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Thank goodness Mattel put him on
sale on the MattyCollector store page
so people like Myself who couldn't go to the NYCC and snag him up first
hand but you'd have to be right there at your computer when they put
him up for grabs on the web page otherwise you're SOL! When a MOTUC
figure is sold out, that means that they are sold out for good meaning
that they are out of production and MattyCollector.com will never have
them in their web store. Be sure to check out near the bottom of the
page for Faker's history, My take on Faker and special information
about MattyCollector.com. Now, before I get into reviewing the figure,
please allow Me to explain My love for this saga. A long time ago when
I was little I constantly watched the original animated series along
with She-Ra: Princess of Power as well as Bravestar, all three were
really great Filmation animation series. My Mom & Grandparents
knew
I loved He-man so they got Me many of the vintage MOTU figures by
Mattel and like any young kid who is destructive and doesn't think
about the future and how precious these can be, I simply abused these
great figures of the 80s and I regret that to this day. I always
watched the original animated classic and in fact I still watch it
today as a grown up and I believe that it was the greatest animated
series ever! I loved everything about it like the stories, characters,
creatures, scenery, music, animation, all of the great colors used,
character voices and the morals. Some may think He-man is just a tame
Conan wannabe but this is just SO NOT THE CASE! It is just way
different!
The MOTU live action motion picture film took a different take on the
storyline which really was a good film and it had one of the greatest
musical scores ever! The new 2002 animated series was a great one and
had tons of awesome moments, great characters, storylines that shed
more light of the originals & the music was great but nothing
is
like the classics. Okay, The new millennium figures were very good but
after the major mess up that Mattel caused during the resurrection of
He-Man in 2002, I was quite pleased what NECA was doing with the
stactions since Mattel didn't allow them to make action figures as
these were tremendous pieces and gave true justice yet this incredible
dominance. Sadly, Mattel no longer wanted NECA to make them in the
later part of 2008 and the awesome AFX exclusive of Kobra Khan
&
Faker were scraped so these phenomenal hybrid sculptures never saw the
light of day and no one had the pleasure of owning them. However,
Mattel revealed during the summer of 2008 that they planned on
relaunching yet again MOTU in action figure form but this time around
in a classicly styled series with modern articulation plus fantastic
sculpting titled "Masters of the Universe Classics" to be available
only at their new web store, the Mattel Online Store otherwise known as
MattyCollector.com. Even though the staction of Faker got canned fear
not because an all-new, astoundingly excellent version of him is
available which I'll tell you all about......Now!
Packaging - ****
Now this is really good
packaging! I am impressed! Many of today's packaging is attractive and
protective but usually not informative. They have this modern
appearance but they have this vintage design to resemble how the
originals were well over twenty years ago. The cards has some of the
planets of the universe with lightning bolts in the sky. There are two
inserts, one has the neat Masters of the Universe Classics logo and the
other displaying the name and subtitle of the figure included. The
inserts are nice and they are removable if you wanted to take them out
of the bubble. It also says Adult Collector telling the buyer that this
is for an adult collector and is not intended for children even though
this was originally a child's figure series two decades ago.
The Mattel logo is only on the
insert which is odd because they usually put their logo on the front
and back of the card. I like it when a company puts their logo all over
the card, front and back so you'll definitely know who made it and all
the important things to know about the company and like I said I find
this to be a different decision. Now the back of the card is a much
different and more exciting. The back is more vintage in appearance and
this is one of the big reasons why I really like this style. It shows
you the other figures in the series that you can get with their names
and subtitle listed. All of these figures on Faker's card back are sold
out on MattyCollector.com but they were once available, and with future
character packaging it'll show upcoming figures though it doesn't say
the release dates.
Another feature I really like is
the information of the character whom is in enclosed in the package
with a very vintage but original comic picture of the character. I
absolutely love the one chosen for Faker as it gives him a very good
comparison for the figure and also appears to be very colorfully
restored! Most figure companies tend to skip out on real pictures of
the character whether they are from a movie, cartoon, comic, video game
or whatever and they just place prototype photos of the figure on the
sides, front and back but with Me, I don't want to see prototype photos
because I'm already looking at the figure. This only helps when you
don't know where a certain accessory goes on the figure or something of
that sort. To Me you should have at least one authentic picture of the
character from whatever they are from whether it'd be from a scene or a
just profile picture so you can clearly compare the figure from what
he/she is from, and at least some info about the character just in case
you don't know anything about the character or want to know more about
the character. This type of packaging has good protection for the
people who want to take the figure out and for some of the MOCs. I say
some because they may accept non-perfect packaging due to the card
itself being not extremely stiff and it can be bent which quite a few
if not most of these MOTUC figures won't have perfect packaging and
even the bubbles will have a dent here and there but for the people who
want to take the figure out of the packaging the bubble does do a great
job defending its prisoner from danger. One other tidbit about the
packaging, them annoying twisty ties are no longer present which they
are replaced by the clear rubber bands to hold the figure and
accessories intact. These clear rubber bands can come in handy if you
want to wrap a weapon in a figure's hand or torso or tie somebody's
hair in a style such as a 1/6 scale female and you couldn't have enough
of em' so these things are always welcomed in My books. Here is Faker's
bio on the card:
Evil Robot of Skeletor
Real Name: N/A
Originally built by Man-At-Arms to cover for He-Man when Prince Adam is
needed, Faker was abandoned after his first mission in the royal junk
yard and salvaged by the evil warrior Tri-Klops. At the request of
Skeletor, Faker was reprogrammed to replace He-Man and convince the
people of Eternia that He-Man had betrayed King Randor and turned to
evil.
Sculpting - ****
A four star rating all they way! Like most if not all MOTU figures
sculpted by the Four Horsemen, he looks awesome. The Four
Horsemen has arguably the best sculpting in action figures today and
placse them in the same ranks with Sideshow and Hot Toys!
Like the MOTUC series name
sounds and like the previous entries in the series itself, Faker is
based of the original comic appearance, especially on the classic 1983
figure of the vintage MOTU action figure line. This means that Faker
appears like his first incarnation seen nearly two decades ago! Though
he looks a lot like his original self, there are many but cool and
exciting updated differences when you compare him to his original and
newer figurinemorphs. This figure of Faker is about six
inches tall. His stature is huge though in real size he stands in
between five foot, eleven inches tall to six feet, three inches tall
with biceps around twenty-three inches weighing in at an impressive
two-hundred and eighty-eight pounds! The sculpting of his body matches
this look. He really has this body structure and shape of Arnold
Schwarzenegger of old.
Even though Faker is a big, big
villain, he is actually a very handsome individual. His face is
sculpted beautifully with a small downward nose and a really mean
expression with the right eye brow posed down and the left eye brow is
more upward in a thinking position. Of course he is He-Man's opposite
which is evil so he wouldn't and shouldn't be the same in appearance.
So, his expression is a very good one with his squared jawed mouth
opened more, eyes straight forward with a determined brow bringing fear
into his opponent. His hair is a separately sculpted piece that is near
shoulder length and wavy as if it is blowing in the wind. His upper
body is tremendous. His chest is huge with sculpted nipples, big
protruding rib muscles, large abdominals and a sculpted naval. The arms
of Faker, like his torso, has great definition. The shoulders are wide
and as you move downward the biceps are very rounded reaching an
incredible size with much strength and as you move down further his
forearms are absolutely thick! His hands are a decent size that depicts
a muscle man's hands quite well as both hands are in a great pose
showing nicely trimmed fingernails. His legs, like the rest of his
body, have an astounding amount of muscle that appears extremely
strong. His clothing is the same that was used for He-Man and Faker's
looks great. His loin cloth looks like some kind of fur from some type
of animal, blowing in the wind slightly. His boots seems to be made
from the same kind of animal that his loin cloth is made from but his
boots have these straps to tighten them up so they stay on during his
brutal activities. There is a separation at the middle of the end of
the boots in between the four small toes and the big toe revealing that
the material that the boots are made out of is not that thick of a
cloth. There is no sculpted copyright information on either boot like
usually seen in many action figures of this scale but there is only a
painted code located under his left boot.
There is also a peg hole in each
foot just in case you would want to place him on a display stand but
Faker stands good on his own in many poses without falling or
toppling over. His belt is very reminiscent of his vintage counterpart,
having a large jewel in the middle of the belt front and the rest of
the rivets being much smaller as the belt progresses on either side.
The front of the belt is the largest section, allowing for the large
jewel to stand out. His wrist gauntlets are quite impressive. His right
wrist guard is thick and somewhat bracelet-like while his left
wrist protector has some armor design to it and it is way different as
it straps on the forearm rather than clamping.
His torso armor, which is very
much like Skeletor's, is also a nicely sculpted piece but unlike his
other armor this part is removable. It covers the upper part of the
body mostly between his neck and chest and along the
shoulders. The shoulder armor has a dozen ,small animal bones. On the
inner part of the armor like the collar region, there is a large
sculpted bat with out-streched wings reminding one that this is just
not a design that was randomly chosen but it has a purpose and that
purpose is that it is a variation of Hordak's insignia! Connecting from
below the collar is two large bones forming in an X with a large red
jewel in between plus there is two straps with ten rivets wrapping
around the rib cage area to the back. The upper portion of the back of
the armor has a slot sheath to hold the power sword of Faker.
The power sword of Faker is of a
great length. The long sword reaching about three inches seems a bit
bulky though its obviously thick and deadly but in real size it would
be over forty inches, reaching a length of over four feet! The sword
has the appearance that looks to be made in two pieces where the blade
is molded into the specialized hilt as the hilt's elongated holder
piece securely holds the blade intact. The sculpting of the other power
sword is identical except that the other side is missing to place
He-man's or Skeletor's into it making it into a complete sword or
possibly even a second one for Faker to have a full second weapon
and/or accessory.
I am quite pleased with all of
this great sculpting. Since King Grayskull was made first and then
He-man arrived second and Skeletor appeared fourth on the scene, they
had to base Faker off of them since he looks much like both of the
heroes and wears Skeletor's torso armor. But the Four Horsemen made
Faker stand out from the others. In fact I'm always pleased with how
their sculpting is and even though they have impressed Me many, many
times, I am still impressed with each additional upcoming figure that
they sculp.
Paint - ***1/2
The paint application is one of the things that makes Faker stand out.
His blue skin is just completely neat with a brighter blue color than
Skeletor making his skin color far different. The armor and clothing
paint apps is especially done greatly as I just love that his belt and
wrist gauntlets are silver and black which this is one of the many
things that I just love about this particular Faker figure because if
you remember the vintage version's arm guards were not painted and the
belt was solid black so this was a big treat for Me. Also this
goes for the greatly sculpted 03 Faker as well.
His torso armor is also painted
quite well where the armor is dark shaded orange, the straps are a
lighter orange with the ten rivets of the shoulders being a darker
color and the X bones are a shiny looking orange making them look like
polished trophies blending in with the armor. One thing that I have
always liked about Faker is the colors of his armor and clothing along
his big blue frame. His loin cloth and boots are purple with shades of
black throughout which this is one heck of a coincidence since Prince
Adam wears purple clothing! In case people are wondering
about this, Faker does have purple trunks on under his loin cloth so he
is prepared in case of being exposed during battle. I noted that
because sometimes figures aren't painted under a loin cloth, a dress or
something of that effect, because this may be important to
some.
The painting of his eyes is good
as they are straight and not cockeyed. They are not extremely bright
and some will be even dimmer. His eye brows are black and applied well
and there is a white space in his mouth appearing to be showing some
teeth. His head is painted very good, and all I noticed was one small
little speck of blue on the top of his head and a couple small
dark marks on his face and here and there.
The straps on his boots are
applied OK, there is some tiny tiny places on the boot straps where the
paint either wasn't applied or it came off while in the package as
well.
Arguably the most important of
all of the paint applications is his robotics located on his chest.
When I got Faker and took him out of the his package I was very
surprised to find out that his mechanism WAS NOT a sticker nor decal
like the previous versions of the character, but that it was actually
painted on! As you can tell for such a small area there is a lot of
detail.
Much can be seen like two round
tape spinner devices, several buttons, a light motion tube, among other
things. I am quite pleased that this Faker has taken an alternate route
with his chest feature and this should last longer than the originals.
One side note: there is a code painted on his left foot and no copy
right and/or company name like 2009 Mattel inc. nor is it painted or
sculpted anywhere on his body. I always like to see the copyright mark
on a figure to show its authentic but apparently Mattel didn't think
that it was necessary. Really, the paint apps are very good its just
that there are some teeny tiny misses here and there but its not that
big of a deal at all! I am particularly happy with the colors chosen
for Faker and he has never looked better than this!
Articulation - ****
Mattel has never been big on articulation until relatively recently
with their DC figures, as they try to compete against other top
companies that made their figures with heavy duty articulation such as
Marvel Toys (Toy Biz) and Hasbro. These companies would make their
figures have twenty-five or even more than thirty points of
compared to Mattel's previous five, ten or fifteen. I remember when
Mattel made their first super articulated Superman and Batman and I
thought darn, Mattel is doing the articulation good but its a shame
they are no longer making He-Man figures. Well, fast forward a few
years later and here we are with super articulated He-man figures! When
I got King Grayskull he was a treat and then when I got He-Man and
Beast Man I knew that Mattel is doing this MOTUC line right when it
comes to the articulation.
Faker is just not a powerhouse
in appearance but he is also a powerhouse in articulation. He has
twenty-eight points of articulation and here is the break down: Ball
jointed neck, hinged ball jointed shoulders, cut biceps, hinged elbows,
cut wrists, hinged torso, cut waist, ball jointed upper thighs, cut
lower thighs, hinged knees, cut shins at the boot line, hinged rocker
joint ankles.
I didn't have any problem with
any of these joints and believe Me, I have had My fair share of
articulation fiascoes. All of the movements are not that
restricted except the head is somewhat because of the hair and the legs
due to the loin cloth but you can move the loin cloth up a bit because
it is kind of soft to have a better range of movement in the legs.
There are many fine poses that
Faker can accomplish without looking silly. The ball jointed head and
hinged chest are convenient and especially the rocker jointed ankles
helps a lot is many kinds of poses. If I had a choice to add one more
joint to this body or future MOTUC figure it would have to be hinged
cut wrists but other than that I'm quite pleased with the articulation.
The movements work well without any probs, and I am very pleased!
Accessories - ***
Faker includes his Skeletor armor, an orange power sword and an orange
power sword half. I will explain further about the one half of the
power sword in the Special Features section. These swords along with
his armor have all been seen before following the classic reuse
technique of the MOTU vintage line. His armor has been included
previously with Skeletor and his swords has also been seen with
Skeletor, He-Man and as well as King Greyskull so yes these are all the
same sculpts its just that Faker's is different colors. I am perfectly
fine with the reuse of weapons and armor, in fact, ever since I knew
about Faker when I was little I have always thought that Skeletor's
armor fit Faker quite well! The armor is removable, just lift the
straps off the pegs on the back and pop his head off. Read more about
that is the Things to watch out for section. The armor comes off to
allow the tremendous physique to be seen clearly plus to get a
revealing glimpse of Faker's inner chest! Though he has a decent and
necessary amount of accessories, I am only giving this category three
stars because of the lack of additional weapons such as a battle ax and
a shield. NECA's Faker was going to include a power sword and a shield
so by seeing and knowing this I wish Mattel had decided to include more
weapons with Faker especially since He-Man and King Greyskull came with
the same amount of identical weapons. Actually you can have Faker using
more arsenal and again, I will explain in the Special Features section
about this and more.
Special Feature -
As I have mentioned, Faker has his robotic chest mechanism but unlike
his counterparts of years ago his is not a sticker or a decal. It is
painted so it won't come off as easy. Like Skeletor, Faker's power
sword can easily be placed in the slot located on the back of his armor
which this is always a welcomed feature as I like it when a figure can
actually store a weapon or two on their armor or clothing. His one half
of the power sword can be combined with He-man's half of the power
sword. The two halve snaps together with the help of the small pegs on
He-man's and both of them stay connected well but you'll have to press
them firmly together. These two halves form an orange and gray colored
sword, and would rather have it orange and purple to match Faker's
color scheme then Faker's sword can be used with
Skeletor's purple half. There are no pegs on either side of his or
Skeletor's but what you can do about this is place them together and
have him hold it together. Also, since the blue skinned He-Man didn't
include any more weapons you could place his sword in one hand and the
two halves of the power swords or just one of them of your choosing in
the other making him appear like a master swordsman.
Quality - ***1/2
So why three and a half stars? Let Me explain: Faker seems to
be made out of a softer possibly flimsier plastic than the other MOTUC
figures. His left leg seems a bit weaker than his right at the knee
plus at the shin. His boot joint splits where you can see the actual
joint and so whenever I pose him I feel that I should be careful about
this. I know all figures are made differently especially when you
compare companies but Mattel's MOTUC are usually of a great quality.
However I did notice that King Grayskull and Skeletor are made out of a
harder plastic than the others so Mattel doesn't make each character
equally the same. I mean Faker is made very well because he is sturdy
with no lose joints. Other than that Faker is made decently.
Fun Factor - ****
No question about it Faker as well as the other MOTUC figures are very
fun to pose and to display. If you love Masters of the Universe in the
first place then you already know how fun they can be, but if you don't
know how the MOTUC are yet in person then you are in for a treat! Even
if you are a newcomer to the saga this is a great way to get started
and believe Me you'll get hooked on these guys. If you are a fan of
sword fighting and barbarian type characters and/or like figures with
swords then Faker is your man. He can pose in dozens of ways greatly
with his sword and without. You can store his sword within his armor
and combine his other sword with He-Man's or Skeletor's and besides he
is FAKER! He's not only fun to work with but also he's fun to look at
as well with his blue skin, dark red hair, purple clothing, armor of
Skeletor and for being what he is and that is an evil He-Man! He-man
looks good but gosh Faker looks just totally cool, he is a very
exciting figure and arguably the most visually appealing MOTUC figure
yet!
Value - ****
Without a doubt this is a
four star figure, bar none! It would have been great had he
come with his own orange axe and shield to match He-Man in the
accessories departmen, but he is a figure that is exclusively available
at MattyCollector and that is something in its self right there. I paid
their retail price of $20.00, UPS Shipping of $8.70 so he cost a total
of $28.70. This is really not a bad price at all, especially when you
consider today's major releases at retail stores, where
figures can cost over ten bucks a pop and are reaching the fifteen
dollar mark as well. If the known shipping price let's you down don't
let it, MattyCollector's shipping department is located in California
where the shipping cost is high which should be expected and they put
the figures in large packing boxes which is a good thing to do. I am
use to these types of shipping costs on the Internet and anyone whom is
a veteran at online shopping should be , don't let the
shipping cost make you think different of the value of any MOTUC figure
and especially Faker! Let's face it, Faker is an extremely underrated
and poorly used character in the MOTU storylines but Mattel has brought
him back with a vengeance, the Four Horsemen sculpting him in epic
stature and painting him not only matching his 80s counterpart but also
in bright yet bold colors making him stand out in a superb updated
form! He has great articulation, terrific sculpting and paint
application, a great homage to his first incarnation in figure form
with the robotic feature and his overall appearance.
Things to Watch Out For -
Well, these MOTUC figures are very fun indeed and unlike their vintage
counter parts, I am treating these guys a thousand times better and if
you did the same as Me years ago then I advise you to do the same
today. Now, Faker is very sturdy yes but he isn't indestructible. When
posing him I would move his joints slowly and hold his waist while
bending his torso up and down and turning back and fourth. Also be
careful moving his hands as they are only cut wrists meaning they could
snap provided enough pressure is used.
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