Mattel MOTUC Icer Review

July has come and gone but we got to celebrate the month with the start of the Masters of the Universe Classics “Club Filmation.”  Club Filmation is a six figure monthly add-on subscription Mattel announced at Toy Fair earlier this year.  The point was to get out some more obscure (and not so obscure ones like Strongarm and Sea Hawk) action figures from the Masters of the Universe cartoon series.

Cold puns aside they chose a pretty neat figure to start off the subscription, Icer.  This was also the point where I needed to start going to Google to find out who the hell these characters are.  I presumed that I had a pretty good knowledge of the Masters of the Universe character catalog, but this subscription is proving me very wrong.  Sometimes I venture over to He-Man.org to poke around and I see people make their “most wanted” lists of 25 names I have never heard of.  The Masters of the Universe Classics line is starting to head into that obscure territory, but as long as the toys are cool I will be glad to add them to my collection.

Masters of the Universe Classics – Icer
Release Date: 07/15/2013 (Club Filmation)
Price: $25.00 ($27.00 non sub)
Faction: Evil Master of Cold

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Icer because he was an unknown to me.  I’m happy to say that he is a pretty nice action figure and really stands out.  Mattel did a tremendous job with the icy look of the character.  They took a basic MOTUC body and casted it in a dark translucent blue then gave it a white frosted effect using white paint.  The end result turned out great!

Icer has a decent amount of new sculpting: the obvious head, wrists, ankles, feet, and his two accessories.  The first thought that came to mind when I saw the newly sculpted furry parts was, “these would look great with Ice Armor He-Man!”  Then I realized I was actually pining for a He-Man variant.  In Ice Armor He-Man’s defense he was probably one of the best variants (Snake Armor was the best) of the 200x line.  It is kind of funny how I’m looking forward to variants while almost ten years ago I was cursing them for killing the prior Masters of the Universe line.  I guess it goes to show that variants have been handled much better this go around.

Now what does variant talk have to do with Icer?  Nothing at all.  Icer is the “Evil Master of Cold” which you could probably figure out from his name.  Most MOTU character’s names don’t stroll far from their powers.  And by being a guy made of ice he comes with a giant shard of said ice as a weapon.  It certainly isn’t the conventional weapon we see in this line because it doesn’t have a handle that tells you “the hand goes here!”  You can use your imagination to decide if he wants to use it as a spear, a club, or even a toothpick.

The other accessory he comes with is the Staff of Avion.  This inclusion appears to be part of a plan for Filmation characters to include various relics from the Masters of the Universe cartoon world.  I believe a handle was originally supposed to be sculpted onto this staff to help Stratos hold it, but it appears that did not end up becoming a reality.  The staff is nice to look at but don’t play with it too rough because the gold paint chips.  It chips very easily so I wouldn’t mess with it a lot.  It’s a shame this happened because I thought we were past the whole paint chipping issues of last year.  Icer isn’t the only figure with the chipping paint this month either because NA He-Man’s sword has the same gold paint and it chips as well.

If we can look past the Staff of Avion issue Icer is still a fantastic addition to the Masters of the Universe Classics library of characters.  His look and the newly sculpted parts work together to make a solid first entry into the 2013 Club Filmation.  Did you not subscribe?  Well I would suggest checking your local Amazon as they usually carry Icer and any other MOTUC figures you might have misses.

If you care to know who is planned for the rest of the year make sure to head on over to our checklist since it has been updated through the first quarter of 2014.