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I haven’t bought a new Thundercats figure in quite a while–but then again, there hasn’t been a new Thundercats figure since summer either! New figures are starting to appear, and today I’ve got King Claudus to review. I’ve posted the entire fulltext of the review here for discussion, although the prettied-up version with complete photo gallery is posted over on my toy review blog.
After decades of pent-up demand, new Thundercats action figured arrived last fall from Bandai with promises of a deep roster of characters immortalized as action figures. That said, so far all we’ve gotten from the main 4″ line is the main roster of Thundercats (including a crazy out-of-scale Snarf), a couple Mumm-Ras, Grune, and one generic lizard man. With 2012′s first new series, we get our first all-new character as a toy (other than the lizard man): Lion-O’s father, King Claudus. I’ve been dying for an all-new Thundercats figure as a toy, so I was going to buy King Claudus on sight regardless of how the toy turned out. But to be totally truthful, upon seeing packaged photographs of him, I had certain negative preconceptions about Claudus. To be blunt, I thought he would be a disproportioned staction figure. To my amazement, that’s not really the case at all. He’s not without some flaws, but Claudus shattered my prejudgment by being a relatively strong action figure…[B]
The Right:
[/B]Initially, I thought Claudus was much too bulky and looked more like an obese housecat than the king of felines. After playing with him for a bit and being able to detach and reattach his armor and pose him for a while, I feel somewhat better about his appearance. He still looks just a tad chunky, but he’s a powerful full-grown lion, covered heavily in battle armor. Claudus makes Lion-O look like a scrawny teenager–but that’s fine because Lion-O is one. Claudus looks powerful and proud, and that works for me.
I was also caught off-guard by the fact that Claudus isn’t one big chunk of plastic as I had thought–he’s actually covered in pieces of removable armor! Claudus’ cape, shoulder guards, and belt (with attached hip guards) are all easily removable. As he loses body armor he gains range of motion, and you can remove pieces like the shoulder guards or the cape to give Claudus a different look.
I legitimately thought Claudus was only going to have about 7 points of articulation, but he surprised me with 11 useful points: ball-jointed head (inhibited), ball-jointed shoulders, hinge elbows, swivel wrists, ball-jointed hips, and hinge knees. The biggest asset here is certainly the ball-jointed hips, as they allow Claudus a respectable number of dynamic poses as opposed to the next-to-none he’d have had with a T-crotch.
Claudus holds the Sword of Omens really well with the indentation in his right hand. It’s such a simple thing, and yet this $6.99 action figure is able to hold his weapon infinitely better than the majority of the $18@ DC Universe Classics Wave 2o I reviewed the last few weeks. The sword fits firmly and naturally in Claudus’ hand, and I’m pleased with the visual dynamic of it there. Can’t ask for any more than that from a weapon.
It’s also worth mentioning that Claudus retains the aesthetic style of the new Cartoon Network Thundercats cartoon. Whereas even some efforts by Hasbro have fallen flat lately in accurately portraying characters as they appear in the multimedia, Claudus is a dead-ringer for his on-screen self.
The Wrong:
The articulation on this figure may be better than I expected–much better–but it’s still a long way from being really good. There are only 11 points of articulation, and it’s a lot less than what I’ve become accustomed to. Usually in my reviews I complain about the lack of ankle rockers–here, I have to complain about the lack of any articulation below the knees. The ball-jointed hips help some, but without any lower leg articulation of any kind it’s infuriating trying to get Claudus to balance stably in most poses. Lack of any kind of upper torso ab crunch or swivel waist furthers the problems. I’m not trying to pick on poor Claudus–I like him a lot–but his articulation woes are a major source of frustration and a huge detraction from the overall quality of this action figure.[B]
Overall:[/B] As I said in the introduction, Claudus is a figure I went in with uncharacteristically low expectations for. I honestly thought I was going to have to write all manner of critical things about Claudus, but he turns out to be surprisingly decent. The sculpt and paint on Claudus all seem very authentic to the modern Thundercats cartoon, and the removable armor is actually really well-done. The only thing holding Claudus back from being a genuinely excellent toy is his articulation. While not nearly as bad as I’d feared at first glance, Claudus’ articulation is still abysmal compared to the Hasbro 4″ figures on the market. It really limits the posing and fun potential for this figure and what can be done with him. Even so, I’m pretty jubilant about getting an all-new secondary character from the Thundercats line at all, and I hope Claudus opens the floodgates for more ancillary characters from the show (Berbils please!!!). Though not without flaws, I like Claudus and he earns a recommendation.[B]
GRADE: B-
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