“”Your what!? Blast-Attak ain’t nobody’s slave!” – Blast-Attak, Masters of the Universe #7, “Long Live the King”.
Of all the vintage figures, Blast Attak is probably the one I’m least familiar with; I never had him as a kid. I might even be able to say that I didn’t even really know about him as a kid. That’s pretty low on the radar – I may or may not have known he existed. Even going back as an adult, I think he’s probably one of the ones that just hasn’t caught my attention. I care about the Snakemen least (and I’m still fuzzy on how he’s a Snakeman) so he’s off to a bad start. And then he’s a robot, but he’s got a really sophisticated cybernetic face on top of a not-so-sophisticated boiler-technology body. I’m very lost.
But I want to give him the respect that he’s due. I have no patience for the folks who lack the imagination to love Scareglow & Rio Blast, so I’m not going to do the same to Blast-Attak. He is a robot and that’s cool. He is a walking boiler and that’s cool. He’s a suicide bomber and that’s well… wow, Mattel sure isn’t worried about headlines these days, huh? I guess it’s not really suicide if you get up and reassemble yourself after. That’s just a homicide bomber. Is that a term? Or is the homicide part just inferred? Of course, it’s not really that either. He surely never actually killed anyone blowing himself up left & right. He’s like the deadliest, least efficient, and most ineffective villain in all of Eternian… wait, I’m not supposed to be knocking this guy. Damn it!
Here’s the thing, with one glaring exception, this is a pretty cool figure. He’s almost entirely all-new, Mattel did re-use the Roboto arms to mimic the original (which was an all-new figure). I’m down with this because it means the hands both pop off and we can give Blast-Attak many of the compatible attachments we’ve received over the years. Blast-Attak just went up two spots on my favorites list as a result. I only wish we had a Weapons Pak coming to get some of the cooler options in green.
Other than the interior Horde Trooper torso (I’ll bitch about that in a minute), everything else is all-new and exceptionally faithful to the original. His boiler torso looks fantastic. The funny thing is, that it didn’t even really need any extra detail added. The original really flew under my radar! The legs are also all-new and are a great robotic alternative to those Tap Jaw legs. I know the footballesque pads on the thighs are unique, but I would’ve loved to get Blasty here sooner in the line so we could reuse these on a few of the folks that went straight Trap-Jaw up til now. I love how they look!
All that is topped off by a great update to the head sculpt. It’s also faithful to the original, but the vintage head was kinda murky. He kinda looked like he had two sets of eyes. His face & head were more distinguishable by color than sculpt. The new one does a much better job of being a head sculpt. It’s a huge noggin but it works with the giant helmet and bulky robot look. I also love the big screw on the back of the head. I think that’s probably a vintage detail, but for some reason it really jumps out. It’s an awesome little bit.
So there’s just one stupid thing on the figure that I want to get to before we get into all the paint and articulation whatever. Blast-Attak blows himself up and the vintage figure, to replicate that, broke in half. There was a little air hose with a plunger that plugged into his back, you’d press it, and *boom* two halves of Blast-Attak hit the floor. Now, that’s not going to get replicated in Classics. One, probably because it’s a little questionable nowadays, and two, because action features that screw up the shared tooling are just not gonna happen. That’s fine. Continue to Page 2…
Great review, again!
How were the joints on yours? The two I got from the sub were kind of loose, but not flop-tacularly so. I think DayRaven also had slightly loose joints on his. I haven’t opened the spares I’m planning to use for a “take-apart” conversion, yet, so I don’t know if they’re any different.
And as for paint . . . wow. Paintjobs on my two sub Blasties were mostly good, but there was some slop. One of them had slop in silver — a colour that wasn’t even on Blast-Attak. The other looks like someone was eating lunch while painting and slopped some sauce on it or something. I hope it was sauce. It was a couple of brown blobs that left a stain on the plastic when I wiped ’em off.
}Sigh.{
I had the original as a child. He was great and one of my favourites. I love the last pic in your review.
I was disappointed in the fact that he doesn’t blow up. Now I kinda want to see someone to make a Custom Jeff Dunham head and a right hand with a Blast Attak dummy for MOTUC… Ig uess now you know whose voice I hear for Blasty…
I actually had to google when Blast-Attak arrived – I was sure there had been prototype pics on the Org of him armour-less. The glued-shut thing just seems crazy pointless.
Speaking of, I don’t see the issue with a blow-up guy, any more than any character wandering about with a big ol’ sword or weighed down with a ton of guns. Could just be me.
The guitaryness of his axe was the first thing I noticed out of the package (well, after the non-blasting armour) – so he’s spent the last few weeks on his knees and axe in hand, head thrown back, screaming the chorus to some intense Robo-metal into his whip handle… this year’s figures have been a lot more fun to pose, for some reason.
Wait a minute. He’s supposed to be a Snake Man?? I thought he was in the Horde? I guess we’re in the same boat, awareness wise.
Though even if it were a character I cared about, I would have passed anyway because every other character that revolves entirely around an action figure has been a complete fail when put through the Classics filter, in my experience anyway.
Either way, every character I don’t want that gets out of the way gets me one step closer to Saurod…
Great job on churning out quality reviews this week! You’re almost caught up with MOTUC!
I know Blast Attak came later in the line and some folks didn’t even know he existed. I’m glad the 4H had a chance to take a crack at him and I think he’s fantastic. The lack of action feature is disappointing but I’m okay with it.
I’m really torn about who to display him with though. I guess Snake Men would make the most sense, and it’ll bolster the rank and file, but I guess I always just had him in with Skeletor’s evil warriors!
Yeah, some things just get lost in translation with Classics. Some characters were defined by their action features, take them away and you take away a vital piece of what makes them, well “them”.
I heard of him as a kid, but second hand from some friends who had the mini comic that came with Sssqueeze, I guess Mattel just wanted to bolster the Snake Men ranks a bit without making another Snake man? I got the figure from my friend in high school but minus the plunger part to make him go *boom*! Funny thing, if you have the Fort Kerium play set from Mattel’s Bravestarr toy line, it comes with that same plunger accessory: they use it to make certain parts of the fort blow apart, and I was very excited to discover this back in the day.
I was a Post-1985 MotU kid growing up, so the Evil Horde, Snake Men & all the later releases are my nostalgia. If I was still really into classics I’d have gotten Blast-Attak but $30+ for one of these figures just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I think I’d be more inclined to buy it if it DID have an action feature as at least I could do something with it.
I noticed that a few months back when I was looking at the Fort Kerium play set.
Some info and insight on the origins of Blast-Attak 🙂
no “And you have my axe!” joke? 🙁
at least Duncan’s still up to his usual tricks. 😉
Just got mine and I was so mad the armor does not come off!