{"id":9500,"date":"2010-09-24T02:22:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T07:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=9500"},"modified":"2010-09-26T21:44:31","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T02:44:31","slug":"motuclassics-com-gygor-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=9500","title":{"rendered":"MOTUClassics.Com:
Gygor Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> For years now, I’ve looked on as my peers have had this obscene fascination with monkeys. I’ve never understood it. I’ve watched them buy monkey figure after monkey figure – I’ve even bought a few myself. I wasn’t usually impressed, but then again none of them were lemon-lime monkeys.<\/p>\n

Gygor is representative of something I really like about MOTU Classics. I want a lot of things out of this line. It’s a tall order – I want figures from every corner of MOTU – all the cartoons, mini-comics, foreign repaints, whatever. That includes the concept stuff. While I happily await certain childhood favorites or modern takes finally realized in figure form, I love that Mattel is choosing to mine the concept figures to expand the line. I’m excited about Vikor. I\u2019m curious to see Demo-Man. I can’t tell you enough how much I want that concept Horde Mummy to be given figure form. Gygor gives me hope that those wants can be realized. After all, a year ago, he was nothing more than an quarter-of-century old, unused prototype. And look at him now. He’s hit the big time.<\/p>\n

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Gygor’s origins are humble. A lot of Masters of the Universe concepts were brought forward from Mattel’s older Big Jim line<\/a>. Moreover, Big Jim’s tiger made it into the line as Battle Cat & Panthor, his eagle as Zoar & Screeech, but Big Jim had other animals too – a gorilla among them. In vintage times, a prototype of the gorilla<\/a> was put together along with some art that showed He-Man using the gorilla as a Battle Cat substitute. That figure never happened, of course, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the team at Mattel from including him this time around. On a related note, the artwork that showed He-Man riding Gygor led many fans to put him on the side of the angels, a notion that Mattel turned on its head with the bio:<\/p>\n\n\n
\nGygor<\/strong> \u2013 Evil Fighting Gorilla<\/em>, Real Name<\/strong>: Gygor
\nShortly after the Great Unrest, Keldor was driven behind the Mystic Wall and Gygor, Lord of the Vine Jungle, lead an army of beast men in a series of raids against the long forgotten Castle Grayskull, believing the many tales of its great and mysterious power. It was only through the combined powers of Oo-Larr- the jungle He-Man and The Goddess that Gygor was defeated and placed in a state of suspended animation. Eventually, Hordak returned to Eternia and the savage gorilla was freed by Evil-Lyn in her attempt to bolster Skeletor\u2019s forces against the new Horde army. Gygor uses his great strength to fight the Heroic Warriors.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

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As the first MOTU monkey, Gygor is an entirely new sculpt, though we already know he’ll be seeing some reuse as January’s Shadow Beast. And while some fans might’ve thought that Gygor borrowed parts from DCUC2’s Grodd, that’s simply not the case. MOTU Classics figures and DC Classics C&C’s are sculpted 1:1. As the Four Horsemen themselves noted, any similarity is simply due to their both being gorillas.<\/p>\n

As a well-sculpted monkey, Gygor’s got all the right details. There’s obviously the full-body compliment of sculpted fur, but the exposed areas have plenty of detail too. I didn’t get a picture of it, but if you pick up Gygor, check out the bottom of his feet. This guy can leave some nice Bigfoot prints on Eternia (of course they might ask, \u201cwhat’s China” when they study them).<\/p>\n

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For me, the most impressive part of Gygor’s sculpt is his size. This guy is nearly 10″ tall! I knew he was big, but I wasn’t expecting it. Sil came home after work today and saw Gygor sitting in his package (hey, I was busy today) and was surprised by his size. When Vault saw the picture below, he didn’t believe it. Gygor is huge. Makes me feel a little better about that $30 price tag.<\/p>\n

One part that Gygor won’t be sharing with the Shadow Beasts is his screaming monkey head. I’ve noted in the past that I’m not a fan of screaming heads even though I feel conflicted about the 4H having to sculpt all these neutral expressions. It’s a waste of their talents.<\/p>\n

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In the end, I like Gygor’s head sculpt – it’s very dynamic and a great homage to the original Big Jim toy, but I wonder if they could’ve done an articulated jaw here so we could get the best of both worlds. I know it would “cut up the beautiful 4H sculpt” and that the upper jaw would have to be done differently, but I know the 4H could’ve worked it out. I was playing with my Royal Guardsman Mynothecean during the Carnivus shoot and that mouth articulation makes him feel like two separate figures sometimes. Gygor can scream to his heart’s content on my shelves, but I’ll always wonder what he does in the time he’s not raging.<\/p>\n

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I know that’s not a MOTU lineup, but since I’m talking about the cow’s mouth, I thought I’d throw it in (though I left it strangely agape for this picture). It’s interesting the range of anthropomorph’s the 4H have got going across their various work. Gygor doesn’t quite fit in with this group like Carnivus because he’s not really an upright animal. He’s just a big monkey. But he does look good with a blue cat and a pink elephant, doesn’t he? Continue to Page 2 for Articulation, Paint, & Accessories…<\/a><\/p>\n

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Though he’s better than Tytus in the articulation department, he’s still limited in ways I don’t like on a $30 toy. He has some great range of motion on his neck’s ball-joint, but with two drawbacks – his head pops off fairly easily and there’s a giant gap on the back of his head (though it is covered by the helmet). For the rest of the figure, it’s very similar to the aforementioned Grodd – great arms, bad legs. His arms feature ball shoulders, bicep swivels, hinge elbows, and wrist swivels. His legs are done with v-crotch hips and ball ankles. While the arms have a lot of life to them, the figure is basically a trunk down the middle. Much like Tytus, he’ll mostly just be standing there. It’s a shame too because, he’d look great leaning forward on his knuckles in a classic ape pose. Like I said, he’s better than Tytus, but he’s no Battle Cat.<\/p>\n

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The swivel wrists, which are normal for the line, seem out of place considering the ball ankles. I wish the wrists would\u2019ve been ball joints to help fully flesh out the arms. Just looking at, I thought the wrists were ball-joints like the ankles, but alas. Had they switched wrist and ankle articulation, it wouldn’t have taken anything away from the legs and only added to the arms.<\/p>\n

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Paint is the one area that left me a little cold. The other Gygor we ordered had some really bad cavities in the form of little, perfect black circles on his upper teeth and you may have noticed in my pics the occasional splotches of green paint where they don’t belong on his face, head, and torso. There was a bigger splotch of green on his lower right abdomen, but I foolishly started removing it before I thought to take pictures. I’ll have to remember, pictures first, fixing second, the next time this happens.<\/p>\n

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Gygor includes six removable pieces of armor (and yes the shin guards do come off, I just didn’t want to hassle with it). All the pieces are made of a pliable plastic and are faithful recreations of his vintage armor updated to “Classic detail”. I really like the sharp angular points to his armor. It gives him a harsh\/forged look that sells him as a villain to me. His harness\/cape combo is molded red and painted black – with some nice paint choices – a high gloss for the metal belt and a flat black for the leather straps. I like his helmet, but like Battle Cat, I don’t want to hide the amazing 4H sculpt, so he hasn’t worn it much so far.<\/p>\n

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Other than his armor, Gygor includes his classic axe, again updated for inclusion in the line. It’s good-sized – basically the height of a standard figure – and it looks like it could do some serious damage to his opponents. It’s a cool accessory, and while I’d hate to rob him of it, it just so happens to fit perfectly into Tytus’ hands too.<\/p>\n

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Overall, I’m really happy with this purchase. I admit I was wavering a bit beforehand because I’m not into monkeys and I’m a bit burnt out on anthropomorphic characters, but Gygor didn’t disappoint. His height increases the variety on the MOTU shelf and his bright colors make him an instant standout. I’m not sure if he’s a villain or a hero yet. I’m inclined to leave him a villain and use him as a Wun-Dar foe. I know the bio says he fought Oo-Larr, but I imagine most of you might play him as the hero we long though he was anyway. That’s the fun of MOTU. We’ve got a giant lemon-lime gorilla now and we can throw him in anywhere we want. <\/p>\n

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For more MOTU reviews, check out our MOTU Classics Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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For years now, I’ve looked on as my peers have had this obscene fascination with monkeys. I’ve never understood it. I’ve watched them buy monkey figure after monkey figure – I’ve even bought a few myself. 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That\u2019s all done, so let\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19405,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=19405","url_meta":{"origin":9500,"position":2},"title":"Ask Mattel July 2nd Link Roundup (Updated!)","date":"July 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Ask Matty - July 2nd Edition MOTUClassics.Com Asks: After the Dragon Blaster Skeletor reveal, a lot of talk focused on the dragon, but we'd like to ask about the sword. Long-time collectors have multiple purple swords at this point. We understand the vintage line repeated accessories, but we're not sure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ask Matty"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7272,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=7272","url_meta":{"origin":9500,"position":3},"title":"Ask Matty July 1st Edition","date":"July 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"DCClassics.Com: DCUC15's Jack Knight looks like it's going to be a standout figure for the wave... from the front. Will the back of his jacket feature his star emblem?","rel":"","context":"In "Ask Matty"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11998,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11998","url_meta":{"origin":9500,"position":4},"title":"Vault Review: MOTU Classics Shadow Beast","date":"March 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We\u2019re a little behind with our reviews, so I\u2019m giving Noisy a hand with the last MOTUC figure from February. In the MOTUC Canon, we learn that Count Marzo created the Shadow Beasts as his own personal army the first time he tried to capture the throne. But he was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21637,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21637","url_meta":{"origin":9500,"position":5},"title":"Ask Matty “November 1st”Link Roundup","date":"October 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Ask Matty - \"November 1st\" Edition MOTUClassics.Com Asks: For Toy Guru: What \"concept\" figure are you most bummed about having to cut out of the road map? 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