MOTUC Thunder Punch He-Man Review + Gallery

I feel that any MOTUC figures that come out in the same month end up competing with each other for my love and affection.  Unfortunately for Thunder Punch He-Man he was slated for release the same month as Draego-Man.  So while yes, he is a “He-Variant,” he does have a lot going for him and I believe measures up to the scale of awesomeness standard that Draego-Man set this month.

Masters of the Universe Classics – Thunder Punch He-Man
Release Date: 04/16/2012 (Subscription – Quarterly Variant)
Price: $20.00 ($22.00 non sub)
Faction: Master of the Universe (Obviously!)
Real Name: Adam of the House of Randor

Thunder Punch He-Man

So here we are, four years into the Masters of the Universe Classics line and we have ourselves roughly a new variant for He-Man every year.  We’ve had the battle armor, the comic colors two-pack version, Wun-Dar (if you want to consider it one), and Preternia disguise variants in the past.  The newest variant is a throwback to when companies would load up a plastic ring with gun powder and sell it to kids as a noise maker.  Mattel, always being the ones to want to make a few bucks thought that combining He-Man and pop cap rings would be a match made in heaven.  It was.

Thunder Punch He-Man

Nowadays you can’t sell gunpowder to kids.  But Matty has done the next best thing by making a fake pop cap ring and using it as part of the deco for Thunder Punch He-Man.  You can either load up the ring into his backpack, or stick it in his shield.  I find it best to put the ring into the shield because once it is packed up in his backpack it just kind of sits there being useless.  On the other hand it looks really good with his shield and kind of completes the look of the whole package.

Thunder Punch He-Man

Of course you might as well put down that shield when it’s time for Thunder Punch He-Man to do some punching.  This He-Man variant is the first figure in the line to come with an energy effect.  His energy effect wraps around his fist and trails down, looking for similar to a yellow dragon punch from Street Fighter.  It’s a great accessory and I hope we get a few more in the next year or so.

Thunder Punch He-Man

The energy effect isn’t the only thing that “pops” on this figure, the look in general is really well done for a He-Man.  He has his backpack that straps over his chest, and front and center of it is a vac-metal “H” symbol.  There are a couple of details I was disappointed to see did not make it from the prototype to the final product.  The first being the dark wash on his loincloth, the final product is a flat brown … it doesn’t bug me much but it’s noticeable.  Secondly, and this one bugged me a bit more, is that the cuffs on the top of his boots were clean white on the prototype.  This has been replaced with a darker, almost gray wash.  It looks like the wash ended up coming out of his loincloth and getting all stuck up in his boot cuff.

Thunder Punch He-Man

Thunder Punch He-Man comes with the first of three mini comics.  The comic has He-Man riding a dinosaur, this may be Mattel rubbing in the fact that we have yet to get a dinosaur beast.  Either way, it’s a nice short little story about going back in time and saving Eternia from King Hsss and his snake men army.  The books is published by Dark Horse and we can expect the remaining issues a little later in the year.

Thunder Punch He-Man

Despite a slight Vitamin D deficiency in Thunder Punch He-Man, he is a great variant.  I have been very impressed by how they have handled the quarterly variants and attempted to give us as much value as possible in a figure of a character we probably already have.  While Draego-Man is incredible and very menacing, I find it to be a blast posing and snapping shots of Thunder Punch He-Man … he really is a lot of fun.  Kind of a more than meets the eye type of thing if I can steal from Transformers.

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