A look at Masters of the Universe Origins Clamp Champ
As quickly detailed in this post, thanks to my wife (thanks wife!) I’m now collecting Masters of the Universe Masterverse action figures. Before I wound up in the Masterverse camp, between us we got a couple of Origins figures to try out – the Sorceress and Clamp Champ.
Masters of the Universe Origins
This will of course be old hat to anybody who has been collecting the line for the last few years. However if this is new to anyone, back in 2019/2020 Mattel released the first figures in a new line that are in the same 14cm/5.5inch scale as the original vintage 1980s line. They also follow the original looks as well but with varying degrees of updates.
Generally speaking, the biggest differences are brighter colours and much more articulation. The vintage line had six points of articulation while the new Origins line has something like sixteen.
The other difference – and this isn’t immediately apparent when you pick up one of the Origins figures – is that a large number of the parts can be removed and swapped with other figures. So if you have a few figures, the parts swapping and customisation options really begin to grow.
Why Clamp Champ?
A combination of a couple things really. Although he was released quite late on in the original 1980s line, he was a favourite of mine. I think the whole clamp thing was so bizarre it caught my imagination. Jumping to last year and seeing there was a version of him in the Origins line, I decided that he could be a pretty good representative figure (clamp aside!) and that made him a perfect purchase in order to try the line out.
Overview
Clamp Champ’s tagline is “Heroic Master of Capture!”. Shame Mattel didn’t go all in and call him the “Heroic Master of Clamping” but I guess that might have made him sound like an Eternian traffic warden.
Anyway! Clamp Champ came out in 2021 and was among the first run of deluxe Origins figures. The large clamp weapon alone probably pushed him into the deluxe category but Mattel also added a second head, a third hand and a smaller clamp accessory. I think this last is a nod to his figure in the Classics line. It doesn’t do anything but it is a nice touch.
As I mentioned above, this figure is pretty representative of the male characters in the Origins line. He has the over muscled physique Masters of the Universe is known for and basically re-uses the He-Man body, just re-painted. The torso armour is the same as Fisto’s but in a simpler light blue and silver colour scheme. It’s pretty flexible and can easily be removed.
The choice of heads seemed to have been a theme in the deluxe range with quite a lot of the figures doing the same. It’s a really nice addition and both head sculpts are really quite detailed. I do prefer the one with the more stoic expression however.
Body Parts
As with all of the figures in the Origins line, Clamp Champ’s parts are modular and can be removed. Perfect for fans of customisations!
Accessories
You can’t do an overview of Clamp Champ and not have a section on his clamps! The smaller one doesn’t do anything but is a nod back to the earlier Classics version. The larger one is where the action is!
Mattel did a really good job in replicating the look of the vintage version. Like that one, compared to the figure, the clamp is huge and just like the vintage version, causes the figure to over balance. Which is a small niggle when the clamp itself is a lot of fun. The red pincers can be pushed back into the clamp and a button on top releases them to spring back! I think this action was handled a bit differently on the vintage toy but it’s still great to have something similar on this modern update.
Packaging
Vintage Masters of the Universe toys had awesome art on the packaging and I’m sure it was part of why I was drawn to collecting them as a kid. It is really pleasing to see that the Origins line carries on that tradition.
In fact, the packaging is very close to the style of the vintage line. The figure and accessories are housed in clear plastic glued to a card back with the art. I should mention that as Clamp Champ is part of the deluxe range, the packaging is a bit bigger so as to house the extra accessories and has art work featuring the character on the front. I don’t think the standard range features that corner art.
All figures however, feature the cross sell art on the reverse of the card back and the dioramas at the top. The latter in particular warmed the nostalgia cockles of my heart!
Note this is the international multi-lingual packaging. It has things like “Power Pincer!” translated into French and Spanish but lacks some text on the back. For example, the packaging art on the top of the reverse has a tag line in the English only version. That’s missing here as presumably translating that into several languages would have taken up too much room.
Bit of a shame but the included mini-comic suffers a worse fate.
Mini-Comic
Let’s tease that out a bit and talk about the positives first. There’s a mini-comic included! In the vintage line the mini-comics were really important with regard to the world building for me. It is so fantastic that Mattel are continuing to include them in the Origins line! In this case, the art is pretty good and the story serves to showcase the characters the mini-comic is included with.
The negative is to do with this being the international multi-lingual version. If you take a quick look below, you’ll see that the inner pages lack any captions or word balloons. I guess this is because translating it all would once again, have taken up too much room.
However, the vintage mini-comics did this better. They simply had an English version at the front and an alternative language version at the back (plus maybe another language in the middle?). It’s a shame Mattel didn’t do that here.
Summing Up
Although I ended up being enticed away from the Origins line by the Masterverse one, I’m really pleased I checked out Origins by getting Clamp Champ. As a fairly representative figure he’s great plus he comes with a bonkers accessory in the form of an over sized clamp!
The only criticisms I have are the over balancing caused by that clamp (but hey, it’s just being faithful to the original vintage version!) and Mattel’s approach to the international version of the packaging and mini comic.
Clamp Champ was released back in 2021 but he still seems to be readily available at places like eBay for good prices.
