Skip to main content

King Arthur and the Knights of Justice - Lord Viper



I recently saw a tweet that stated that the best things of the 90's were really just backwash from the 80's. I'm still not sure if that is true but it does come up here with King Arthur and the Knights of Justice. It didn't last long but I loved it, especially that theme song! Definitely brought back feelings of Boorman's Excalibur. Also, the Round Table and Suit Up moments felt a lot like M.A.S.K. The biggest connection might be Masters of the Universe. A lot of the same voice actors from the New Adventures of He-Man show up in this series. Garry Chalk, who played He-Man in the New Adventures and Man at Arms in the 200X MYP series plays our main henchman and leader of the Warlords, Lord Viper.

Also, let's not forget the Black Wing/Stratos similarities:



One further connection, is that Mattel also created the toys for the short lived series. The figures were close in scale to both the vintage line and the New Adventures. The Horde Slime Pit was even planned for the series but I'm not sure if it was ever released before cancelation.

Continuing on my 5.5 figure binge that I have been on, I decided to pick up the Lord Viper figure.





He stands slightly shorter than the vintage figures but it is still pretty close to scale. His helmet has been changed from the show to operate more like a visor that covers his scarred face. That is a little bit unfortunate since he was a well designed character but I do enjoy the disfigured face. But, it would have been nice to have had this:


Lord Viper came with an oversized sword that features a cool snake head. Another neat feature is that the inside of his cape looks like snake skin!



Obviously, I plan to align this guy with the Snakemen. King Hiss could use a conniving younger sibling who plots to usurp him. 



                         




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Funko Savage World Thundercats Wave 2

2018 was an exciting time for me because we finally received Thundercats in the same scale as Masters of the Universe! It was a dream come true for myself and, I'm sure, many other children of the 80's. The excitement was unfortunately short lived as the factory that Funko worked with screwed up the plastics used on hip articulation. Many figure arrived with broken or soon to be broken crotches and Funko was dealt a pretty serious black eye. However, they worked hard to fix that issue but that also pushed back Wave 2 of Thundercats over a year. During that time, they went ahead with a mass market retail approach for a DC Comics universe in the Savage World style. While there were some nice toys in this line, especially the Bat Cave, the overall appeal to general audiences didn't seem to be there. A lot of planned Savage World lines seemed to get axed because of the gamble not paying off. Thankfully, Thundercats Wave 2 made the cut and began arriving this past quarter...

Star Wars Power of the Force Wave 1 Collection

  I've always loved Star Wars. It was something that just always seemed to be a part of my life. I have mentioned before how I was able to benefit greatly from having older cousins who grew out of their need for toys and passed them down to my brother and I. With Star Wars, it was no different. We were given a good 30ish vintage figures as well as a well used Millenium Falcon that was missing quite a few pieces and we loved them.  Just like we did with Masters of the Universe and other toy lines, whenever my brother and I had a chance to visit a garage sale or an antique shop, we looked for more Star Wars stuff to add to our collections. It was the late 80's and early 90's so there weren't really any other options. Eventually, the Justoys Bend-Ems came out. We bought many of these but preferred the figures that were closer to the 3 3/4 scale. That Leia, 3PO, Yoda and R2-D2 filled some nice holes in my collection. The included Topps cards were very cool too. Not long aft...

Transformers Legends Scale Jazz, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Starscream, and Thundercracker

Around the end of the G1 line, Transformers made the Pretenders which produced some smaller versions of some popular bots like Jazz and Starscream that would fit in different shells/skins. In 1989, they re-released these figures without the shells and just called them Legends. In the 2000s, Hasbro decided to bring this scale back with their Robots in Disguise, Transformers Universe, Reveal the Shield and various other lines. Over time, the scale has continuously fluctuated so that it is tough to understand just how different figures will line up. This proved particularly challenging for me when I was searching for an appropriately sized Optimus Prime for my GoBots. Well, now I have added some more Transformers to my collection, Jazz, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Starscream, and Thundercracker. They are all about the same size. This bothers me a little bit when it comes to Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, but when I put them with Optimus or the GoBots, it all works out pretty ...

Bandai Thundercats Tower of Omens Playset

I'm resigned to the idea that I will more than likely never own a Cat's Lair playset. I was truly hoping that we would get one with Funko after seeing the DC Primal Age set but after all of the production snafus, it seems like Funko is washing their hands of the scale. I hope I'm wrong. Anyway, the original Cat's Lair is hard to get ahold of and the ones available online are hugely overpriced in my opinion. I've known about this playset from the 2011 series for a long time but now that I have the Funko figures it felt like a good time go for it. The scaling is NOT perfect at all but it does make a nice display piece. Plus, these are dirt cheap. I've seen some as low as $10. Here is the completed set. Basically a giant cat's head, gate, and tower. The set has magnetic Thunderlynx features. If you use the intended figures, the doors will open automatically on the gate and the towers Cat symbol will light up with a voice yelling, "Thundercats, Ho!...

Replacement MOTU leg connectors by Rama and Amos Del Retro

Back in February, I came across a post on one of the Masters of the Universe Facebook fan pages about replacement leg connectors from a group in Argentina. I had already known about the screw and o-ring method, thanks to He-Bro -  http://he-man.us/Innovations/BrokenLegs.html , and I had used it on a broken Teela earlier this year. It worked well but it doesn't feel permanent. I have a feeling that I will have to replace that sometime soon in the near future. Plus, I am having to actually damage the figure by screwing eye hooks in their legs. Anyway, these new leg connectors felt like something worth looking into. If you go to their website, www.stands-rama.com , they have a tutorial posted on how these work: Now, my spanish isn't great but I kind of got the idea of how these work. Heat the legs, push the connectors through the crotch and attach. Seems easy enough. I searched for some more tutorials and found this one from Toy Palloi: And this one from Michael Mercy: ...