And Your Power is....A Long Neck! (Sept. '12)

So I've got the Classics Grayskull on the picture table and I thought: Hey!  I could use this as a background and get back to reviewing the MotUC figures while I work on the Castle itself!

So why not?  Here's Mekaneck in all his mekagiraffe-like glory.

I dunno if you've ever had a giraffe, but you've at least seen one, right?  Yeah, all yellow and brown spotted.  Well this is just like that!  Except it's a dude.  And the neck part is robotic.  Also it's telescoping, and I don't think giraffes can do that.  Though, that would be cool. 

Maybe I should start somewhere else.

This is Mekaneck.  He wasn't one of those "OH MAN I LOVE IT" kind of characters, but he was still a favorite.  I suppose there are different kinds of "favorites."  There are ones that were continuously cool through the years, like Skeletor or Scare Glow.  Then there are the favorites I kinda forgot about, because they were major favorites when I was REAL young.  Buzz-Off was one of those, because he was most fun when I flapped his wings back and forth.  Mekaneck is similar, because he was SO FUN when you twisted him around and made his neck go up and down!

Now, I wanted to display his original action feature by showing the old commercial...but I don't think there was just a commercial for Mekaneck alone.  He was in the Land Shark commercial, though!

So yeah...there's Mekaneck, screaming like a wuss and running away.  I mean, he IS running from the insanity that is the Land Shark, so I guess I can't blame him.  Apparently all you need to do is punch it though, so it can't be that amazing (unless the thing just eats He-Man after the screen fades to black).

Point is, you twist him and his neck went up.  He doesn't do that anymore, obviously.

Of course, I never expected them to keep the twist waist action - they're cutting the action features outta this line, and I'm fine with that (for most of them).  As this comic shows: the benefit of no action feature is the addition of a SUPER LONG NECK!  Eat your heart out, Little Foot.

Needless to say: I friggin' love the super long neck extension.  How could you not?  It was the one absolutely necessary new item that all the fans expected, so it was hard to pass up.  The only drawback is that the part that pops into the neck has this blue ring around it to match up with the body, so you can't double up on the neck items without having a blue stripe in the middle of it.  I think that'd be the only thing I would have changed with this figure.

The neck is the center of attention here, but I've always liked the strange armor as well.  With the 200X figure, they sorta made the armor and his blue spandex all one thing (I assumed it helped with the mechanical neck; like it was all cybernetics going through him).  The original is just...some sorta armor with a breathing unit, maybe?  I had assumed it was a communication system when I was little.  Anyway, he shares the armor with Stinkor.  Stinkor didn't come in until way later in the vintage line, but with Classics, Stinkor came first!  Not that it matters.  It does seem to make more sense with Stinkor, though.

Cool thing about sharing with Stinkor in Classics is that Mekaneck has the same hole in his back that Stinkor uses for his tanks.

Which means, with an extra pair of Stinkor tanks and the mouth thing, you can make a scuba Mekaneck!

And since they're blue, they match!  And you'll have a scuba Mekaneck! 

Yeah!

...is anyone else excited by this?  Just me? 

Alright, lets move on.

What have we talked about so far?  Armor, necks...what else does he have?

WHOA, what is that?!  A thermos?  Does he carry soup in there to keep it warm?  Maybe it's a flashlight? 

Alright, it's a mace.  A GIANT MACE.  Because Mekaneck is a scout, and scouts always need baseball bats, I guess.  Even back in the day.

It's true....I have no idea what happened to the original mace.  I remember it, but obviously his action feature was more important.  I'm glad to have it again, though!  It always intrigued me.  It's a hell of a unique mace weapon for a guy with neck stretching powers!  Barely anyone else has this unique of a weapon.  Yeah, it's a mace...but a glorious GOLDEN mace!  Did it strike anyone else as strange?

Not that it matters.  I guess if you're out scouting, you need a nice, quick weapon to take out your adversaries so you can run...

...and that's not a mace.  Ah, who cares?  I love the weapon!  It's hilarious!

I guess scouts also need to be able to erase anyone who might have seen them...so what's a better way to erase someone than by beating them into a bloody smear on the ground?  Yeah! 

Oh, so I sort of created a "reflective surface" in that last picture there.

I guess that's the final point of comparison: The helmet.  The original had silver, reflective lenses on his helmet thing.  Our new guy is just shiny silver, though I don't mind.  Some folks wanted the chrome, but I don't think it makes much of a difference (and I also don't have to worry about scratching them.)  You MAY notice that the helmet is a bit higher on his head than with the original.  It's RIGHT on the end of his nose with the original, but it's up on the bridge with the new one.  It's so minor that it's really only worth a "hey, look!" and it's not really a complaint.

In the end, I REALLY liked this guy!  He's one of those figures I didn't realized I missed until I got 'em.  I thought the magic would be lost with the action feature, but he simple and fun all on his own.  I like the idea of him as well.  I mean, his power is so simple and seemingly boring that the 200X cartoon took a whole episode to talk about how useless he feels (Mekaneck's Lament). 

It's impossible for this guy to be useless, though!  Maybe he's not always in the thick of battle, but a good scout is always useful.  Especially a scout that can see over just about anything - and - I just have to assume that helmet can zoom in on stuff as well.  'Cause otherwise...what's the point of the crazy goggles?  I think Mekaneck would be great for more than just a story about how useless he feels.  I imagine this guy roaming the canyons and other areas with bad terrain and taking in all there is to see.  Nothing escapes his view!  Doesn't matter where you hide your forces - Mekaneck will always be looking in every crack and crevice and will be ready to radio in with all the information on the terrain and the enemy numbers.  THAT...is more than useful.  That's important.

...but how did Mekaneck BECOME the famous scout that he is?

...and now you know!  Everyone has to start somewhere.  And end. 

Personally, I like to end on giraffes.