One of the best aspects of Mattel's MOTU Origins line, in my mind, anyway, is how they're mixing up the release order of the figures. This has drawn a good bit of ire from some collectors-- How the hell can we get Ninjor before we have Moss Man, for instance-- but, as I've said before, this is a good thing because it allows for some excitement about what may be in future waves. If Mattel were just lazily following the vintage rollout, we'd know exactly what was coming, and when. That's just no fun. It also allows those of us who count some of the later figures among our favorites to get the Origins incarnations of them much sooner than we otherwise would! All that is a rather long-winded way of saying that we've already gotten the mighty Clamp Champ less than a year into the life of the Origins line!
I went on at length about this in my review of the MOTU Classics iteration of the character, but Clamp Champ was an instant favorite of mine back when I was a kid. As many have pointed out, he seems like a throwback to the early days of the MOTU line, with his reuse of basic parts with only a new head. The later years of the line were dominated by increasingly bizarre and gimmick-dependent figures, while the Champ seemed almost like an early figure that had been held in reserve for later. Rather than being designed to accommodate a play gimmick, he was a solid "meat and potatoes" figure whose action feature was supplied by his weapon. And what a weapon it was! The massive clamp was easily one of the most intimidating weapons in the vintage line, and its function was great fun to use. My vintage clamp still works, and I found myself unable to resist clicking the button down repeatedly when I got it out for the photo comparison. How does this new incarnation of the figure and his weapon measure up? Read on...
The sculpt is identical to He-Man from the neck down, and as a deluxe figure, the Champ gets a pair of new heads. One has a stern expression similar to that of the vintage figure, though his mouth is slightly open in a He-Man style grimace. It's a good sculpt that communicates the character's determination, and definitely gives off the vibe that this is not a person to be messed with. The alternate head has a big grin, and works equally well as the Champ enjoying a good joke, or exulting in his prowess in the heat of battle. The paint apps are typically sparse for this line, though what's here is applied neatly, for the most part. There's a bit of overspray on the belt, and the eyebrows on the grinning head are misaligned with the sculpt. It's rather tough to notice unless you look very closely, and thankfully, it doesn't make the head look silly or odd like the misaligned paint apps on many of the yelling heads that were included with Battle Armor He-Man. Still, it does change the overall appearance from what the sculpt intended, and it's a shame this happened. Every one of these heads I've seen has this issue, so it appears to affect a much larger portion of the run. There is also a variant of Clamp Champ that has much lighter skin, which seems to have been mostly found in Canada when the figure was first popping up.
The Champ has the line's standard articulation, with swivel & hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles, swivels at the boot tops and waist, and a ball-jointed head. Every point of articulation moves and holds poses well, and they pop apart in the usual spots for easy part swapping. As always, I recommend heating the elbows, hips, knees, and ankles before popping them off. As ever, this is a very good articulation model, and I enjoy posing these figures quite a bit.
As a deluxe figure, the Champ has a nice suite of accessories. Aside from the aforementioned extra head, there's the armor, a swappable grasping left hand, the famous clamp, and a set of pincers. The deluxe wave one minicomic is also included, and is the same one we got with the Battle Armor figures. The armor is a repaint of Fisto's-- though, as this figure was released first, I reckon that makes it a "pre-use"-- and the pincer is based on a weapon that was intended for the Champ's 2002 iteration, if that line had survived long enough for him to be released. A version of it was previously seen in the Classics line.
The clamp itself is closely modeled on the vintage version, though the sculpting is noticeably softer in a couple of areas. The indentation for the thumb on the underside, present on the vintage clamp, is missing here, which makes it a bit more difficult for the figure to hold. It also functions slightly differently; whereas a press of the button on the vintage clamp released the pincers, and they sprang back into the clamp when the button was released, the pincers on the Origins version are released at the press of the (now silver) button, and they remain deployed until manually retracted. Which method is best is really down to personal preference, but personally, I prefer the way the Origins clamp functions, as it makes it easy to pose the Champ with another figure trapped within the pincers. With the vintage clamp, you'd have to come up with a way to block the pincers from retracting.
While many collectors won't consider Clamp Champ an essential character for their collections, he is essential to mine, and I'm damn happy to have him included in the Origins line at such an early stage. Whatever your personal feelings about the late-wave stragglers of the vintage MOTU line, this is a figure that includes a robust assortment of accessories, and a pair of head sculpts that rank among the line's best. The Champ is a worthy addition to any Origins collection, and with his profile hopefully being raised by his inclusion in the MOTU Revelation animated series(I wrote this review before it premiered, not knowing that, sadly, he'd only appear in the show for a few seconds), this figure is likely to become more and more desirable. If you're on the fence about this one for some reason, I recommend grabbing one while you can. That's it for today, but head back over in four days for more! Until then, stay safe out there, and happy hunting!
No comments:
Post a Comment