Twitchy, twitchy, twitchy!

After church and lunch today I stopped by Walmart and bought something I really hadn't planned on buying. I'm not really a big Toy Story fan. Sure, I liked the first movie enough, but I was never really moved to watch the second one. I have zero plans to see the third one, as well. One thing that I DO like is ugly monsters. I had seen pictures of one of the baddies in the new Toy Story movie and immediately said "WANT." Unfortunately, most places are selling the thing for way more than it's worth, and, according to almost every review of the figure I have read, the toy really isn't all that great. When I saw that Walmart had marked the toy from $7.99 to $6.00 I said, "SOLD."

So... the question is: was it worth 6 bucks? Or will this be another episode of HORRIBLE TOYS THAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE BOUGHT?!?!?!?!?

Let's find out:



This charming chap is Twitch. As I stated before, he's one of the baddies from Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3. He seems to be styled after the old Masters of the Universe figures in more than one way. He's brightly colored in garish colors, posed in a squatty "battle stance," possesses an overly muscular physique, has limited articulation, wears a chest harness, and was made by Mattel-- that pretty much describes about 99% of all of the Masters of the Universe figures I had as a kid. That's preeeeeetty much why I bought this thing. It made me nostalgic, and I love nostalgia. See that wicked battle staff he's holding in that picture on the package? Keep that in mind in just a bit.



"POSABLE FIGURE!" Remember those words. There will be a quiz later.



Twitch stands 5.5 inches tall from the bottom of his feet to the tippy top of his antennae, so he fits in with vintage Masters of the Universe figures pretty darn well.



He's a REALLY nice looking figure, and he looks like he's be a pretty sturdy guy. The sculpt is very nice with lots of texture on the arms and the eyes.



The wings are great-- they're very much like the wings that came on the original Buzz-Off figure from the Masters of the Universe. He's articulated with cut joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips.



He has two additional points of articulation where the wings attach to the body. The ability to pose the wings gives the figure a lot of extra personality and expression.



He's not the most poseable figure ever made, but, then, neither were the Masters of the Universe figures. Remember that wicked battle staff from before? Yeah... he doesn't come with it-- as a matter of fact, he doesn't come with anything. Grrrr... MATTEL!!!!!!



The paint's pretty atrocious, to be honest. It's thick as molasses, and there's slop everywhere-- some of the areas were totally missed by the painter. Eh... nothing a little touch up wouldn't cure, but who really wants to buy a fixer-upper?



Remember that "POSABLE FIGURE!" blurb from before? This is my biggest beef with this toy: I can deal with the limited articulation... I like old toys and kaiju, so articulation isn't my biggest requirement. What I hate with a passion is a toy sculpted to look like it is articulated when it isn't.



Twitch is sculpted to look like he has pin/post joints at the shoulder, ball joints at the elbows, and hinged joints on his mandibles. They tried to pull that crap with those toys from the movie Small Soldiers that came out years back. They looked like they had all this great articulation, when in fact they had a bare minimum of articulation. It's a cheap move, but Mattel has kind of become known as the King of Cheap Tricks. I mean... doesn't Matty wear a crown? Hmmmm...



I guess, all things considered, this worked out to the good; if they had put extra articulation on them Mattel would have justified selling them for 15 bucks a piece. Ugh.... Mattel....

So... what's the verdict? Did I waste 6 bucks on a giant hunk of plastic crap?



No... Not at all! I actually love this figure. He's kind of like that ugly kid brother that you love even if he annoys the crap out of you and breaks your stuff when you aren't looking. He's not the best thing in the world, but there's just something about him that compels me to love him. I guess it's nostalgia working on me, but I like this little ugly guy. He'll have a nice, safe spot in my collection for some time to come! Is he worth the 8 or 11 bucks that some stores are charging for him? Not at all-- but he's well worth 6 if you can find him at that price point.

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Don't forget about the Brawlin' with Brawlor Contest! The deadline is Sunday, July 11th at midnight. You still have lots of time to make the bestest custom Masters of the Universe character ever and win a one-of-a-kind custom vintage Masters of the Universe action figure!


Twitch wants to make sure you don't forget about his buddy Brawlor!!!!