It’s always a pleasure catching up with old friends; even more so when you have things in common like ThunderCats! While we all live vicariously through these reviews while biding our time until she arrives in hand, Cheetara is no exception in terms of enjoying this feeling of an exclusive “first look” – courtesy of Jared Elswick, aka ToyBro. We caught up with our hero toy reviewer and talked about the queen of Third Earth.
WWMTC: We’ve been quite fortunate these past few months in terms of ThunderCats figures, and while the run on new toys isn’t finished just yet, we’re continuing the trend with the very delayed Cheetara. You’re one of the first few people in the world to have this figure. Was she worth the wait?
TB: I think so. I mean, especially after we saw the issues with the figure a while back, I’m glad we got this version by comparison for sure.
WWMTC: She’s undergone some major changes, and with that came some intense backlash from a select group. Are the complaints justified? Is there anything you see that you would’ve preferred from previous iterations of her?
TB: If we’re talking the version with the messed up hips, no, that version is decidedly worse than this one. There’s always the complaints about the figure not looking like the hand painted proto, but that’s not exactly a concern I have personally. I think once people have her in hand they’ll be happier with her than they’re expecting to be.
WWMTC: Would you say she is as cartoon accurate as she can be?
TB: She’s close. I think some colors are off but she’s pretty solid. She has a LOT of paint which has helped this figure tremendously to have more visual impact.
WWMTC: We know photos do not do justice to a figure and often things are missed or negatively amplified by lighting. Can you confirm whether she has the different tones of paint on her neck?
TB: Sort of. She has paint on her back which runs up her neck, but she has shading on her chest around the outline of her outfit, it’s not necessarily her ‘neck’ but its not just unpainted plastic there.
WWMTC: She has three heads, one for running, one standard head and then the extra bonus head with GITD eyes. Which is your favorite and will be your head to use?
TB: Probably the running head, it works as a running head of course, but also works to sort of pose her how she stands in the intro because her hair is swept back then too.
WWMTC: She has another bonus accessory which Brian Flynn confirmed as a blast effect that plugs into her staff. This is the first “fire” effect in this line. Is there place for it in this line? Does it work? Where else do you think it can be incorporated?
TB: There’s a place, for sure, but I think it’s a miss here. It’s super heavy and I don’t think it works very well. I’d love to see blast effects for characters with guns, something that trails off Cheetara like when she runs would have been cool, some lightning type effect to clasp on the Sword of Omens for when Lion-O blocks an attack would also be cool like they did for the Prince Adam Filmation figure. I love energy effects and this one is cool, but its impractical here for me.
WWMTC: There are many tiny accessories too. Do you recognize them all? Most importantly, are they worth having?
TB: Well we’ve got some Treasures of Thundera, which I’m happy to see come back. I for the life of me cannot place what the little ‘communicators’ are. Can’t remember it all.
WWMTC: That would be the Locket of Lies! Moving on, how does her small staff work? Is there a hole? A peg?
TB: It actually just slots into her gauntlet and holds in place really well, there’s a little channel for it.
WWMTC: Is she the best figure of the line so far?
TB: I still think for me that has to be Wave 2 Mumm-Ra, she’s definitely the best female figure in the line though.
WWMTC: We’ve had a glimpse of her LJN counterpart back in May. Between the two, which one do you think is going to be your favorite?
TB: Probably the LJN, something about those super intense colors really do it for me, but that’s a really subjective reason. At the end of the day I’ve got room for both.
WWMTC: A little off topic, but do you think that the LJN figures must continue the trend of the boxed packaging, or perhaps a vintage inspired blister card look?
TB: If we’re going full on LJN tribute I’d love to see carded packaging for these. They did it with MOTU Ultimates, no reason to think it couldn’t happen here too.
WWMTC: Now that we’ve caught up, and we have Wave 5 coming out soon, the next beast arriving will be the ThunderTank. Where would you pose Cheetara on your tank?
TB: I suspect she’ll be in the back with the turret. The front seats on mine are reserved for a Panthro and Tygra currently.
WWMTC: Same time, next wave?
TB: Wouldn’t miss it.
