Mon*Star

Skeletor, Megatron, and Cobra Commander may be more famous, but how many of them actually seem dangerous? Mon*Star is the head of the Limbo Mob, and functions as the local criminal kingpin. He has been around Limbo for over 300 years. He has above normal strength, but when endowed within the light of Limbo's Moon-Star, Mon*Star's body transforms and is entirely covered in robotic armor. His strength becomes many times greater than in his normal state. He has jets on his elbows that he can use to fly through space as well as fire red energy blasts. His most dangerous ability is the star-like blasts that come from what would normally be his eye patch. He has a personal vendetta against Stargazer and all who align themselves with the Silverhawks. You have to admit, for as much as SilverHawks is just a rip-off of ThunderCats, having their Mumm-Ra be as strong as the heroes before he transforms? A lot more threatening! First thing we see in the cartoon is people desperately trying to prevent him from escaping prison, and being terrified when they can't. Really helping Silverhawks move away from its creators' Thundercats roots, Mon*Star looks like some kind of crazy outer space lion-man. Innovative! In truth, he looks more like a lion than Lion-O does, with his broad, flat nose and his upper lip split in two. But the main feature is the mane feature: he has a giant head of thick hair billowing out around his face. An eyepatch covers his left eye, with a star sculpted on its surface and the shape of an eye in the center. The animation on the show was inconsistent, but Mon*Star was sometimes shown to be all-over furry. The toy opts for the other depiction, where the body is perfectly smooth, with just some tufts of fur on the elbows and fur underwear like a He-Man character. The body is well-defined, with claws on the fingers and toes, and two round pads on the shoulders that each have a single spike growing from them, but Super7 could have given him a full texture if they'd decided to. Mon*Star's body is a dark, dark brown, like burnt mahogany wood. And since the animation model had lighter highlights, the areas that would normally get a wash to create shadows are done in red here. It's an impressive look, like he's got internal fires burning, and the fade on his fur from brown to red is accomplished smoothly. His hair is mostly black, with thick red streaks in the front, though that's the part you're going to be seeing most often. His skin is tan, and only visible on his face - suggesting that the dark body is a full suit he's wearing, not anything natural. His chest and the shoulder pauldrons are a slightly lighter shade, just being a very dark red, so can at least be sure those parts are supposed to be armor, but the rest we just have to assume. The figure includes two alternate heads, in increasingly exaggerated midsts of shouting. One has the mouth open slightly, with his hair starting to blow to his right; the other has the mouth open wide, with his hair fully blowing to the left. That final one paints the star around the white eye on his eyepatch pink instead of black, suggesting that it represents him as he powers up. Mon*Star doesn't get any fancy change in title, like Mumm-Ra becomes "the Ever-Living" - he's just Mon*Star before, and Mon*star after. Mon*Star does not get any accessories to use, just a few alternate hands. He's shipped with his hands in a clawing pose, but he also gets ones in a different, wider clawing pose, closed fists, a pair to hold things, a pair to point with, and a... trigger finger hand, maybe? In case you want to loan him some weapons from future releases. Until then, you'll just have to make do with enjoying the articulation: barbell head, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed chest, seemingly some sort of waist joint (though the shapes of the toy mean there's no real movement there), swivel/hinge hips, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. The set also includes a couple pack-ins. All the Silverhawks had robotic animal sidekicks, and, becoming envious of that, Mon*Star had his tech guy build one for him, too. He built it on a sky-shadow, a weird little gargoyle-thing that's apparently native to the Limbo galaxy. So this set includes the natural creature and the robot it was transformed into. The animal has balljointed wings and head, so it can be posed at least a little, and its tongue is flicking out of its beak. The robotic Sky-Shadow (yeah, they never bothered giving it a name, making this the equivalent of building a robot horse and just calling it "Horse") has its wings folded, rather than open: ya gotta save something for the future Powered-Up Mon*Star release! Mon*Star is an underrated '80s villain - he's physically threatening even at his weakest, he's organized, he displays concern for his underlings (sometimes)... he deserves more street cred. This figure may come in a larger-than-usual box (they needed room for three copies of his big hair), but even without many accessories it doesn't feel like the release is "light." Nobody's ever made the de-powered Mon*Star before, so this is a hell of a first figure! -- 06/25/23

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