Saints be praised! While Mattel is (seemingly) moving away from Masterverse, Beast Man has made it to the Vintage Collection, completing the illustrious 8-Back.
While I am pretty excited by the new MOTU Chronicles line, as teased by the Inaugural Scare Glow figure, I have to admit, I am going to miss Masterverse if it is indeed being paused or phased out all together. New Eternia became a highlight, as did the Vintage Collection, which has, at the very least, this Beast Man left in the tank. This is good news for several reasons, most of all because this is just a cool figure.
Beast Man has a history in MOTU as long as anyone, so having this line capture the spirit of that original vintage figure is a lot of fun. This line has shown that it is not just a “carbon copy” update into a new format, but they have certainly gotten the spirit right with these figures, and Beast Man is no exception. His colors and features, like his portrait and chest armor, do a great job recalling the 1980s, and I love the armor piece on the right hands, just like you remember. The whip is serviceable, too, and I actually like the decision to make it out of the soft plastic when I was expecting a string.
There are a few new details here, too. Beast Man is mostly built on the VC Stratos body, which is logical all the way back to the 80s, but he retains the New Eternia feet, which has me torn. On the one hand, these are more befitting the Savage Henchman aesthetic, but part of me misses the “sock” feet that Stratos retains. It’s not a big deal, but since we have seen these feet before for Beast Man, I would have liked the others, I think. Additionally, the shin armor is an interesting new touch here, but it is completely removable if you want to skew closer to the full vintage look.
So, while this Beast Man stands great on his own, it is also very important to me that he joins the Vintage Collection to complete the 8-Back line-up. To me, this is the most auspicious group of characters, and if a MOTU line is started, it is absolutely the responsibility of the makers to get He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Teela, Stratos, Skeletor, Mer-Man, Zodac, and Beast Man into the line. Full stop. So, if the VC is going to fade away, we can at least have this minimum standard of completion (plus Faker!). Beast Man fills it out nicely, and this group looks GREAT together.
Whew! Beast Man is here, and the Vintage Collection 8-Back is complete. Unfortunately, like the others, he is exclusive to Walmart, so be prepared to have those preorder canceled. Hopefully he will be easy-ish to find so everyone who wants one can get one. I would love to see more characters make it into this line, and some like Evil-Lyn, Moss Man, Prince Adam, Scare Glow, Stinkor, and others would be pretty easy gets. I suppose we will see sooner rather than later, because there is a lot going with MOTU right now.
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