Prahvus

Where does this guy get off calling himself "the Untamed" when in his brief little bio, he is three times imprisoned, contained, and enslaved? Released by Count Marzo from his magical prison, Prahvus the Untamed roamed throughout Eternia terrorizing the populace and causing havoc throughout the land. Marzo had intended to use Prahvus as a distraction, to divide Miro's troops during the Great Unrest. But thanks to the heroics of Prince Keldor, Prahvus was contained again inside of a magical lamp. Decades later, after Hordak returned to Eternia, two of his bumbling minions released the warlord again, but this time, he was quickly enslaved to the Horde Invaders by Hordak's chief witch. Prahvus uses his unstoppable strength and great magic to destroy any heroic warriors who get in his way! I wonder who those minions were? In the cartoon, he was attacking Odiphus' village while the Sorceress was shacking up with Teela's father. The writers had plans to have him join the Horde in Season 3, but that never got made, so we're left to guess. Prahvus is a big, scary, demonic-lookin' dude, with pointed ears, giant pronged horns, and a super-crazy beard. Seriously, there are two little tufts by the corners of his mouth, and then a single long, ridiculous strand sticking straight out the front of his chin. His lower lip juts out, allowing two little fangs to poke up from it. There's a black ridge that might be organic or might be a crown; it runs over the top of his head, around his eyebrows, and down onto the bridge of his nose. Below the neck, there aren't a lot of sculptural surprises - bare chest, bare arm, bare legs, wrapped feet, etc. They do a really nice job of making him not look reused, though: the boots may be the same ones we've been getting since He-Man, but there are new knee sections that provide bulky metal tops for them; he has a new loincloth with a diamond leather scale pattern, and a matching pattern on the inside of his cape; the cape is held in place by a large black (dragon?) skull on his shoulder; finally, he wears a new glove on his right hand, just like he had in the cartoon. Prahvus is a very dark character. Dark colors, not dark personality. Though his personality isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows either, you know? But we're talking colorscheme, here. His skin is dark grey, and his clothes are all purples and blacks, with a few red accents to match his eyes. His head, horns and torso are covered with blocky blue tattoos, similar to Zodak, though his don't glow in the dark. Compared to other MotU Classics figures, Prahvus is missing a few joints: his shins don't swivel, since the new pseudo boot-tops sort of lock those in place, and the shoulder is limited by his cape - not in the usual way, but because the skull that holds it in place plugs into the shoulder-ring. That means you can raise the arm to the side just fine, but can't move it forward because the cape runs into the figure's back, and while you can move it backwards, the cape then sticks straight out and makes him want to topple over. So, all that info in Prahvus' bio? It's all entirely made up. (Side note: yes, we realize that Prahvus is a fictional character, and therefore everything about him is entirely made up, but bear with us here.) When he appeared on the cartoon, he was just a random powerful warlord with no presented backstory (other than stealing a powerful energy source known as the Ergon from Sortech the scientist). So the bit about Marzo? About a lamp? About Hordak? Not a bit of it exists anywhere outside of the back of this toy's packaging. Similarly, he comes with two accessories that also never appeared anywhere else. Naturally, one is a golden lamp, suggesting that an unstated part of Prahvus' backstory is that he's some kind of evil genie. He's armed with a copper-colored club that he's never had before, but its pyramidal head bears a strong resemblance to the technology he did use, so there's a nice thematic connection at least. So Prahvus brings us to the end of Mattel's "Club 200X." It had a stupid name, but it brought us six surprisingly good figures. Well, okay, five and Queen Grayskull - she was "as expected," not "surprising." Plus there was the head pack, which some people surely enjoyed. The writers of the 2002 cartoon were building Prahvus up to be a big deal, but the show got cancelled before they could get there; it's cool that Mattel is honoring that in their toyline, and that we've got yet another figure to add to the good toys. -- 12/26/15

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