It's the final day of Snakemen week. Next week we start Five Femme week on MotU-verse May. It was a no brainer to select todays toy to open since well, it's almost a part of the mythos of the Snakemen. Today, I bring you the Power of Grayskull.
What's Powers of Grayskull got to do with the Snakemen. Plenty. Bionatops is one of the three released beasts from the Powers of Grayskull series, the other two are Turbodactyl and Tyrantosaurus Rex. There was also Gigantisaurs, but that was never released. And yes, I'm opening a 20+ year old toy!
The box art is fantastic, as is the norm for the vintage line. The PoG logo is also splashed liberally all over the box. What's also nice are little boxes on the box which shows the feature of the toy... despite the lact of feature on Bionatops.
The packaging is similar to that found in Turbodactly, and the beasts fills up the box nicely. The pull out yellow tray has slots and ties for the beast, but these aren't that difficult to disassemble. The everything else is packed in a baggie placed above the tail of Bionatops and taped in place. After over 20 years, the tape wasn't very sticky and it was easily removed.
What's inside the baggie? The two guns and the mount, the usual Mattel 90-day guarantee sheet and my favourite item, a mini-comic. There's nothing like getting a 20-year old minicomic from a toy! The minicomic introduces all 3 beasts, but there was a booboo with Turbodactyl in the comic which was hastily changed to pterodactyl in there. Oh well.
Basically, this is just a triceratops with two guns mounted o n its head. Like most beast of that era, the legs are not movable. The only point of articulation on the beast (as opposed to the weapons) is the mouth which could open and close.
The guns are the nice part of Bionatops. Mattel could have made the two guns the same, but they didn't. The gun on the right is held in the hand of the figure, while the gun on the left goes over the shoulder of the figure - perhaps because at that time, not all figures had 2 gripping hands. The guns definitely dwarf the vintage figure (photo above on the left).
Swap out the vintage figure for the Classics He-Man and the guns become more proportionate. However, this has the effect of shrinking Bionatops so much that he seems like a baby dinosaurs. Hmm...
Comparison time??? There's nothing to compare Bionatops with because, lets face it, this is the vintage figure. It does definately dwarf a certain gitd dinosaur that I had in hand...
And what's the link between the Powers of Grayskull and the Snakemen? Simple - the Powers of Grayskull was supposedly a line where the Snakemen were the antagonists. Other figures planned for this line include He-Ro and Eldor for the protagonists and probably a few more Snakemen who never saw the light of day. Bionatops, Turbodactyl and Tyrantosaurus Rex are the only remains of this line.
What's Powers of Grayskull got to do with the Snakemen. Plenty. Bionatops is one of the three released beasts from the Powers of Grayskull series, the other two are Turbodactyl and Tyrantosaurus Rex. There was also Gigantisaurs, but that was never released. And yes, I'm opening a 20+ year old toy!
The box art is fantastic, as is the norm for the vintage line. The PoG logo is also splashed liberally all over the box. What's also nice are little boxes on the box which shows the feature of the toy... despite the lact of feature on Bionatops.
The packaging is similar to that found in Turbodactly, and the beasts fills up the box nicely. The pull out yellow tray has slots and ties for the beast, but these aren't that difficult to disassemble. The everything else is packed in a baggie placed above the tail of Bionatops and taped in place. After over 20 years, the tape wasn't very sticky and it was easily removed.
What's inside the baggie? The two guns and the mount, the usual Mattel 90-day guarantee sheet and my favourite item, a mini-comic. There's nothing like getting a 20-year old minicomic from a toy! The minicomic introduces all 3 beasts, but there was a booboo with Turbodactyl in the comic which was hastily changed to pterodactyl in there. Oh well.
Basically, this is just a triceratops with two guns mounted o n its head. Like most beast of that era, the legs are not movable. The only point of articulation on the beast (as opposed to the weapons) is the mouth which could open and close.
The guns are the nice part of Bionatops. Mattel could have made the two guns the same, but they didn't. The gun on the right is held in the hand of the figure, while the gun on the left goes over the shoulder of the figure - perhaps because at that time, not all figures had 2 gripping hands. The guns definitely dwarf the vintage figure (photo above on the left).
Swap out the vintage figure for the Classics He-Man and the guns become more proportionate. However, this has the effect of shrinking Bionatops so much that he seems like a baby dinosaurs. Hmm...
Comparison time??? There's nothing to compare Bionatops with because, lets face it, this is the vintage figure. It does definately dwarf a certain gitd dinosaur that I had in hand...
And what's the link between the Powers of Grayskull and the Snakemen? Simple - the Powers of Grayskull was supposedly a line where the Snakemen were the antagonists. Other figures planned for this line include He-Ro and Eldor for the protagonists and probably a few more Snakemen who never saw the light of day. Bionatops, Turbodactyl and Tyrantosaurus Rex are the only remains of this line.
Wow.. so.. wait.. they actually rode this poor beast on.. his head? That poor, poor thing! I actually saw these in the store way back when but I was already getting out of toys at that point, and never picked him up. Bravo to you for opening that box and sharing this with us! I love it!
ReplyDeleteYup, they sat on his head. Originally, I had them sitting on his neck, which is where someone will normally sit, but the guns just wouldn't fit in the hands, so I looked at the box again and realised that it was on his head.
ReplyDeleteOh and I am a firm believer of opening toys, however vintage they may be!
I still have this guy in my toy box from when I was a kid. For the longest time I forgot that he had anything to do with He-Man, since it seems so out of place with what I generally consider MOTU. It shows you where the line was going at the time though.
ReplyDelete