The Older Brother is Always a Jock (June '12)

...well okay, so he may not necessarily be a "jock" but he's certainly buffer-looking and more chiseled in the face.  One way or another, this is Hordak's bigger, badder, redder older brother HORDE PRIME - MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

*cough* Seemed like a good thing to do after saying his name.  So yeah, lets start behind the scenes:

We saw this son of a bitch at some convention or another, and it was good.  Well, for me; I'm not speaking for everyone. Mattel wanted his face to be a surprise, so all we saw was his face sort of peaking through the fish-helmet.  Not seeing the fish yet?  Take a look at this:

HAHAHAHAHA...ha...ah, I'm sorry.  I was text laughing again.  Anyway, this comes from a forum goer on He-Man.org by the name of Met-Hild.  This of course does not mean that I dislike the helmet; if anything it makes it MORE awesome.  Point is: We didn't see anything but this crazy helmet first, though it's not like we had to stretch our imagination to figure out that it would be some form of head that looked like Hordak.

Because of course.  It was already stated in his filecard that he was Hordak's big bro, so naturally he has a "big bro" type of head when compared to Hordak. 

Now a little on Horde Prime, from the top of my head:  Horde Prime (or Horde Supreme) was in the old She-Ra cartoon as Hordak's creepy and possibly giant leader, and in old European comics as...something completely different.

VERY different looks for this guy.  Of course, the whole figure is based on the idea of the cartoon look, and this head is simply from the European look, because this head normally goes with a purple bodysuit and some other goofy gear.  One way or another it does this head well to be associated with this body, even if it doesn't fit amazingly well.  I won't be using this head for Horde Prime though, so...moving on.

Like I said; Horde Prime was also "seen" in the She-Ra cartoon, but only in smokey blackness so that the helmet on this figure was all you could see...sort of.  Sometimes you could also see a GIANT hand that bossed Hordak around, and it looked a lot like the hands you see here!

So that's a basic gist of what you're seeing with this figure: A guesswork patch together of what has been seen of Horde prime with an extra head from the European version for good measure.  All in all I'd say Mattel and the Four Horsemen did a fantastic job!

Now on with the toy stuff.  You see that his helmet comes off, so lets keep going.

If it wasn't already obvious, his big Horde symbol is part of the cape, so his armor actually has nothing on the front.  I guess that might mean that it doesn't have much use without the cape, but eh...I like it. 

Finally, you can get the armor off as well as his "hood" thingy AND his hands!  The hands attach by way of the same peg system as Trap-Jaw, Roboto, or anyone else with removable hand items.  So there's lots of stuff to shove in there, with Spymonkey stuff included!

Before we get there though, I swapped a little between him and Hordak:

That's what he looks like with Hordak's armor; I think the silver goes well with the hands.  I also threw on a Horde armband to see how he'd look with that.

Also threw his hood on Hordak just to see (since Hordak's hood is permanently attached to a cape). 

Alright, so what can you do with a Horde Prime?  Well first off, we got an accessory cut from the original prototype that we were shown at some toy show.  He had a staff and a crossbow arm, and he had to get one of those cut due to costs...so they cut the staff, for some reason.  Honestly, with how big and malevolent he is, I would have stuck with the staff.  He just looks like he need to be leaning on a staff, you know?

So that was all he came with originally.  Thankfully they decided to add his staff and a few other missing accessories in a weapons pack...which I just got, so I can really finish this review with the item I think he should have come with in the first place!

There we go!  Doesn't he look complete now?  The staff was obviously a missing piece to the puzzle of DOOM that is Horde Prime. 

I love how he's got his face all over everything, too.  Anyway, I thought it would have been cool if the top of the staff came off and you could attach it to his arm, but they didn't go that route.  Still an awesome staff!

So now I come to the point where I once again confess that I have video games on the brain, and that many of my toys over the years have become tiered boss fights.  Horde Prime lends himself to this idea perfectly.  It stems from the fact that you can remove armor but still have a cool looking figure.  Basically the idea is that you'd be fighting the final boss, and if you've played video games at all, you're probably familiar with the idea of a boss having either multiple forms, or at least different parts of the battle.  Here, I'll demonstrate:

 

Our standard hero will be Sir Laser Lot, of whom I haven't spoken of yet (we'll get to him later, he just looks like a good standard hero).  He'll be fighting Horde Prime at the end of the "game."  Like any good final boss, he starts off with his least impressive attacks.  All his armor is on and he shoots fireballs from his staff.  They hurt bad, but they're easy to dodge.  You KNOW this isn't the best he can do, and fully expect another part to this fight.

You hit him when he's open and eventually knock off his crazy helmet, to begin the next phase.

Horde Prime changes his arm into a crossbow and things get a bit more tense!  The projectiles aren't just fireballs anymore, and they split off, making dodging even tougher and giving you less time to land hits on Horde Prime.  It's hard, you suspect this could be it, but you know it's not when you land the right amount of blows and cut off the crossbow arm.

He's tired, but not down for the count; plus, he can easily pop out another metal arm.  This isn't over!

How could you have been so foolish?  Of course it's not ever yet - he hadn't even taken off the cape! Everyone knows that when the cape comes off, the melee starts!  Horde Prime pops out another hand and transforms his staff in to a sword.  The magic shit is done; it's time to get in close!  Sadly, that means things speed up!

This will be the fast and furious final part you were probably looking for!  This section may even get you to lose a life or two while trying to keep up.  This has you saying "Alright, this HAS to be the final part!  I can't keep going after this."

Now would be the part where Horde Prime falls all dramatically and the cinematic takes over.  One of those standard of the gaming industry that tells you "Alright, you're done."

Another standard they like to pull on you is the surprise.

Horde Prime gets up one last time (any more and it would be overkill) and forms his other hand into another sword!  This is it!  If this were a newer game they would probably (thankfully) save it at that point so that if you died, you started right back at the last part.  If this were an older game back in the days of keep-trying-until-you-get-it-right, then they'd just start you right back at the beginning of the fight.

The rest is video gaming history 101: Hit the weakpoint.  Well that's the whole battle though, isn't it? 

Anyway, my whole point here is that this figure hits my core.  That place inside me that has been there since childhood; the place that creates more than what was intended for the figure.  He is ripe for play!  Very imaginative, crazy lookin', In-Charge, and it even gives you extra space for your own ideas in that his arms come off but he only comes with one item to put there.  I would have found other things, but thankfully Spymonkey comes to the rescue with perfect items for the job!

I understand if this guy just kinda looks worse than Hordak just because he's got more stuff on him, but hell...I'm a sucker for the obviously Evil Overlord kinda guy.  He's evil to the bone - right down to the standard black and red and bat wings.  And especially the face!  This is one of those guys I have to suggest beyond just MotU; he's just an all around fun toy.