All these NECA figures have put us a little behind on MOTU Classics, so I thought I’d catch us up a bit this week. Let’s kick things off with one of the few Evil Warriors left from the vintage line, Two-Bad. While not necessarily one of my favorite characters, I have to admit that I’ve always loved his striking look. With such a neat contrast, you’d think there’d be more two headed figures running around our toy shelves.
The Four Horsemen did a fantastic job with the sculpting (as usual). I was especially surprised to discover that this Two-Bad wasn’t entirely a vintage clone. Probably my favorite aspect of the MO2K design is that the purple Baddrah has different posture and is slouched to the side. While the Classics figure isn’t as drastically lopsided, there is a definite slump on that left side.
Baddrah’s side also gets the most newly sculpted pieces out of the two. Not only is his side of the body entirely scaled, but his arms and legs also have these large ridges that run down the sides. He’s also got a really neat sculpted design to his glove and boot, both of which look like they’re made of leather and contain plenty of studs and straps to make them dangerous in a fight.
The blue Tuvar is a bit simpler. Like Baddrah, he has a brand new head. His boot and glove are also new pieces which have a cool armor plated look with plenty of rivets holding them together. But when it comes to the rest of his arms and legs, he just uses normal human pieces.
Tuvar and Baddrah do share new chest and abs pieces, both of which are wider than the standard figure. There is also some nice sculpted overlap of the two body types where you can see the scales melting into the smooth skin, and vice versa. I know I’m nitpicking a bit here, but I really wish they would have given them a 200X inspired loincloth as well. As is, the waist is kind of ho-hum and I think the half chainmail/half fur would have looked great. Continue to page 2…
I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned yet but Matty switched from the glossy white cardboard mailer boxes to plain brown ones. The quality feels like it went down a notch as well given how the mailer boxes do tend to get damaged while in transit.
Two-Bad straddles the period right after I stopped collecting the vintage line and before I stopped caring. I had doubts about jumping ship given how the cartoon was still running and there were several cool figures released the year I stopped collecting which later became classics: Fisto, Jitsu, Whiplash, Webstor, Stinkor, Spikor, and Moss Man all caught my eye at one point and Two-Bad falls into this category. So I’m glad that he’s finally here seeing how I just started selling off my modern collection starting with anything not tied into childhood nostalgia.
The Mailer thing was based on a “Mattel going Green” thing IIRC… Now, as I put on my Tinfoil hat I’ll say that it was actually to cut costs but the going green thing sounds prettier.
On the figure itself. While I REALLY Wanted him, I’m somewhat disappointed with Two-Bad.
-Lack of paint applications on the shield, sloppy paint on mine.
-The Shield being useless. Look at that sucker wrong and the shield falls.
-Limited Articulation (Heads, Tuvar’s boot)
While Somewhat Disappointed, I’m glad that I own him. He completes the Evil Warriors who had cartoon appearances; he helps complete the Roster I had as a child AND he completes the Roster I had in College (with the 200X Line)
i’m one of those collectors who never really understood the added cost of the white mailer boxes in the first place, and i agree, the move to the recycled cardboard was likely economic, and spun by the PR department as a reflexive action. for my money, i always felt, with what we pay in shipping, they could just pack the toys better. i get better treatment, object-wise, from almost every online seller i do business with, and for less money than matty charges. if their service provider isn’t up to snuff, it isn’t up to me to sacrifice the quality of the figs i’m buying to supplement their inability to sign a competent shipping agreement. so the mailer thing makes no never mind to me, it’s just more trash as far as i’m concerned. i have enough to throw away already. 😉
pertaining to the shield… i would get upset at the failure to execute the fit (i’m semi-willing to forgive the dropped paint cuz i just bought a nice glitterized metallic orange paint) if i was new to the line. this doesn’t induce rage anymore, it takes a bigger botch than that now… just a sigh and a eye towards shapeways, or alvis, or zombihamma, or amaro, cuz SOMEBODY will right this wrong, and i’ll pay more to get that piece and have one i really love that actually works. (or not, i haven’t decided yet… might try the vintage shield first, just for Ss and Gs)
Still can’t get over the fact Matty didn’t go “day of” with this guy (these guys?). With all the new tooling, you’d think they would want to capitalize on it. He would have sold like something that sells a lot. Hot cakes, probably.
Anyway, regarding your point about his weapons… they’re a team, think of it as one is the offense, the other is the defense!
Someone once tried to explain to me why Mattel is not making more of the heavily-tooled products (Horde Troopers, Two-Bad) to recoup development costs, but it simply did not compute, and my brain shut down.
You have to drink the koto laid to understand the mattycollector math. Every time I hear Scott talk logistics, I picture a room full of Jim jones’ acolytes spasming and dropping to the ground.
It just drives me nuts when Scott talks about logistics because he refers to it as if it was a person, or at very least a department at Mattel.
Koto laid? Who the hell is writing the auto correct speech? That should read koolaid FYI
Jim Jones used Flavor-Aid, the cheap bastard.
Easily woulda tried to get this guy DoS (doubt could though) but thats Matty’s loss.
I dug the fig as a kid and last year (okay 2012) going thru my vintage he went red along with Roboto so had to toss and that gave me hope to see the classics take come along and then that got downed with no DoS.
Anywho a great looking fig so hoping a toy show happens later this year cause I will be looking for this/these guys.
For all my complaining about how worthless Mattel is at so many things, I am stoked to get this figure. One of the last few I need to really feel I’ve completed my classic collection.
Mattel did a wonderful job on the actual figure. My only real nit is how the heads rub if you don’t position them just right. And yeah, that shield totally blows. I’ve never liked how the MOTUC shields clip on. Too many of them get stress marks if you clip them on. I would rather the shields had handles.
All nits and Mattymosity aside; overall, nice figure. Helped me remember why I love this toy line.
That last picture is genius
Great review and pics, hilarious comics! Glad to hear he is actually a little lopsided!
SO looking forward to this guy arriving.
Like clutch, I missed out on his early appearance, so he’s a “know who he is, but don’t care” character for me.
Sculpt looks great, but that closed fist is pretty much unforgivable at this point.
and am I reading right that he was sub only? another gyp, like Sea Hawk, who I actually wanted. And they wonder why sub sales keep dropping. >_>
But . . . but . . . but . . . the whole point of making those guys sub-only is to make you BUY the sub! Sub sales should be through the roof because of this! LOGISTICS!
“LOGISTICS!”
– ToyGuru at any given moment
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
– Inigo Montoya
HAW!!!
A perfect way too kick off 2014 with Two-Bad. I love design work that the FH put into him. I’m not mad that he’s was a sub only figure…. Only problem I got is the cheap new recycle brown mailer boxers. We need them as single figures now.