Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Icarius By Mattel

I thought I’d wrap up this week’s Masters of the Universe Classics toy reviews with a guy that fits a little more into the science fiction category that Earth Station One tends to favor.

You might remember a character named Flipshot from the New Adventures of He-Man cartoon. Or you might not. I only sort of did and I think it was only because ToyFare did something semi-nasty with him once. I never really followed the cartoon that attempted to reboot He-Man’s popularity and only have a passing knowledge of the characters that aren’t blond or skull-faced.

But never mind all of that, because now we have an updated version of He-Man’s Heroic Jet-Fueled Friend! Or whatever.

First Glance: I wasn’t all that excited about this guy initially. I wasn’t opposed to him, but he just didn’t do much for me. But seeing him in person I can appreciate not only how many new parts he got, but also what a neat-looking toy he really is.

Sculpt: As with all of the Masters Classics Icarius has a basic body. But for something that looks like a fairly generic 80’s-era toy, he sure does have a lot of new parts. Not only that, they’re parts that I can’t figure out another use for. Granted, I can’t summon a list of every Masters of the Universe character to mind at will, but I can’t think of anybody else that might use these calves.

Side Note: Funny that I singled out the calves at the time considering they were just repurposed for Slush Head.

The joints on my figure are all adequately tight. This was a big concern for me going in, because pretty much any loose joints from the abdomen down were going to be a problem considering that ginourmous jetpack on his back. As it is, my Icarius is balanced very well and hasn’t fallen over once.

His crazy jet boots look… well, they look stupid. But they fit the character very well and I don’t dislike them. I just can’t deny that they look frigging goofy.

Icarius has some gadgetry on his right wrist that looks neat. Not much to say about it, but it’s new so it’s worth mentioning.

The heads that come with this figure are excellent. Just the fact that we got two heads is impressive, but the fact that the helmetless head looks like Val Kilmer is just magical. At first I thought Kurt Russell, but after some discussion with the Hooligans we all agreed on Kilmer. I just hope whenever Matty gets around to Sea Hawk he looks like Carey Elwes. Icarius’ helmet head looks very good, with lots of detail and just general space-age awesomeness on the headgear. The only thing I don’t like is how loose the visor is. It looks great whether up or down and the red tinting on the lenses looks awesome. But the thing is just shy of falling off in a stiff breeze. I suppose it was designed like that so there wouldn’t be giant holes in the sides of his helmet when you display Icarius without the visor. Not a big deal, but just know that if you touch the thing at all it is going to fall off.

Design: Icarius is kind of bland, but he does look really good. There are just enough different shades of blue to break things up and the silver of his accessories compliments it very nicely.

The actual paint application is very solid. The heads both look very good and have a nice amount of detail that isn’t sloppy anywhere. There are no paint errors on my figure, and all of the various colors stay where they are supposed to be. Even the buttons and wiring that are painted on his gear look very good.

I don’t quite understand why Icarius’ left hand is bare. I guess so he wasn’t totally blue, but it’s just odd-looking. I don’t hate it, but man; it’s weird.

Accessories: Icarius comes with his jetpack, his visor, an overly-large missile launcher, and 4 (four!) missiles.

The jetpack looks absolutely great, though I still feel that it looks upside-down. I know that’s just the design of the original toy, but it would have been neat to be able to flip it over so it didn’t look so awkward. Still, the removable missiles on the wings are a nice touch and overall it is a very Masters-looking piece of machinery.

I already talked about the visor above, but I did want to mention again how great it looks regardless of its looseness.

The missile launcher is pretty weird. It’s HUGE. Visually it fits with the figure just fine, but it looks so darn unwieldy on his arm. I was torn on whether or not to actually put it on for display. I think I mainly did it to cover up that weird, bare hand.

Packaging: The standard Masters of the Universe Classics packaging. It looks nice and makes the figures look even bigger than they are. You also get a bio on the back that is sort of a composite of each character’s history. Obviously I think we all know that this character’s name was originally Flipshot. Mattel couldn’t use the name here because they let the copyright lapse and Hasbro used it for one of their Nerf guns. Fine by me. I like “Icarius” better anyway. I don’t know who came up with it, but good one.

Overall: For a figure I was not very excited about, Icarius really got me. He’s fun to play with and looks neat-o on the shelf. He’ll never be one of my favorite MOTU Classics and I certainly wouldn’t have bought him if I had a choice, but I’m definitely okay with owning him. He was worth the price.

4 out of 5

This is another character that is hardly essential. If you ever see him on clearance I’d say go ahead and grab one, but if you skip him you’re not really missing anything. They did a good job, but Icarius is not a must-have by any means.

-Phantom

 

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