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Note - I’ll be referring to the 80s series Panthro as the “RB (Rankin Bass)” Panthro and the new series Panthro as the “WB (Warner Bros) Panthro”
I won’t be referring to picture orientation (top vs. middle or bottom) but it should be obvious which one I’m referring to.
[SIZE=“3”]Garments[/SIZE]
As you remember the RB Panthro had garments resembling blue suspenders (but so we don’t neuter Panthro’s coolness, I’ll reference the suspenders as a tank top) with silver spikes, with a thin section wrapping around the back that attached to the outer edges of the tank top at the front. The tank top attaches to a belt encasing his emblem around the hips which also extended into a blue loin piece. The new WB Panthro does have subtle hints of this (his garments resemble the tank top in the front, with the spikes, and he does have a belt with the emblem area in the same section). However the differences are noticeable and striking. The suspender appearance ends at the shoulder in the front, and the garments completely cover Panthro’s back in the WB series, making it almost more like a spiked vest. The spiked vest is also noticeably reddish brown in color, a departure from the rich blue of the tank top on the RB Panthro. The spikes on the WB Panthro’s vest stop at the shoulder and do not continue around to the back as they did in on the RB Panthro’s tank top (not pictured but will upload one). As for the belt, the three key differences appear to be: 1) it is silver and metallic looking on the WB Panthro vs. the blue on the RB Panthro, 2) the emblem area appears somewhat smaller on the WB Panthro vs. the size of the emblem on the RB Panthro, 3) The belt itself appears like it could be removable (by the circular pieces beside the emblem area) and is not one piece with the WB Panthro’s combat pants the way the RB Panthro’s belt appeared to be 1 piece with the loin section.
Extending to the arms, the only features on the RB Panthro is a thin white band he wore on his left arm just below the bicep but above the elbow, and a silver metallic looking wrist band with a single row of rounded studs on his right wrist. The WB Panthro has much more lower arm decoration. It’s impossible to tell from either image of the WB Panthro whether he is wearing combat gloves with a furry section at the top near the end of the forearm, or if the fur on his forearms is his natural fur as it appears to match color wise with his sideburn hair. On second inspection of his left hand holding the nun chucks it the black section on the bottom of the forearm between the leather straps and around the outer edge of the hand does not appear furry, which is evidence that it is a glove piece and the fur at the top is part of the glove, not part of Panthro. The gloves themselves on the WB Panthro extend up the hand and forearm, stopping just short of the elbow. The top portion of the gloves have 3 reddish brown flat leather looking sections, each containing two medium sized spiked studs. There are 4 additional spikes on each finger knuckle (there does not appear to be one for the thumb as evidence by the exposed thumb around the nun chucks in his left hand). There are two leather straps that extend around the bottom of the black glove section, and the gloves have holds for the fingers and thumb to extend through. The WB Panthro does not appear to be wearing anything asymmetrically as the RB Panthro did with one thing arm band and one wrist band on opposite arms.
Finally down to the feet, we see the blue ninja footies (don’t know the actual term for them, but ninja footies sounds cool) and bare thighs and knees of the RB Panthro have been replaced by black combat pants and spiked footies of the same color pattern as WB Panthro’s gloves and wrist pads (although there appears to be no furry section at the top of the footies, and they appear to be entirely the same brownish leather looking material as the glove and wrist pads, and his vest. There appears to be two rows of two spikes on the shin section, and another row of two spikes across the top of the foot. One final note, it appears there is both a hole in the back where his bare heel is exposed, along with the front of his foot slightly past the arch.
[SIZE=“3”]Weaponry[/SIZE]
The fire and ice clawed nun chucks the RB Panthro wielded have been carried over extremely faithfully into the new WB Panthro’s hands. The only key difference is the metal piece at the top where the chain would attach. In the RB series it was a very small piece attaching at the base of each shaft, and each half was comprised almost entirely of the red or blue shaft and claw. In the WB iteration, the metal chain attaching piece extends much farther up each shaft (visually it appears to be a little less than half way up each shaft from the base where the chain is attached). Additional projectile or other capabilities of the nun chucks for the WB Panthro, similar to the RB Panthro’s nun chucks, are unknown at this time as it is impossible to derive from either image.
[SIZE=“3”]Panthro[/SIZE]
Panthro’s face over went one of the more drastic design overhauls. The RB Panthro was completely bald, with very large Spockish ears (the only ThunderCat of the original four adults with exposed ears). He had very prominent black eyebrows, large burnt orange eyes, a wide nose, and a large whitish blue patch around his mouth area (Note – barely visible are two very thin whitish blue areas around his eyes). The most striking change to the WB Panthro is that he has side burns. The side burns appear to possibly be part of a “skullet” as he may have longer hair reaching around the back of his head. The WB Panthro is still bald on top. The WB Panthro’s separate whitish blue sections around the mouth and eyes on the RB Panthro are now one larger patch on the WB Panthro. Both the WB Panthro’s nose and exposed ears are significantly smaller than his RB counterpart.
Moving onto the torso and extremities, both iterations have the giant whitish blue chest and midsection area. The WB Panthro’s chest section appears to extend up the neck and into his fact patch, while the RB Panthro stopped at the top of the pectorals. The back and the legs of the WB Panthro are completely covered by the vest and combat pants in both shots, so it is unknown if he differs in markings there vs. the RB Panthro. While the RB Panthro was completely void of fur, the WB Panthro, like Tygra in my other review (and the remaining two ThunderCats we’ll see next) has been drawn with slight “fur” texture to his appearance, visible on his arms.
Two other noticeable differences are the scars, and the right eye on the WB Panthro. While there were no physical blemishes on the RB Panthro, the WB Panthro has what appear to be rather prominent scars on his body: 1) small scar vertically down his face around the right eye, 2) large diagonal scar across the outside of his right shoulder, 3) a somewhat smaller looking scar on the front of his left shoulder, and 4) a giant one diagonally across his chest starting somewhere at the top of his right pectoral. WB Panthro’s right eye, the same eye as the small scar, is discolored (light gold vs. dark brown for the other). This appears to hint at physical damage to that eye, but it is unknown at this time if there is any sight impairment as a result. One final difference is the WB Panthro appears to be significantly larger both in height and build than his RB counterpart. He appears to tower over the other three ThunderCats in the smaller shot from the new show, whereas all four ThunderCats were much closer in height in the RB show.
[SIZE=“3”]Final Thoughts[/SIZE]
While I’m not crazy about some of the aesthetical changes to this character (the skullet look), the increase in his physical size make him the specimen of the group to behold. This coupled with the updates to his look (the spiked gloves and footies, and the combat pants) make it more apparent in the WB iteration that he is indeed the hand to hand combat specialist and the muscle of the group. Gone are the refined ninja like physical attributes and they are replaced with a rougher, rugged, bar room brawler appearance for Panthro.
Nice. I am not a fan of seeing everything in black leather now. Gi joe did take the cake with the good guys and bad guys all wearing black leather.