line-- not including appropriate accessories from the 2002 era, for instance-- but at the end of the day, this is mostly a vintage-based line, so I can't really fault them for sticking to that mission statement. Tri-Klops remains as cool as ever, even without any extra frills. I would have loved some of those extras mentioned above, but I love this character and the figure all the same. Anything extra, while nice, would just be window dressing. He's a core character, and I know I'm not the only one who likes to pair him with Trap Jaw as a team, so it's definitely nice to be able to complete that duo. That's it for this week, but use your dista-vision to find your way back here next week for more! Until then, stay safe out there, and happy hunting!