Head Slushies (May '12)

May brought one other freaky monster other than Stinkor: Slush Head!  I've spoken of the New Adventures of He-Man before, but to remind you - it was the He-Man cartoon right on the end of the 80's and into the early 90's.  It didn't do well, mostly because they changed the look of He-Man and Skeletor and took  them away from Eternia...effectively getting rid of everything that anyone knew about He-Man.  Most hated it, so if you gathered much about my personality from this blog, then you can probably guess that I loved it! 


Er...well, let me rephrase that: I loved the toyline.  I think whatever channel the cartoon was on was quickly ashamed of it or something, because I was never able to catch it back in the day.  I still think I would have liked it, but I'll have to watch it to really see.  The toyline though...awesome!  It took everything I loved about He-Man but ramped up the technology.  On top of that, Skeletor (at least in the minicomic) was beaten and burnt from He-Man's special transformation (he sorta permanently changed into He-Man in the NA minicomic) so he ends up having to perform self-surgery with bionics to rebuild himself.  SO COOL.  I'm serious, you go back and talk to little me back then and Skeletor ripping into himself to make himself into a cyborg is the coolest damn thing you could do with the character.  I still love it. 

But that's beside the point!  Slush Head is from the cartoon and NA toyline.  You're pretty much getting everything in this figure that you got from the original, save for some skin texture.  They did a great job reusing parts to build him!  There was just one little problem...

The original toy had water in the dome!  So the designers of the new one had to figure something out: either just make the dang thing and ignore the water, or figure out a way for consumers to put in the water themselves (because Mattel couldn't sell ship an item overseas containing liquids...or I think that was it?)  So what they came up with was...admittedly a little confusing.  The end result was a plug in the back of the dome; pull it out, put in the water, and replace the plug.  Simple!  Problem is that due to this...somehow the dome had to be stuck in place. 

The confusing part is that the dome is stuck in place with two plastic tabs that extend into the armor of the figure.  If you pull off those tabs...well...

...nothing happens.  The tabs do no need to be there, basically.  Once the tabs are freed from the armor and removed carefully from the dome; the dome can move freely!  Of course, the only thing keeping the dome in is friction, but I haven't had a problem with it falling out.  Now, before you go snappin' off those tabs on your own: Some folks have gotten cracks on the dome after taking off the tabs.  That's why I say carefully, though I wasn't careful with my own.  Still, there are no problems with mine.  I just want to warn you. 

Anyway, once you do that he can turn his head!

I just don't get why it needed to be molded this way.  If they had put a track on the inside of the collar and a lip around the edge of the dome (that would fit in the track) then you'd have a movable dome!  No muss no fuss.  Either that, or they could have put a standard ball-joint cup under the dome; there's room for one.  For some reason the designers at Mattel felt that the ONLY way they could ensure that water did not leak was to stick the dome inside the collar.  I'm not sure why, but there had to be some form of reasoning there, so I won't question further (not that I could, anyway).  I'm happy with the results of my simple cut job.

So yeah, lets move on!

As explained in the Optikk post; some NA figures had weapons that worked in two ways, and Slushy's weapon was one of them.  As you can see, there's the rifle mode, and the axe mode!  It's a simple switch - just hold the thing by the barrel and it's an axe!  I'm glad the designers allowed for this ability. 

Other than that, Slushy has those two tentacles comin' off his back thingy.

One has a hinge, the other is static.  Both twist at the claw and at the connection to the backpack.  Sadly, they didn't tell you how they were supposed to go into the backpack, and I think there was a specific way to put them in.  I think mine are backwards...but I was okay with that, 'cause I thought I was going to switch them back and forth depending on how I wanted them positioned (since the cables are NOT bendy).  Sadly, when I tried to pull one of them out again, it was apparently that the peg holding it in was stretching out.  I had to stop of I would have broken it off.  So yeah...those are stuck where they are now, though I can still spin them around in their places without worry. 

As for the dome:

Water stays in nice and tight, mostly.  When I put the water in originally I noticed that there was some leakage around the plug, but it did stop, and it never started up again.  So I have to assume it's a tight seal.  Also, as I said, there has been no leakage from my modification at the broken tab points.  I wasn't sure if I was going to put water in originally, but I had to test if my modification was water-tight.  Afterward though, I really like the look!  I don't think I'm going to drain it out.

So this figure was really cool!  His tentacles work well - I would have liked them to be bendy, but this way still works and they are fun to mess with.  I don't know why his dome had to be the way it is, but I'll never know unless I talk directly to the ones involved, so I'm good with my modification and...well he's cool even if you leave him as-is!  Overall I'd say he's worth having in your collection whether or not you're a He-Man fan.