Mattel MOTUC Extendar Review

I’ve certainly skipped a lot of Masters of the Universe Classics figure reviews this year; just look at how linkless my checklist is!  I think I actually had one written up for Scorpia, but shooting pictures for her proved difficult so I never got to publishing it.  Most releases I find that there just isn’t much to talk about.  There aren’t any huge glaring errors except that most figures look like they are wearing fat suits.  And there aren’t any huge highlights past Modulok this subscription.  I think this will change as we get further into the year because it looks like some exciting characters are on the horizon.

Masters of the Universe Classics – Extendar
Release Date: 06/16/2014 (Monthly Subscription)
Price: $25.00 ($27.00 non sub)
Title: Heroic Master of Extension

Here we are at the half-way point of the 2014 Club Eternia, and we finally have Extendar!  This year we can actually check two more Heroic Warriors from the 1986 Masters of the Universe series: Extendar and then later this year Rio Blast.  This basically only leaves Flying Fists He-Man as the last Heroic Warrior from that year.  I’m willing to bet that one of those $52 slots in next year’s Club Eternia is going to be a Flying Fists He-Man vs Terror Claws Skeletor to finish off the 1986 variants.

Extendar is one of those figures that force Mattel’s hand.  He pretty much requires almost entirely new tooling to be done right.  The Extendar we got wasn’t 100% new tooling, however, everything but the torso piece is new.  The new parts look pretty great.  The only real problem I have besides the typical Masters of the Universe Classics “fat-suit” is that the armor parts on his shoulder and upper legs really restrict his range of motion.  Removing his armor helps a bit, but then he doesn’t have his cool knight armor on!

Besides his extensions, Extendar comes with a giant lance and a fold out shield.  The lance is really cool, but much like the figure it’s made of really rubbery plastic.  The rigidness of the lance isn’t nearly as big an issue than if the accessory were smaller.  It generally stays in the right shape, but I found a few times while taking pictures if it even hits a tiny bit of resistance it bends.  Extendar can hold the lance with two hands but that requires removing his armor.  The shield has a neat gimmick in that it folds out.  It really only looks good when partially folded out.  If you fold it out all the way it looks more like a boogie board than a shield, and if you fold it completely in it looks like a briefcase.

I mentioned that the lance was made of rubbery plastic and unfortunately the figure is made of the same material.  I’d imagine the materials were made softer in order to accommodate the extension feature.  Normally this is deathsend to the figure standing, but Extendar actually stands pretty well.  By some miracle of engineering they decided to make his boots (or feet) a little larger than a normal figure, and it worked since Extendar stands pretty well in any form.

Some people went pretty nuts when Extendar was announced.  I never really had the attachment, and I’m not even positive if I had the toy as a kid.  That said I’m a huge fan of figures you can add and remove parts from.  Modulok was a ton of fun because of all the possible configurations I could put him in.  Extendar is a little more simple, but he’s a great looking figure with a fun “action feature.”  It’s easy to go through a couple of months of decent but forgettable MOTUC figures.  Extendar is one of the toys that remind you why you collect this line because he’s a great toy and a ton of fun.

Extendar is sold out at Matty’s site, but you can always grab one over at Amazon if you missed out.

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