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If you need an enemy for She-Ra, there's only one logical choice.
An ancient vampiric war hero hearkening back to the days of Baron Volligar's rise, Lord Draguul has spent ages scheming to put
himself in a position of power. When he was passed over in favor of Volligar's daughter Lucretia, a bitter Draguul chose to feign loyalty while surreptitiously continuing his pursuit of advancement. Lucretia, being quite aware of Lord Draguul's resentment, sought to keep him safely at arm's length by tasking him with the recruitment of soldiers in the Northlands. Unbeknownst to both Lucretia and Volligar, Draguul is secretly assembling a motley army of brigands and cutthroats who share his ultimate aim of overthrowing the vampiric kingdom.
So you might say he's building an entire... evil horde? Yes, Lord Draguul is our second Masters of the Universe homage in this series, and he's Hordak. As with the others, his Mythic Legions story doesn't really have much to do with his MotU one, but then, it's not supposed to, is it? The connection is all about the visuals.
In this case, the homage is to the cartoon version of Hordak, not the toy - which mainly means he's got blue skin instead of grey. It does raise some questions in the context of this figure, however: why, if his alternate head (reused from Carpathias for its big, pointy ears) is white, are his limbs bright blue? And why instead of a normal neck does he have a series of blue vertebrae? At least with Kronnaw the color-change could be chalked up to his weird origins, but Draguul is just all over the place.
Mythic Legions armor translates really well to Hordak's sense of style. Wearing the jagged armor allows him to look threatening even when standing still, and the shapes approximate the old toy.
Look at the toes of his boots, which suggest Hordak's three-toed feet, or the way painting one layer of his angled greaves red calls to mind the little Horde symbols that used to be on Hordak's shins. Most of the armor is painted matte black, with dark silver accents and a little bit of red trim. They definitely made the right choice going with the blue skin: its contrast is great against all the dark armor, and really makes the figure pop in a way grey wouldn't. There's a little bit of airbrushing on the bare scalp, where Hordak would have had a ridge, and his eyes and teeth are both solid red with black outlines. Even his nostrils get black paint apps to match the vintage toy.
Draguul is one of the figures who get a cape, but for once it's not a mystery how it's supposed to connect: the shoulder pads plug through the middle section, while the ends go on his wrists. Well, the stock photos show them on his wrists, but they look better at the top of the gloves; the excess fabric sticks out less. You can choose what you like best thanks to Mythic Legions' modular construction - just pop the parts off and slip the cape-holes on.
The Hordak-y vampire head is technically his alternate. The one he's got on in the package is a knight's helmet with a red dragon crest on top. The colors on the helmet match the rest of the armor, as you'd expect, while the little dragon feels indicative of the Evil Horde's
bat-winged symbol. This is way better than a lot of the bonus heads - looking at you, Purrrplor!
Draguul comes with the elven shield, but it's not really intended for him to weild. See, one of Hordak's features has always been the big collar of armor that sticks up behind his head, but that's not something currently available in the Mythic Legions parts library. So what are inventive toymakers do to? They give us this shield, and hint that the proper way to utilize it is to attach it to his back, allowing the top to rise behind him, becoming a stand-in for the absent armor. That's smart!
His normal weapons include a crossbow in red,
because that was the Evil Horde's trademark accessory, and a bearded axe with a little skull on the top. The skull is two-tone blue with large yellow eyes, which makes it feel like Hordak's little sidekick, Imp. Since Imp could shapeshift into different objects, this could easily be him.
It's a bit weird to get new characters in what is ostensibly a "greatest hits" series, but who can really remember which figures came out in which release once they're standing on your shelves? All the recent preorder series - Arethyr and Illythia - have been too story-focussed to allow for strong homages (even if Lord Draguul is part of Illythia's Brood), and the important thing is we got them, not when.
-- 02/15/21
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