{"id":5807,"date":"2010-05-25T06:14:01","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T11:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=5807"},"modified":"2010-06-13T00:46:23","modified_gmt":"2010-06-13T05:46:23","slug":"itsalltruereview-motu-classics-tytus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=5807","title":{"rendered":"MOTUClassics.Com: Tytus Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tytus is an excitement roller coaster. First, you hear they’ve shown him at Toy Fair and the ride starts ratcheting up. You find the pics as you near the first peak, but with little warning, the articulation is announced and you drop ten stories. You drift through some various minor twists and turns, slowly building you back up to order him. Despite some reservations about the next drop, you get excited and you order your way up the next ramp. He arrives. He looks great in the box, then you open him and… <\/p>\n

And… what? Well, I’m still not sure. Ever since Tytus debuted, I had a hard time talking myself into or out of buying him. The weekend before the sale, I ended up siding with him over the money simply because, if I were to have regrets, money is easier to get than sold out MOTU figures. Now that I have him in hand, I’m still conflicted. Visually, he’s a great piece. Functionally, he’s a boring toy. In a way, he represents an old collector’s debate. What good is articulation when they’re just standing on the shelf? I’ve been on both sides of that issue. I love my super-articulated figures and I loved my MOTU stactions. I imagine collector satisfaction with Tytus is going to vary wildly across the spectrum. The truth is, I’m not even sure where I stand when it comes to the Heroic Giant.<\/p>\n

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First off, I have to take a fraction of blame for Tytus only being released overseas. I was one of the eleventy billion kids who left MOTU behind in 1987. I can’t tell you what happened really. I love a lot of the ’86 offerings, but I don’t remember seeing anything from ’87 as a kid.* No Meteorbs. No techno-dinosaurs. Nothing. I can tell you that Topps made some really coolwood-grain background<\/a> baseball cards that year. And that I have a soft spot for those not-so-great early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> though.<\/p>\n

* – I did find Scareglow years later in a flea market. He\u2019s still my only \u201987 vintage figure.<\/em><\/p>\n

I wouldn’t learn about Tytus, his cancellation, or his Italian release until I came back into the fold in 2002 and caught up on what I missed. I liked the ideas that were planned for Power of Grayskull<\/em> and am happy to see them being incorporated into Classics. I don’t have much trust in the slow mythos-building process of the bios,* but I’d like to get as many of the characters as I can from that era. I think that brought me to the decision to buy Tytus more than anything. He’s not only a piece of the toy line\u2019s past, but of Eternia’s past as well.<\/p>\n

* – I do like that, in the Tytus bio, “his herd of dinosaurs began developing strange techno parts”. Think they were hitting Eldor\u2019s ol’ mystical pool for a bit to drink?<\/em><\/p>\n

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Both when I saw Tytus in the Toy Fair images and when I pulled him out of his mailer today, I was impressed with his overall look. I think it’s nearly impossible to look at him aesthetically and not be impressed. Particularly when compared to the original.<\/p>\n

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Tytus has a very unique look that’s not quite Classics. The original Tytus wasn’t simply a scaled up vintage figure and the Classics Tytus isn’t just a scaled up MOTUC with less articulation. When I look at him overall, he almost appears more 200x than Classic, but I can’t exactly put my finger on why. He doesn’t have any of the uh, “hyper anime” flair, but his larger size does allow for more detail on the armor, some veins on the hands and arms, hammered metal details on the boots, and the intricate belt design. I imagine a 200x fan could place him with that collection and be happy. And, all the while, he still fits in just fine with the Classics. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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The vintage Tytus clocked in around 15″ while this figure is right around 13″. Some have said that he should be bigger than the original to account for the Classics being bigger than the vintage, but I think he came in at the right height. He’s tall enough to be a giant without being so tall that he looks like I’m shoehorning in a figure from a different scale. He does stand out a bit more than I would like, but that will change when we get Gygor, Megator, and other large scale characters that will help close the gap between Tytus and the regular bucks.<\/p>\n

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Paint is another area where I’m very happy with the figure. He’s one of the best painted MOTUCs that I’ve gotten all year. The skin tone is done well, the boots and bracelets have a nice metallic wash to them, and the loincloth’s darker wash makes it stand out. The little details on the belt, armor, and headband are all relatively sharp too. One thing I didn’t like was on the sides of nose. He has painted dark brown lines to simulate depth. They don’t. He just looks like he needs to wash his face.<\/p>\n

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Articulation. This is where Tytus is lacking. He has swivel joints at the mid-calf, hips (largely blocked by a particularly inflexible loincloth), waist, wrists, and shoulders, hinges for the knees and elbows, and a ball-jointed head that only swivels. If you look at the picture below you can see that the head attaches similarly to the smaller figures but is designed differently. The post coming from the neck is a separate piece, but is anchored in place preventing any tilt movement on the low end. Tytus would still have some up and down movement on the upper ball, but the articulation here is blocked too. Not by the hair, but because the ball joint is deeper in the head and blocked by the chin and the back of the head being largely flush with the neck.<\/p>\n

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But Mattel went on record saying that a fully articulated Tytus would cost $100 and that since he’s rotocast, he can’t really have ball joints anyway. I’ve got rotocast figures with ball joint shoulders in my house, but I’d rather focus on the other statement about him being $100. While it would’ve been cool, I don’t think Tytus needed all of the articulation of a little figure. Continue to Page 3…<\/a><\/p>\n

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I can deal with the hips being blocked, because the lacks of ankles would’ve made them problematic anyway. And I do wish he could look down since he’s twice as tall as everyone else, but what I really wish he had were articulated shoulders. One, because of the extra expression it would give the figure and because they would also allow him to hold his weapon up in front of him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Did Mattel look into giving Tytus various levels of articulation between the regular Classic joints and what he ended up with? Perhaps I’m wrong, but Tytus seems to have simply been given the “standard” articulation they give these large scale figures (thankfully, Tytus and GOJ Flash have t-crotches instead of the previous v-crotches). Maybe a fully tooled Tytus would be $100, but I’ll always be left wondering why he couldn’t at least get proper ball shoulders. Even more, if he had ball shoulders with rotocast arms that plugged into said shoulders, he’d have de facto bicep swivels too. <\/p>\n

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Tytus includes his original accessory resized for the new line though it doesn’t really work like the old one. You can get a figure “caught” in it if you work at it, but, as I mentioned, Tytus can’t really hold the weapon up in front of him anyway, so it’s moot. Unless you find a way to balance it sticking straight up or rest it on his shoulders, it will it will just inevitably make its way to the ground. It’s a great recreation of the original look, but the material choices keep it from being a great update overall. Kinda like Tytus himself. <\/p>\n

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In the end, I think it might have simply been too soon for Mattel to make this figure. He’s sculpted and painted great – easily admirable from a few feet away, but Mattel didn’t make the commitment to “get it right” like they did with Battle Cat. He doesn’t have the same value because you can’t do much with him. Sure, I can throw his arms up in the air or pose him with the Smasher slung over his shoulder, but that’s not very many options on a $40 toy, even one of this size.<\/p>\n

Overall, I don’t think Tytus is a bad figure. I’m glad I have him in my collection. He’s just missing a few key articulation points and he costs a little too much. I suppose you could say that those are simply side effects of the situation. That Mattel didn’t\/couldn’t produce enough to be able to afford a larger budget or to spread out his costs. But keep in mind, the amount they did make sold out in eight minutes. I’m not sure how long MOTUC fever will last, but I do think if they’d held off a bit on Tytus and not categorized him as a simple no-frills rotocast figure, we might have been in for a real treat. As it is, we have to live with a figure where sculpt and paint are almost good enough to make up for the lack of articulation. Almost. <\/p>\n

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For more MOTU reviews, check out our MOTU Classics Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/h5>\n<\/p>\n

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Tytus is an excitement roller coaster. First, you hear they’ve shown him at Toy Fair and the ride starts ratcheting up. You find the pics as you near the first peak, but with little warning, the articulation is announced and you drop ten stories. You drift through some various minor twists and turns, slowly building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5809,"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":[20,16,2569,2560,538],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/tytTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-1vF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5522,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=5522","url_meta":{"origin":5807,"position":0},"title":"Don’t forget… Optikk is today!","date":"May 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Optikk Day! Are you ready to see what happens? And don't forget Tytus, Reissue Mer-Man, Walter Peck, Two-Face, and Retro Green Arrow... whew, that's a lot. Here's a link to the multi-order page. Good luck!","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12722,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12722","url_meta":{"origin":5807,"position":1},"title":"Spy Monkey Creations Review Chalybeous \u2013 The Hammer of War","date":"June 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I gotta admit that I'm feeling a little rusty here. I only got seven reviews done in May and those were almost all in the first half of the month. So I thought I'd start with something on the easy side - a quick (& mostly pictorial) review of Spy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7th Market"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12909,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12909","url_meta":{"origin":5807,"position":2},"title":"Ask Matty Mid-June Edition","date":"June 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Ask Matty - Mid-June Edition DCClassics.Com: Why did Mattel opt to go with the \"less accurate\" goggled version of the Mr. Freeze head for the Super Powers repaint? We had intended to go with the goggle-less head but it unfortunately was not available. MOTUClassics.Com: Are there plans to reveal the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ask Matty"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4221,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=4221","url_meta":{"origin":5807,"position":3},"title":"Matty’s Full March-June Schedule! Hordak, Mer-Man, & Faker Reissues","date":"March 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On the MattyCollector News page, Matty has updated their full March through June schedule. Most of it is the same, but we do get our first word of reissues for Hordak, Mer-Man, and Faker. Toy Fans, We do our best to plan when products will be released, but sometimes the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6593,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=6593","url_meta":{"origin":5807,"position":4},"title":"MOTUClassics.Com:Gygor’s Big Package","date":"June 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This afternoon on Facebook, Matty showed pictures of Gygor in package. We get our first look at the big gorilla along with some comparison photos with a Big Jim Gorilla, Grodd, and we photoshopped one with Tytus and He-Man for good measure. All that and a crazy bio too! Hey\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MOTUClassics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5299,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=5299","url_meta":{"origin":5807,"position":5},"title":"This Week in the Green Room","date":"May 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Most Requested gets a week off after the big vote, but in the Most Requested thread, members are still sharing their nominations for future articles. A lot of folks are talking Micronauts, but I've never had one. Did I miss out as a kid or what? The MOTU Classics thread\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toys"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807"}],"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=5807"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6205,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions\/6205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}