Review: MOTUC Karatti

It's fair to say that the New Adventures of He-Man is the least-loved of the Masters of the Universe incarnations. Whether it be the toys changing design compared to the original line, or simply a dislike of being in space, NA He-Man has far more enemies from friends.

Possibly due to it's lessened fandom, NA has suffered greatly in the proportion of figures based on this era featured in MOTUC. In fact Karatti is only the fourth, behind Flipshot, Slushhead and Optikk. Even though the original NA designs has been 'clasicised' to fit them into a similar design as all the other MOTU characters, the NA figures are still the least popular faction (though not the least popular figures - that's a toss up between Spector, Molarr, the Star Sisters and the Fighting Foe Men).

Karatti is an unknown character to me. I've watched the NA cartoon, but can't remember him from it and certainly never had the toy. All the features from the original toy have been translated into this new Classics-style figure and he fits in perfectly with the others released so far. If you didn't know he was a NA character, you'd think he was one of Skeletor's minions living in Snake Mountain.

His design is very Predator-based, with the face mask and dreadlocks. And some strange crotch-abs. His skin tone is not just green, but GREEN - though not quite as GREEN! as Demo-Man. Which is great, to my mind, as MOTU should feature brightly-coloured people. His armour is all new, while his lower half is (once again) a reuse of the Trap-Jaw legs. Owing to the leg re-use his ankles are of the older, and therefore wobbly type and he is prone to toppling over.

He comes with two accessories - a gun and knife. The gun is a slightly odd design, which you can blame the 80s designers for, and the knife is...well, it's just a knife/sword. Annoyingly, he can't hold both weapons at the same time as his left hand is slightly too far open (blame Trap Jaw, whose hand it originally was). I've put the knife in that hand and rotated it round (see the photos) which gives him a tighter grip - tight enough so that he doesn't drop it all the time, at least.

Personally, I have no problem with NA. I liked NA. NA was a big part of my school holiday mornings, being double-billed (from what I can remember) with COPS or Galaxy Rangers. I'm one of those who want more NA characters in MOTUC. And I really like Karatti. He's a fun figure, nicely sculpted and painted and fits in nicely with any MOTUC you care to stand him next to. Despite this, Karatti is destined to go down as one of the less-liked figures in the line, purely because of their origins. I wish people would put aside their prejudices and give him and NA a chance. They might find themselves surprised.