{"id":12113,"date":"2011-03-24T00:09:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T05:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12113"},"modified":"2011-03-24T15:28:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T20:28:29","slug":"motuclassics-com-king-hssss-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12113","title":{"rendered":"MOTUClassics.Com:
King Hssss Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> My Club Eternia subscription finally arrived yesterday. The slow shipping is starting to make these reviews a bit less timely, but with more King Hssss figures to be released next Friday, I actually feel like I’m a bit ahead of the games on this one! The only thing is, King Hssss left me feeling more or less underwhelmed. <\/p>\n

Before we get into the complicated mixed feelings I have about King Hssss, I figured I should point out that I don’t really care about the character. It’s a shocker, I know. I haven’t met that many fellow He-Fans who feel similarly, but that’s okay. As a kid, I favored the Joes, the Autobots, and the Heroic Masters – very few of my favorite characters were villains and that has more or less carried through to today. As an adult, I can better appreciate King Hssss, but I don’t really have any sense of nostalgia about him. Moreover, I’ve never understood how anyone with such a sinister costume could be construed as heroic, slight smile or not…<\/p>\n

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Which is more or the less the way Hiss was introduced. Skeletor releases him from his ancient prison, but is surprised to see such a “heroic” dude and attacks him. He-Man, making the same mistake, intervenes and saves Hssss from Skeletor (or, if you prefer, saves Skeletor from Hssss) only to be subdued by Hssss moments later. He appears late in the mini-comics and, as such, doesn’t have any Filmation appearances under his belt. His story was fleshed out in further mini-comics that detailed the Snakemen threat to Preternia and their subsequent banishment to limbo (ever notice that all the Preternia heroes seem able to do is leave problems for He-Man to clean up later?). The MO2K series followed suit with these early story details while also making the Snakeman the primary antagonists towards the end of the show. That King Hssss featured more of an Egyptian motif – which is a look I wouldn’t mind seeing get its own action figure at some point in the line.<\/p>\n

Where to start on King Hssss? I’ve been asking myself that a lot since he arrived. He looks so good sitting on my shelf, a few feet away from me, and it’s easy to forget that he’s a little pile of annoyances.<\/p>\n

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I’m going to start with the sculpt, because it’s really nice and the main thing the figure has going for it. I will say that it would be better if he had a new unique torso instead of the slipover piece. It thickens his neck and makes his arms seem stubbier than normal. And those boots… I understand and support intelligent part reuse, but I’m starting to realize there isn’t very much of a footwear selection on Eternia. Hssss has a ton of new parts, so maybe that’s making these two areas of re-use seem worse than they are.<\/p>\n

Though I question the constant re-use of Skeletor’s calfwear, as I said, Hssss is almost entirely new. The boots, hands, and the torso pieces underneath the non-removable armor are all that’s been carried over from previous figures. The scaled (ribbed?) texturing of Hssss required new pieces everywhere else and looks really nice along with a great head sculpt. His crotch piece – a completely encapsulated, traditional crotch piece seems to have lost some of its detail from the prototype, but that appears to be a thick paint issue. It’s cast in green plastic and painted in a thick red which makes the scales seem soft. The belt buckle, with another coating of a thick silver, is left with only slight impressions instead of a sharp details.<\/p>\n

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The other primary component of the sculpt (or is it one giant accessory?) is the King’s snake form. It swaps out easily enough and replaces his regular torso. King Hssss being made of snakes sprouting from his lower torso is on the list of reasons I never really liked the character, but if you’re a fan of that, then you should be pretty happy with this figure. Once you regain consciousness from its fresh out of the package smell, you can appreciate the nice level of detail and have fun bending the two “arms” into some neat poses. The jaw is articulated for more fun too.<\/p>\n

And I suppose this is as good a place as any to talk about those reversed shoulders…<\/p>\n

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I tossed a QC spotlight on the shoulders in the pic below simply because I felt I had to at this point, but I can’t say that I’m all that upset over it – I’m out of matches for my torch, so to speak.<\/p>\n

It’s a stupid mistake, but visually, it just doesn’t bother me all that much. Over the last few weeks, I looked at the pics and videos of the other Hssss reviewers who went before me and didn’t notice the mistake (nor did they). It should<\/em> be done correctly – don’t let my indifference imply otherwise, but, for me, the real annoying part of the whole debacle is, as usual, the poor handling of it<\/a>. My fellow blogger Poe has already written what I think is the perfect piece on the matter<\/a> and I encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already. I feel pretty much the same way, at least when it comes to the shoulders<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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That said, you can all clearly see that the shoulders are sharing the QC spotlight. The shoulders are a bigger problem because they’re endemic, but the jacked up crotch piece bummed me out because it’s never fun to find “hidden” damage to the figure when you open him. I’m not sure what happened back there either. There are chunks of plastic missing from the upper belt line (which lets you see that green plastic underneath) and then more indentations below in the paint. Sadly, even though I’m showing you two angles on the jacked up crotch piece, I actually had a lot of things I could’ve put in the spotlight with them too. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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In terms of paint, Hssss clearly didn’t require that much and it still didn’t turn out that well for us here at IAT. In addition to the crotch paint, we ended up with silver slop on the greaves and all four of the figures had sloppy lines between the face & mask and on the symbol. Further, the paint on the snake body wasn’t really up to par either. I love the shiny finish, but the rest of the paint just seemed gloppy and you can see they missed the mark on the front of the snake in the pic below.<\/p>\n

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Articulation was another area where Hssss disappointed. He’s got the same articulation that we’re used to, but it doesn’t work as well for various reasons. First, the QC issues left me with a bobblehead, floppy ab crunch, & very floppy hips. I can shake my Hssss like… Rattlor. I’m not sure why all the loose joints, but it’s annoying. I’m waiting to see if the other IATers (they’re getting theirs tonight) have similar problems. The hips concern me the most – Hssss stands fine, but if Mattel is going to be employing the enclosed crotch piece in future figures, they might need to address how well it works.<\/p>\n

The other place where the articulation suffered was due to the design. The neck is blocked by the torso armor being a full sleeve and the hip balls are partially blocked by the high peaks on his thigh armor. The range is about equivalent to a figure with a hard loincloth piece. The waist piece works fine, but my human torso tends to want to pop out instead of turn.<\/p>\n

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King Hssss sported two accessories, his staff and his shield. They’re both nice and look like good updates to the originals. The staff is surprisingly two pieces. I first noticed this when an IAT Forum member<\/a> received a “mis-threaded” staff. The shield is okay – I really love how the 4H added the eyes & fangs so that the whole shield looks like a snake head, but the shield itself feels like it’s made out of a different plastic than we’re used to in the line. It may just be that all the raised parts on the front are mirrored with indentations on the back, but it just doesn’t seem as solid as many of the other accessories in the line.<\/p>\n

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Overall, I just ended up feeling “Meh” about the figure. The most positive thing about him might be that we finally<\/em> got a Snakeman in the line after nearly three years. While the sculpt is impressive enough that I know I’ll slowly come to enjoy King Hssss as he sits on my shelf (awaiting some troops), I don’t know that he makes a good toy. The sloppy QC and articulation issues make me not want to examine him too closely or “play” with him too much. I might swap the shoulders. Since my Hssss already has a bobblehead and loose ab crunch, I’m not going to do much damage to those joints by cracking the torso.<\/P><\/p>\n

Anyway, I don\u2019t think he\u2019s terrible despite the tone of my review. You can tell that I’ve had some fun with him from the photos (giving the accessories to the snakeform was amusing), but the truth is that I’m not particularly fond of the character and I’m not sure how that has affected my view of the figure and his various issues. Is my \u201cmeh\u201d partially because I don\u2019t find the character exciting? Or, if I loved him more, would the QC issues have bothered me more? I honestly don’t know the answer. Either way, Mattel needs to do a better job with the QC on this line and, judging from how often Toy Guru has to address the issues, they know it. So, what’s the deal?<\/p>\n

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For more MOTU reviews, check out our
MOTU Classics Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/h2>\n

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<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Club Eternia subscription finally arrived yesterday and it’s starting to make these reviews a bit less timely, but with more King Hssss figures to be released next Friday, I actually feel like I’m a bit ahead of the games on this one! The only thing is, King Hssss left me feeling more or less underwhelmed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[7,34,10],"tags":[407,836,20,16,2558,857],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/hsssTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-39n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12368,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12368","url_meta":{"origin":12113,"position":0},"title":"Some Thoughts on Clawful & Faceless One in Package","date":"April 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent most of last week (my week \"off\" from doing reviews) updating the checklists at MOTUClassics.Com, DCClassics.com, etc. Wouldn't you know that as soon as I was caught up, Mattel jumped right in and started filling up my to-do list! Mattel has posted two new MOTU bios on Facebook:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10647,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=10647","url_meta":{"origin":12113,"position":1},"title":"Site Update: DCUC Wave 17, Panthor, & King Hssss","date":"December 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Mattel is at it again with Facebook updates! Giving us our first look at packaged shots of Panthor & King Hssss as well as our first glimpse of DC Universe Classics Wave 17 featuring the *yawn* Blackest Night Lantern deputies and a collect & connect of the modern version of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3520,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=3520","url_meta":{"origin":12113,"position":2},"title":"Matty on Facebook: Evil Lyn in Package!","date":"January 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Today on Facebook, Mattel posted images of the April Club Eternia figure, Evil Lyn: Skeletor's mistess of magic! Coming your way in April, only on Mattycollector.com! Evil-Lyn comes complete with staff, wand (with removbale swapable headpiece), Skreeech, bird armor and bird perch! Continue your collection this April! From the back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Matty on Facebook"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21808,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21808","url_meta":{"origin":12113,"position":3},"title":"MOTU Classics.Com: Rattlor Review","date":"November 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Admittedly, I'm not the biggest Snakemen fan. In fact, I can\u2019t even recall having a single Snakeman as a kid. I picked up all the MO2K Snakemen, but they didn\u2019t do much to convince me. I\u2019ve been hoping that Classics could warm my opinion of these cold-blooded villains. Well, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10565,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=10565","url_meta":{"origin":12113,"position":4},"title":"Ask Matty December 15th Edition","date":"December 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In the last few waves, the figures that have visible eyes are painted to be looking up while older waves had the figures looking forward. Is this a design choice by Mattel or being done at the factory? At IAT, we\u2019d prefer they look forward.","rel":"","context":"In "Ask Matty"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27726,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=27726","url_meta":{"origin":12113,"position":5},"title":"New Adventures Skeletor Gallery Oh, and Extendar & Flogg Too!","date":"May 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12113"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12124,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12113\/revisions\/12124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}