{"id":12446,"date":"2011-05-01T19:14:41","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T00:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12446"},"modified":"2011-05-01T19:15:31","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T00:15:31","slug":"motuclassics-com-sy-klone-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12446","title":{"rendered":"MOTUClassics.Com
Sy-Klone Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> It’s May!! That means it’s time to review… April’s Club Eternia figure?? Yeah, guys, we know we’re a bit behind, but you’ll see why towards the end of the review. We\u2019ve got Sy-Klone ready for today. I had mixed feelings about the figure, but a friend of mine helped put my thoughts on him into perspective. <\/p>\n

As a child, Sy-Klone was one of my all-time favorite MOTU figures. He had bright colors, he had a simple design, and a cool lenticular sticker – I still regret not picking up the corresponding t-shirt at the Org some years ago.<\/p>\n

I lost my original Sy-Klone in the Great Flood\u2122. Almost all my original MOTU toys were lost on that fateful day, but Sy-Klone was one of the few I ended up replacing. It’s cool, but now Sy-Klone always looks a bit out of place with my vintage MOTU toys. When you’re a kid, you enjoy your toys differently. My flood surviving Buzz-Off is chipped, dinged, and he’s only got one wing these days. My vintage Sy-Klone, meanwhile is near flawless. I don’t mind though, because I love the bright colors, the simple design, and especially the lenticular sticker.<\/p>\n

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So when Sy-Klone was revealed via ToyFare, I saw him. I saw his bright colors. I saw his simple design. There was a lenticular sticker too and while I appreciated that, I was disappointed. The truth was that I’d become really hyper<\/em>-aware of vintage-based figures being a little less detailed than other ones in the line. Figures like Bow & Vikor have more texture and intricate work than a figure like Sy-Klone here. And there were options for Mattel. As I loved the original Sy-Klone, I also loved the MO2K Sy-Klone and his red repaint. And those figures had great \u201canime, hyper-details\u201d, didn’t they? There was room for classicization here and I spent a lot of the early time with this figure wishing it had been utilized. All the elements I love about Sy-Klone could\u2019ve been wrapped into one. Sy-Klone did get his ring (or “wings” as Vault insists), but, as is often the case with Mattel, I wanted more. <\/p>\n

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When he arrived, I had some misgivings about him because I was looking at him in that light. He was a figure that wasn’t quite what I wanted. I enjoyed him enough, but I was holding on to the idea of what I wanted him to be. Then, the other day, I was at my friend’s comic shop. I don’t think we’ve ever really talked about He-Man specifically anymore, but he saw me (surely thinking about where my overdue Sy-Klone review was\u2026) and said “Sy-Klone’s really awesome, isn’t he?” <\/p>\n

And to my surprise, I said, “Yes.”<\/p>\n

And that’s because he is pretty awesome. Bright colors? Check. Simple design? Check. Lenticular sticker? Check. Posable shoulders? Bonus. It was like a fog lifted.<\/p>\n

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Now, I still want more detail on my MOTU figures. Vikor & Bow are among my favorites. And when vintage figures get extra little details like the shoulders on Whiplash or the rivets and detail work on Man-E-Faces (he is so<\/em> gonna rock), I’m most happy with the line overall. But I’m not going to hold Sy-Klone to that standard. Everything I loved about the vintage figure is present and, this time\u2026 this one<\/em> time, I don’t know if extra detail would’ve helped his sculpt. He\u2019s a wind generator. He should be seamless and streamlined. So, for the rest of the review, I’m going to pocket that issue. But don’t think I’m done talking about more details. I want ’em, I just don’t need ’em here.<\/p>\n

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If you’re not familiar with Sy-Klone, the truth is that there’s not much to tell. His appearance in the Filmation series were essentially cameos. There is some overseas material that has extrapolated his back story a few different ways. Most notably as a human acrobat turned into a cyborg tornado through Skeletor’s experimentations or a young man injured in a Horde invasion that was rebuilt as a cyborg to battle the Horde.<\/p>\n

The MO2K cartoon presented him more as a samurai and the last defender of an ancient race. He protected their most powerful weapon, the Legacy Stones, from falling into the wrong hands after their empire fell. He remained there, alone, for some time, until He-Man destroyed the stones to stop Skeletor from ever getting his hands on them again. Sy-Klone joins up with Masters afterwards. The Classics version follows that faithfully – without the samurai aspect mostly, but adding in the Classics angle of the oppressed Gar race. You can check out his full bio on our Bio Page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Sy-Klone looks so simple\/classic that it’s a surprise how many new pieces he actually does have. It’s easier to just say that he reuses shoulders, hands, the lower torso, and the legs from his hips to his upper calves. Everything else is new.<\/p>\n

The head sculpt is pretty spot-on to the original because he looks like He-Man. I always thought that about my original and it definitely applies again here. The other new pieces are similarly echoing their vintage counterparts (right down to the thumbwheel on his belt), though he’s not constructed in the same way. On the vintage figure, the red rings were softer, pliable pieces that could be removed. The rings are all sculpted on here, though the fins on the biceps are a now separate piece to retain the elbow and bicep articulation.<\/p>\n

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The one lament I do have here is the construction of the arms. This isn’t limited to Sy-Klone, but I wish that Mattel would invest in a regular upper forearm piece similar to Roboto’s, but universal. They’re going to need a piece like this for Jitsu & Fisto anyway. And if we had it now, then Sy-Klone could have had the possibility for interchangeable parts. Imagine his arm popping off at the mid-forearm\/red ring and a wind attachment plugging in there! How cool would that be? I’m not going to hold it against the figure, because something like that involves logistics I’m not privy too, but remember I always want more for this line. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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Sy-Klone’s articulation is what we’ve come to expect. The unique design of his chest radar leaves him unable to crouch forward, but I’m so happy they retained that joint that I don’t mind in the slightest. The arm fins don’t block the arm articulation and, of course, it’s fantastic to finally have a Sy-Klone with poseable shoulders. Sure, I miss that I can’t spin him right round, but I’m happy to finally have him fully poseable.<\/p>\n

Sy-Klone is mostly molded in the appropriate colors with little paintwork needed. Annoyingly, that little paint work is sloppy. The red from the rings spills over to the boots and gloves pretty much all around (see why I’m wishing they were separate pieces). And some of the Sy-Klone’s we received had random paint marks – red paint lines on the thighs or torsos and paint chips on the face. Those issues might be minor, but we again remind ourselves that we’re paying $20 a pop for these figures and we can\u2019t choose which ones we get like we do with retail lines.<\/p>\n

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Sy-Klone includes his vintage shield. This time around it’s sculpted more like a shield than the disc of old, but the surface designs are there and they’re the same. I did enjoy his “Saturn shield” from MO2K, but this shield is more universal and could see reuse somewhere in the line, so I’m cool with it. The one problem with it though, is that it’s molded blue and painted yellow! Sometimes Mattel makes me want to bang my head into a wall. Why mold it blue and paint it yellow? Logistics, no doubt, but it’s a bad recipe. The shield color doesn’t quite match and, of course, if it takes any damage, the paint chips and it turns blue.<\/p>\n

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His other accessory is part of his sculpt too. One of his most drastic MO2K changes was the addition of a large ring that folded down around his shoulders.* That ring was brought into the future with the classics version and it’s actually much cooler now then it was then. It sits lower on his back and ends up around his waist when it’s moved forward (which looks better to me), but the interesting thing is that it’s removable and doubles as an accessory. It’s a little weird for him to wield at first, but you can get him into some cool poses with the oversized “blade” once you get used to it.<\/p>\n

* – In the pic on the first page, I mistakenly have those rings angled down. They are intended to be displayed sticking up as they are on Classics Sy-Klone, but I’ve been displaying them that way for so long it didn’t even occur to me to fix them for the shoot! Oops!<\/em><\/p>\n

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And here’s why the review is a bit delayed. As you saw in the comparison pic, the MO2K era gave us a really sharp looking red version of Sy-Klone. I don’t have too many MO2K toys anymore, but I had to keep that one. I love that look. And I wanted to replicate it in Classics. When Sy-Klone arrived, I quickly set out to make the red version. I hurried along, hoping to get the review out quickly, but some parts (like painting the ring gold or dying the shield red) just wouldn’t cooperate with me. Undeterred, we finished him up and I’m really happy with how he turned out!<\/p>\n

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Overall, I can\u2019t say Sy-Klone was a home run. The paint issues and the bad decision to mold the shield blue and paint it are still negatives, but honestly they don\u2019t affect his score too much. He turned out pretty nice despite them. Vault thinks he\u2019s too bright, but I think the brightness was part of the appeal of the original \u2013 though the sculpt does look great in the muted red version \u2013 and I think it\u2019s doing the same job here. The ab crunch and working shoulders are definite improvements over any other version, and that lenticular sticker is still awesome nearly twenty-five years later. It is the best Sy-Klone figure to date. <\/p>\n

Do I want this line to have more details? Absolutely, but Sy-Klone makes sense as a streamlined kinda guy. I\u2019m still going to appreciate each and every one of those rivets on Man-E-Faces though\u2026<\/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":"

It’s May!! That means it’s time to review… April’s Club Eternia figure?? Yeah, guys, we’re a bit behind, but you’ll see why in towards the end of the review. We’re here with Sy-Klone today. I had mixed feelings about the figure, but a friend of mine helped put my thoughts on him in perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12464,"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":[407,20,16,2558,817],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/sykTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-3eK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10518,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=10518","url_meta":{"origin":12446,"position":0},"title":"MOTU Classics Update: First Look at Sy-Klone","date":"December 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night on Facebook, Mattel released official images of the Sy-Klone figure that was revealed in this month's issue of ToyFare. Like most of the recent releases, he feels like the \"Classics\" style is slowly being replaced by a straight up \"Vintage\" style. I don't know how I feel about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11406,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11406","url_meta":{"origin":12446,"position":1},"title":"Matty on Facebook: Sy-Klone in Package","date":"January 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Mattel posted a new packaged picture on Facebook today. This time a shot of Sy-Klone in package. He looks pretty good in there and I'm particularly happy that Mattel was able to keep the classic lenticular chest and still retain the ab crunch. Plus, we also get our first look\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12404,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12404","url_meta":{"origin":12446,"position":2},"title":"A Funny Thing Happened when Sy-Klone Arrived…","date":"April 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Sy-Klone & Panthor arrived at the ItsAllTrue's \"central offices\" late yesterday evening. The figures came packaged in two boxes: a giant one for our Panthor order and a less giant one for our Sy-Klones. Once I had everything opened up, I was suprised to find that not all the Sy-Klone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30625,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=30625","url_meta":{"origin":12446,"position":3},"title":"Toy Fair Armchair Coverage: Masters of the Universe Classics!","date":"February 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Event Coverage"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8834,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=8834","url_meta":{"origin":12446,"position":4},"title":"MOTUClassics.Com: Whiplash Review","date":"August 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I would've never pegged Whiplash as the figure to traigger an uproar, but given his name, perhaps it's appropriate. The controversy, at least this week, is a bigger story than the figure itself, but will he really be the last classics figure with a MO2Kesque head? After having him in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12252,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12252","url_meta":{"origin":12446,"position":5},"title":"Some Thoughts On Battleground Teela in Package","date":"April 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems like it's been awhile since we've gotten a Matty Facebook reveal. I think next week's Sy-Klone was the last one? Anyway, Mattel has given us our first look at Battleground Teela in package on their Facebook page. As usual, the figure looks great and the bio is... well,\u2026","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\/12446"}],"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=12446"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12469,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12446\/revisions\/12469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}