Fans of the 200x Masters of the Universe series, your ship has arrived. And that ship is a giant cat body with wings, bird feet, a split tail, beak, and four eyes. That’s right the Griffin is here, the first 200x series beast. You may be thinking I forgot about him, but i have just been a little slow on the trigger getting these out. Following SDCC coverage is exhausting, and then I took on a little project to paint Horde Prime. Finally the reality hit me when Spikor shipped that I need to get Griffin completed.
Masters of the Universe Classics – Griffin
Release Date: 06/15/2012 (Subscription – Quarterly Beast)
Price: $30.00 ($33.00 non sub)
Faction: Beast Men (?)
Real Name: Varies
So the Griffins were used as flying steeds for the Beast Men. Now you may ask are there more than one Beast Man? Yes, because I’m sure he wasn’t some anomaly that was born to be the only one. What we have gathered from the Sir Laser Lot comic is that beast men are numerous and a big problem in Eternia. You could kind of equate them to deer; well deer that will tear you apart and kill you.
Griffin is actually the first “beast” we have gotten this year. He is also the third reuse of the Battle Cat body, however unlike last time they took a good amount of liberty with this one. Panthor just added a new head and armor. Griffin adds a new head, two new back feet (I originally thought they were Shadow Beast feet, but I can confirm now they are not), a new tail, wings, and new armor. I also really dig the paint on the wings, I think the original prototype was a flat color but now it is layered and looks really good.
I really like the Battle Cat body, even when it first came out it felt like a decent value at $30. Three years later that body still feels good at that same price point, especially with all the newly tooled parts they added to make Griffin. The only improvement I would really ever want on the Griffin body is the ability to move his front arms out to the side more. I’d imagine it would be hard to do that without a traditional shoulder ball, and doing that would ruin the aesthetic of the body.
That ass!
Griffin is made for the Beast Man to ride, and Beast Man fits very nicely in his saddle. Matty also did the smart thing and offered a reissue of Beast Man the same day as Griffin went on sale. Whoever would say those guys don’t know what they are doing? I doubt the priority is there anymore, but it would be cool to get a generic beast men pack to go with Griffin and Beast Man.
On the subject of not getting things, it seems almost weird that this is been the first beast slot since Star Sisters back in January. We then have the Snake-Men two pack and the giant Proctrustus coming up this year. Since the Beast and Variant slot has been combined into just four figures next year I find myself appreciating my beasts like Griffin a little bit more now. We already have two slots for 2013 revealed, with one more being $25 so it will obviously be a variant. That leaves just a $50 dollar slot which could easily be another two-pack, but I hope they get us at least one beast next year. And I hope that beast is a dinosaur, preferably one with lasers.
The only negative I can come up with for Griffin is the same one I have for Swiftwind, they are very girly looking. Wait, no that wasn’t it … the wingspan eats up a ton of shelf space and I have been out of space for months. My MOTUC display is slowly creeping off the shelf into the next room. I haven’t found a home for Griffin, but the good news is that I can take Beast Man out of my evil display and stick him on Griffin to save some space.
Group shot!
So where can you nab yourself a Griffin? Being a subscriber has this benefit as it was shipped to my house. But I imagine if you are reading this you don’t have one yet. I would suggest picking one up on Amazon. They got the free super saver shipping so you will pay close to the shipped price direct from Matty.
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