To give Blasty some internal red guts, the 4H chose the Horde Trooper interior. And then he got the standard bit of soft plastic armor to get the final look right. All fine. Now, to be cool, Blast-Attak’s armor could have split open up the middle. You could simulate the action feature with a little clever posing and a chest bursting setup by opening up the armor. That would be something. When the figure arrived and I saw that they did do a vertical seam, I was excited – even though it was on the back! I could at least get a good “premature explosion” pic out of his back being split open.
But his armor is glued shut. Glued shut. I can’t effectively convey my disappointment. Maybe they just wanted to steer completely clear of the “blows himself up thing”. Maybe the factory just glued it shut because it’s a completely different and new setup. Who knows? But it is dumb and the one big mar on an otherwise beautiful figure.
The paintwork is sharp throughout on my figure. The colors look great and everything comes together well with the paint & sculpt combo. The articulation is standard for the line. The armor bulks up a bit on the neck and block some articulation there while also interfering with the ab crunch (though there is some room and it exposes the innards near the waist). The great sculpt on the boots does unfortunately block the forward ankle movement and interfere with some poses.
The accessories are night & day. He includes two. The first mimics the original. It’s an… ax with some techno-bits? It’s strange, it wouldn’t look out of place in MO2K for one thing. I kinda feel like it could be a combo rifle or maybe it works as a food processor? I don’t know. It does look sharp and calls back to the original. All good.
The other accessory is awesomer. I mentioned the original had a little air hose and a plunger? Well, it’s that, but turned into a pretty snazzy whip. Even better? It’s not one giant soft plastic piece that’s too flimsy too hold while simultaneously being not flimsy enough to drape like a whip. It’s actually three pieces, the plunger turned handles, the insert turned bladed tip, and the soft rubbery hose in between. It’s one of the best accessories in the entire line and makes every other whip in the line look like garbage.
Overall, Blast-Attak almost finally got his due. He’s been upgraded and included in the franchise the best way with a great Classics figure. Even his naysayers should be a little impressed. I want to blow up about his lack of action feature, but I get it. Gluing the armor shut is still immensely annoying and it does drown out a lot of the awesome, but he looks so good and the whip accessory is super awesome. And I get to switch out the arm attachments which I completely love. I still don’t know if I’ll place him with the Snakemen (I really need a MOTU historian to explain that one to me), but I will enjoy finally having him in my collection.
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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!