Weapons Pak 3: The Weaponing (Oct '12)

Man, they kept these things coming!  Which is good for me, 'cause I like accessories!  Dunno if you've heard.

Ah, the days before I had plastic fire!  I'm never goin' back.  Except when someone is shooting flame.  Maybe.  Ya know, I could rig up the long fire piece to-----NO.  No.  Why do I keep making these so complicated?

Alright, back on track!

This is Weapons Pak #3 for Masters of the Universe Classics.  This one was special, because it came with some canceled items that were originally supposed to be packaged with certain figures.  So we get some brand new items, fully painted as they were intended!  That's impressive, for what is supposed to be a cheaper item.  Overall, it's a fantastic pack and I bought my usual two.

However, there's always at least ONE funky choice within any weapons pak so far.  In the first pack it was the pinkish Zodac armor that would have worked better in just about any other color (or at least if anyone else had that pinkish color.  It's hell to match!).  The second pack recolored Whiplash's weird 200X spear-thing, which is utterly useless for anyone who doesn't have an open left hand.....which is nearly everyone.

Weapons Pak #3 not only has a spectacular example of an odd choice, but it is also the only choice I can feel safe in calling Just Plain Stupid.

Thankfully, that choice is at least saved by it's companion item: the green Clawful shield.

These are the normal Clawful items.

And these are the new Clawful items!  Notice anything strange?

That's right!  Weapons Paks, so far, have given us some new items and recolored weapons from other figures.  So, for this pack, they changed Clawful's shield to a nice, generic green!  Awesome idea, and it looks good as a shield made from some monster hide.

I don't know what happened after that.  They wanted to match the green with more green?

Something had to have happened.  They didn't just MAKE this choice, did they?  It's slightly brighter!  I gotta give them the benefit of the doubt, or something.  Maybe the colors came back late and they had to roll them out as they were?  Even if that's the case....who chose GREEN AGAIN??  And nearly the SAME green!  I oughta smack you!

Granted, this is a best case scenario for a screw up.  I mean, they could have messed up a weapon I was looking forward to!  At least the only casualty is a basic unexciting mace.  Now it's just even less exciting!

Positives, positives.

The shield works well for my man Dekker, here.  Dekker is from the 200X toon and was the previous Man-At-Arms.  When you meet him in the toon, he's living on an island; the same place where Clawful's race is from.  So it makes sense that he might build himself a shield from some hapless crustacean.

He also looks like the sort to make weapons out of living things.

The mace was the only bummer for me, and the shield more than makes up for it!

Moving on from there, we have a sword and shield from Chief Carnivus.  This was a great one to recolor, since the lion on the shield is from an old playset.  It works well for Eternian guards, even if the aqua color doesn't quite match their usual blue. Doesn't really bother me, though I would have liked the blue on the blade in translucent blue instead.

As it is, the blade makes for a nice ice or energy blade.  I thought it worked well with New Adventures figures, as a sort of energized blade.  They don't have a ton of melee weapons in that universe, so it's nice to find some items that work.

It's a pair of items that are great to have for soldiers, and makes me glad I got two sets.

Forcibly next is Man-At-Arms' big 'ol blaster!  This is another 200X item pulled from the toyline and simplified to match a vintage sort of look.  Man-At-Arms could just....form this thing over his arm, at will.  Not sure where that tech was kept, but he did look like he had a mechanical left arm, so who knows?

I LOVE this thing, because it is somehow even more ridiculous than the hyper detailed 200X version.  The opening for the barrel is larger because the original held a missile launcher.  This one doesn't!  So the opening at the end is just GIGANTIC.  This son of a bitch is gona be shooting down buildings!  If anything on this earth or the next could ever be called a Ghetto Blaster - it's this.

Dancing down the isles to the mat next is Horde Prime's staff!  He was a tall drink of water with a huge cape, two heads, an arm crossbow, and a big honkin' fishmask.  Naturally, there wasn't much room to add more, so his staff was pushed into this pack.  Glad to have it, I must say!

Horde Prime has a very similar staff to Hordak, but it's all teched up on top.  The very end looks like it's supposed to have something plugged into it.  I wonder if they cut that out, or if the end is just open 'cause it fires stuff?

You can plug whatever you want into the end of the staff, so long as it fits.  Or even if it doesn't!  Don't let me tell you what to do.  You're your own man/woman.

It helps if you have a ton of Gundam figures and a million different beams to try.

Horde Prime only has a couple weapons, and yet, so much versatility!  The removable hands goes a long way (with Spymonkey gear) and then the hole at the end of his staff adds even more options.  I love this guy!  He's my favorite "final boss" type figure.

Next up is recolored Teela gear.  This is one of those "but we wanted it plainer!" deals, where Teela came with some sweet gold and bronze items that matched her to a T, but the fans were asking for plain red versions to match her vintage figure.  It's neat and all, but when there's a marked improvement over the original: It's obvious.  The only way to go from Teela's MotUC gear was backwards.  I don't regret these, and they're neat (and I'll probably find a place for them) but really, the only good thing about them is the blue shield (for Evil-Lyn) and the fact that this made some fans happy.  It's awesome when you know Mattel is listening!

Since I got two of these paks, I took one of the Teela swords and handed it to another figure.  Then I painted the gem blue to match her gauntlets.

There's blue in her gauntlets, trust me.

Vintage Evil-Lyn never had a shield, but this is the kinda stuff I find neat about the weapons paks.  The Teela gear is just that...recolored Teela gear.  It's a bit harder to find places for it, save for the sword.  The blue shield has one easy place to go, and that's on Evil-Lyn.  Nothing to replace!

Now in case you couldn't tell: Teela is one of the best freakin' figures in the line, so taking her out to use with accessories is dangerous, for me.  I had to take some pictures, and though they have nothing to do with this post, here they are:

There we go!  Got that out of my system.  We'll just call these pictures an example of why her accessories were already awesome, and the red ones just don't look right.

...and an example of the fact that she's using a pistol, spear, and scabbard that didn't originally come with her.

These next ones you've seen a bunch already!  Any time I've used Draego-Man, he's at least had the shield.  Draego-Man was originally planned to come with all this stuff (plus the normal fire sword) but you KNEW he wasn't going to.  Once I saw the tail and wings, along with the new tooling, I knew that sucker wasn't going to come with all of that.

Boy does it help, though!  You can't miss this stuff, if you have Draego-Man.  The shield is the one that really brings it home, though.  You can pop the flames off the back, for a normal non-flaming shield.

I also like that his sword starts out normal, and he engulfs it in flame.  Plus: It's a pretty basic sword in Skeletor purple, so you can pass it around if you just want Draego-Man using the flaming weapons.

The flaming whip wasn't my favorite, originally, but it grew on me.  It's especially nice when you get two of 'em in there!

And there's another shot of Draego-Man in the fire, because.

Last one in the pack was a MUCH needed item!  Because it was one of the few things I complained about.  So ya know...that means it's important.  Because, me.

Now, I explained all this in Keldor's post, awhile back, but i'll do it again for you good folks.  Keldor came with two halves of the normal Power Sword - not even a whole weapon.  Both Skeletor and He-Man came with Power Swords and separate half Power Swords to mimic the old vintage feature.  The half Power Swords weren't really meant to be the usable accessory, to me.

Keldor coming with the half-swords was SUPER boring, especially since the reasoning Mattel gave was that the original 200X Skeletor sword(s) were meant to be the Power Sword, by the Four Horsemen.  The idea was scrapped when Mattel saw the mechanical Power Sword that He-Man was supposed to use as a replacement (since, originally, the story was supposed to be a continuation, and Skeletor would have the Power Sword).  They used the design for Skeletor's swords anyway, but you can clearly see  the "good" half and the "bad" half of the swords from the original idea.

With this in mind: They decided that this translated to normal Power Swords.  BAH!  Boring!  Especially since the 200X toon simplified the swords by taking out the skull and bird designs; making it a normal double sword.  Why not use that?

Well, they didn't, but that's okay!  I REALLY like this simplified design, and it's cool that the motifs still made it in.  I would have liked the hilts to intertwine like the original, but this still works.  It livens up Keldor, and looks great with any Skeletor figure.

There are some drawbacks to the swords, however.  One is the "China" written directly on the blade (this is a running thing with weapons paks, sady) and the other is above: the insides (where the swords connect) are unpainted purple.  You can really only pose them certain ways, because the flat purple on the insides are kinda ugly.  It functions, and normally I'm cool with that, but the original 200X swords had detail on the inside as well, and were painted.  I was hoping for the same deal.

STILL....it doesn't detract from it enough for me to care much.  I really love the simplified forms of these blades.

Overall, this was a pretty great pack with only some minor hiccups.  Many of the items improved specific figures and made them even better, while some other items had unexpected uses that further improved other figures that previously had very little.  There's also a SLIGHTLY LIGHTER GREEN CLAWFUL MACE, Y'ALL!  Get it while it's hot!  Goin' for BIG BUCKS on ebay!