So you’ve seen the fine pics right here at AFI, and thanks to our fearless leader Julius Marx, I can now give you my review of the Master of Eternia’s Undersea Realm!
Does he sink or swim…?
Read on…!
Mer-man, or "Squidish Rex," is Matty’s April MOTUC release, and the first MOTUC figure which will have both increased productions numbers and a swappable head! The higher production numbers (courtesy of a second batch going on sale April 23rd or thereabouts) will hopefully sate the online shopping worlds appetite for MOTUC, but it’s the swappable head that really makes the fish king sing!
I, like many other children of the 80′s clearly remember the great cardback illustration of Mer-man with his eerie fish face. And I remember just as clearly being confused by the production version’s strange furry looking head. Well, clearly having the swappable heads let’s you use whichever you prefer! But the nicest touch is the new neck sculpt featuring the fish man’s gills! This makes him much more fish like and less obviously a re-use of the Skeletor body.
His unique hand sculpts, though, I’m sort of torn on. The 3 fingered sculpt is great, again making him more unique. But, on the one hand (ba-dum bump!) having the open sculpted left hand makes him more expressive but doesn’t let him hold both the infamous "corn sword" and his spiffy new trident at once. Functionally I would have preferred 2 gripping hands, but the open hand does make for dramatic poses and very few vintage MOTU figures ever had a gripping left hand (usually only if the right was gimmicked and unable to hold an accessory.)
Beyond that, there’s not much to say. MOTUC once again delivers top notch paint ops, great sculpting and detail and good QC. Sadly ,not something you can say about all of Matty’s lines. I’ve liked all of the MOTUC releases thus far, but Mer-man definitely joins Skeletor at the top of the list thus far in my opinion!
You can see the rest of AFI’s Mer-man pics HERE.
‘Til Next Time!
Spy
The trident does seem to be the accessory for every undersea figure these days.
That trident is bent all to hell. I hate it that the DCUC “QC” is seeping into MOTUC.
It’s not actually that bad. During the time from when JM took the photos until I got Mer-man, the trident had mostly straightened out on it’s own. A bit of boiling water or the heat gun will fix the rest.
And the trident is rather nicely constructed. The head of the trident is made of the softer pvc (like the loincloth) while the shaft is the harder PVC (like the “corn sword”.) So even if the tip is a bit warped, the thing ain’t gonna droop, heheeheheheh.
dude, where exactly is aquaman’s hand?
and i have to say this: wasn’t a fan of the original MOTU, watched a few eps here and there as a kid but just slightly before my time – is merman really supposed to swim around in a pair of furry loin cloth trunks?
LOL
this is such a nice line i’m actually tempted to get it, and as i said, not a MOTU fan. i was tempted by the earlier sculpts by the 4 horsemen as well.
“is merman really supposed to swim around in a pair of furry loin cloth trunks?”
Yes…yes he is.
This is no doubt the height of fashion on Eternia.
I do wish the line was a bit cheaper, as Mer-Man is supposed to be an undersea warlord I would probably have picked up a few extras to use as his minions, as it is I’ll just get one. Still, he looks awesome!!
Thank God I didn’t try to order multiples after the fiasco today, I had to do three orders before one actually took, I almost ended up with minions against my will. I hope the second batch is larger than this one, I pity anyone who has to do this again.
Got mine, 2 days ago. 1 day ship. And yeah lots of ppl p.o.ed about this. But, if they can’t wait another week for the second batch, they have no patience.