What? They’re made by the
same company, there’s totally a link.
Alright, I was actually
going to pair Frankie with the SDCC She-Ra doll but I’ve decided to keep that
doll in her box until I can find a place to actually put the thing, so instead
Frankie’s sharing with Evilseed because he doesn’t have a review partner either
since I sold Filmation Beast Man.
So we have two completely
different toys from two completely different lines, Evilseed is the
subscription item for the 2015 He-Man & The Masters of the Universe line, a
spin-off of Masters of the Universe Classics focussing solely on the characters
as they appeared in FILMAtion’s 1980s cartoon He-Man & The Masters of the Universe. Being a subscription item
it wasn’t available to buy on Mattycollector.com, the soon-to-be-former
collector’s wing of Mattel but our other item was, twice. That is Ghostbusters
Frankie Stein, one of two Monster High exclusives for San Diego Comic Con
International 2016, the other one – a box set of Robecca and Hexiciah Steam –
wasn’t made available on Mattycollector.com and is now expensive on eBay (I
think they sold out at the con itself) so I haven't got one. Frankie though was available to pre-order before the
convention and the leftover stock was available to buy afterwards.
Evilseed was a one-shot
villain from the He-Man & The Masters of the Universe cartoon (the 1980s one
everyone says is really gay) where despite having a head like an asparagus he was so
powerful He-Man and Skeletor had to team up to defeat him, immediately raising
him head and shoulders (well if he had them) above the usual villain of the
day. As one of the few characters created for the cartoon that Mattel had
ownership of, Evilseed returned for the ‘200X’ cartoon (the anime looking one
you probably didn’t like) where he was given a completely different look and
became a nemesis for Orko, a bit of a come down really, still he did also fight
Moss Man. This is Evilseed’s second figure after receiving his first figure
ever last year as part of Masters of the Universe Classics’ ‘Club 200X’
mini-subscription, which was in my very first quick crappy review!
As he’s an entirely new tool the new figure’s less
cleverly constructed than last year's offering,
this does mean that you don’t have to read a paragraph of me banging on about
part reuse though and holy shit he’s an entirely new tool, I thought they were
downsizing this year? Well I guess they’re closing down the entire site and not
making any more toys… but that just makes getting a figure made up entirely new
pieces even more impressive. It also means that his articulation is a very
different to a normal Masters of the Universe Classics figure, well except the
Trollans, which is fitting really: he has a meagre total of 7 articulation
points – a ball jointed head, ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows and swivel
wrists, as far as I can tell without invading his privacy (or potentially
breaking anything) he has no articulation below the waist but I’m strangely ok
with this because, well, he doesn’t really have anything below the waist in the
show, he’s just vines – yeah they could have made ‘em bendy or something,
that’d’ve been nice but if you’re going to cut articulation somewhere on the
figure this feels the most fitting place to do it. Sculpt wise he’s
just-stepped-off-the-screen spot on, I enjoy that they gave him little feet
made out of vines and if you do want to invade his privacy a little those vines
are sculpted all the way up to his waist, the coat’s a soft plastic overlay.
Mine has a paint issue, it’s the first one I’ve had with this issue but it’s
not the first time this issue has come up, in fact it’s been a slight epidemic
since last year; Wonky Eye Syndrome has mostly been affecting the female
figures but it has popped up elsewhere and mine has a very serious case of it,
his left eye has wandered off so far it’s hidden up his asparagus. This was
pretty fucking annoying as this is ‘my’ version of Evilseed and Evilseed is
legitimately one of my favourite characters in the franchise, you can send
figures suffering from WES back to Mattel and they’ll replace them but I
haven’t done this, why? Well it’s hidden by the asparagus so it’s not really
that much of a problem visually, sending it back to America is a long costly
hassle and as Mattycollector is shutting down at the end the year I’m not too
confident in them having the necessary motivation to resolve the issue.
Evilseed is the owner of
two accessories, his vine ‘effects piece’ is sweet, a big soft reaching set of
vines that slides nicely onto this right hand (though it doesn’t fit on his
left at all) and looks great, it’s even the same colour as the dark vines on
his legs (as it should be). The other thing is a bundle of vines and I can’t
quite figure out what its purpose is, I thought it was for wrapping around other
figures to bind them (and I hope all imaginary readers who played Pokémon Red
and Blue grimaced when they read ‘bind’, fuck that move in the ear) but I
couldn’t get it over the arms of Prince Adam (who’s the He-Man buck at its most
basic) and it’s too big for his legs and the female figures, so I can’t imagine
how it could bind anyone except some of Modulok or Mantenna. I’m sure this is
just me being thick and it’s really obvious what it’s for.
Frankie Stein is the main
character of Monster High, she’s the daughter of Frankenstein’s Monster and is
physically 16 years old (though she was only 16 days old when she first joined
Monster High), Ghostbusters is one of the best comedies ever made, it was quite
successful, you may have heard of it.
Let me just get this out of
the way: FUCK YES THEY MADE A GHOSTBUSTERS MONSTER HIGH CROSSOVER DOLL THIS IS
THE BEST POSSIBLE COMBINATION OF SOMETHING AND MONSTER HIGH IT’S LIKE THEY MADE
IT JUST FOR ME IT EVEN COMES WITH A MONSTER HIGH PET VERSION OF SLIMER THANK
YOU NEW GHOSTBUSTERS FILM EVEN IF YOU’RE SHIT (BECAUSE I STILL HAVEN’T SEEN
YOU) I OWE YOU A MASSVIE WET SLOPPY KISS OF GRATITUDE. Right with that done,
Frankie’s a bog standard Frankie Stein doll, if you own any Frankie released in
the last few years there’s nothing new to see under the clothes, I’m not even
certain this is a new hairstyle, Mattel presumably (and quite rightly) realised
that this was irrelevant because they were dressing her as a Ghostbuster. Well
she’s dressed as a Ghostbuster who likes to personalise their uniform, a Real
Ghostbuster perhaps, and I really need to moan about this again because I hate
how Mattel’s design team have settled on giving Frankie neon colours as a
style, one of the things that really attracted me to the original doll was it’s
very low contrasts (it recalled the black and white horror movies that
undoubtedly influenced the line) and I really wish they’d kept this up instead they’ve
decided that Frankie needs hot blue, neon yellow and neon pink all over the
place until she looks like a 1980’s discotheque. This isn’t a problem with this
toy specifically and it’s something that’s been going on since the first year
of product it’s just that all the other characters have kept their original
doll’s style pretty much throughout EXCEPT Frankie Stein (and sometimes
Ghoulia, Mattel really seem to like to dress her up tarty which seems a bit out
of character to me but who knows) and it bugs me. That gripe aside she looks
good, they’ve turned the random lines the new Ghostbusters outfits have into
lightning bolts and she has really awesome boots, and while they’re an annoying
colour I do quite like her goggles, it’s nice that she’s observing health and
safety regulation while busting ghosts (or welding).
I’m not too sure how to
judge accessories on this doll, I guess technically she comes with a Proton
Pack, PKE Meter and goggles but they’re all packaged on the figure, I’m going
to say that the PKE meter is an accessory and the others are just part of her
outfit, whatever they’re all nicely done, you could moan about paint apps (or
the lack thereof) but Monster High never really does paint apps on accessories
and for the figure to work (as it does) for me everything has to be
‘Ghostbusters but Monster High’ and this is part of achieving that. Actually it
achieves this all over, they’ve done a really good job of making the
Ghostbsuters design a Monster High design without changing very much (and those
are some sweet boots she’s got on) and without losing the Ghostbustersyness or
the Monster Highryness (this is why I’m not a professional critic). The proton
stream seen in these pictures isn’t really part of the toy but part of the
packaging but it’s attached firmly and looks cool (and she doesn’t come with a
plastic stream) so I’m gonna leave it on there. Anyway the only accessory that
really matters Slimer: for those who don’t horde girls toys each Monster High
Doll originally came with a pet, a small MUSCLE like mini-figure (well they’re
closer to Magic Diaper Babies but I’m guessing most people haven’t heard of
them), these have mostly been phased out due to, I presume, Mattel cutting
costs. This is a shame as the pets were almost all utterly delightful - my
favourite is still Shivers, the tiny mammoth who came with Abbey Bominable – so
making a Pets Slimer made a lot of sense but wasn’t something I thought they’d
do, I’m happy to be wrong. This is a VERY cute Slimer and I’m not sure how I
feel about that, on the one hand it fits the Monster High aesthetic perfectly,
on the other hand it brings back horrible memories of the Slimer! episodes of
The Real Ghostbusters, he’s also hollow (the older Pets weren’t) which means
you can use him as a tiny fingerpuppet (though he only really fits on an
adult’s little finger, of course this just means you can have him interact with
Finger Frights AND steer the car at the same time!). I am so glad he’s here but
he is a bit cheap feeling, charming but cheap.
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| "wait! it's just cosplay! I'm one of you, I'm one of yooooou!" |
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| "but daaaad" "come along dear, you don't need to mess around with riff-raff like him" |
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