Neck to Neck (A Mekaneck Review)

A new Millennium, a new line of Masters of the Universe figures.  Fifteen years after the classic line ended, the new line restarted with all new figures, pandering to today's children.  Mekaneck is considered by most to be part of the second wave of figures - the wave that also included Jungle Attack He-man and Ram Man.

Mekaneck is the Heroic human periscope.  Somehow he broke his neck and Man-At-Arms, who seems to do more things than just being a weaponmaker, created a periscopic neck for Mekaneck.  So Mekaneck now uses his ability to keep Skeletor's forces at bay.  Or so the story goes anyways.

Mekaneck comes on the typical trilingual card.  The front is similar for most of the figures and the feel does not stray far from the original line's card.  Here, the background is the power sword, which forms the focus of the card, then in the eighties, the focus was an eruption, throwing out large pieces of rock.  The back of the card makes a radical departure from the eighties.  Gone are the card art, gone are the other characters neatly arranged, gone are the instructions illustrated in boxes.  In their place is a huge picture of Mekaneck with arrows pointing to areas with special features and pictures (some edited) showing what those features are and how they work.  There are no words to the features alongside the pictures - perhaps Mattel fears that it will clutter the card with instructions in three languages.  The other figures in the line though, appear near the bottom of the card, again as pictures as opposed to illustration, but arranged not sanitarily in straight rows, but posed in an eye-catching arrangement.

The logo has also been updated with a new font and new colours and the words "of the Universe" are enlarged. Both changes makes it softer and easier on the eye.  Mekaneck also comes with a sticker of the logo.  This is placed on a raised up piece of plastic inside the bubble to give the whole thing a 3D effect on the card.

The name of the character is not printed on the card this time, but instead on a piece of plastic which is placed around the figures feet inside the bubble.  This is perhaps, the closest one would come to the art that was prevalent in the eighties on each MotU toy.  The bottom flap contains all Mattel's information and the contact details.  It is interesting to note that the red lower half of the printing is textured, fading to clear as it goes upwards, so as to obscure the character's feet but not to obscure his thighs and furry pants.

Like most wave 2 figures, a sticker on the side of the bubble advertises that the figure will work with Grayskull.  A chip that is implanted into the figure will interact with Grayskull when Mekaneck is around.

Mekaneck retained his usual blue colour and red armour, with the silver highlights.  However, he's been given more natural coloured boots and gloves and furry pants.  The furry pants is undetachable.  Mekaneck's crotch is moulded from brown plastic, the same colour as the pants.  Well, if they can't get it anatomically correct, at least they got the colours right.  Mekaneck has quite a number of points of articulation, including neck, waist, both shoulders, elbows, wrists and thighs.  What is lacking is articulation for either the knees or feet.  In a way it makes Mekaneck a little more stable not to have articulation in his legs, but it sacrifices Mekaneck's posability or his stability when standing upright with the heavy club in his hand.

Mekaneck comes with a club, the details of which looks and feels very much like the original.  The only difference is that this club is moulded from shiny golden plastic instead of the original's yellow plastic.  The gold club has a longer handle and the details are sculpted with quite a lot of minute detail, particularly the handle.  The club fits comfortably in Mekaneck's right hand and the elbow is spring loaded to swing the club.  The mechanism is well designed but the execution leaves a little something more to be desired.

	Like the original, the new Mekaneck comes with the twist waist, neck extend action.  The neck is silver and highly detailed - even vertebrae can be seen on the back of the neck.  The one thing about the neck is that it does not contract entirely into the body cavity, exposing about a quarter to serve as Mekaneck's normal neck when it's not extended.
	The other feature that increases the playability of the figure is that one can actually look through Mekaneck's head to view the world through Mekaneck's eyes.  The green plastic and the unique shape of the eyepiece gives it an interesting feel (and look) and a totally different perspective can be had looking through Mekaneck's eyes.

Comparitively, the new Mekaneck is slightly taller than the classic one, but is slimmer and has a smaller head.  The limbs are about the same size.  Side by side, they look more like individuals of the same race instead of just the same figure!  Notice the huge similarities between the classic and the new armour - at least where the front is concerned.  The drawback to the new figure is that his armour is non-removable, perhaps that would be a bonus in times to come.  The two major colour changes are the boots which have been chnaged from silver to brown and the belt and furry pants that which was formerly green and black is now silver and brown.  The colour scheme looks better on the new Mekaneck than on the classic one.

The new mekaneck still comes up have a head taller, eventhough both the necks are roughly the same length.  This is due to the different leg height - notice how the new Mekaneck's waist is about the same distance taller than the old one.  One significant difference is that the waist turn in different direction to activate the neck.  The classic figure turned anti-clockwise, the new one turns clockwise.  A very minor change.

Overall, the new Mekaneck looks and feels almost the same as the classic one, albeit with increased number of points of articulation and greater features.  It improves on the colour scheme and on the level of details, particularly on the neck and on the club.  The one drawback is that it's still not posable from the hips down, but that does not detract from the figure overall.  For Nostalgia value, it gets an eight out of ten.

Links: classic Mekaneck card art, Mattel.

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