Masters of the Universe New Eternia Clawful review
Clawful is one of my favorite of Skeletor’s evil minions. His whole monstrous crab design gives him such a unique look. Along with Whiplash, I always slot Clawful as one of the big menacing mid-tier bosses He-Man and the Masters have to tangle with in reaching Skeletor.
It’s no surprise then that in every Masters of the Universe line I’ve collected, I’ve really dug the Clawful figure. When he was announced for Masters of the Universe New Eternia subset of Masterverse, I was looking forward to how Mattel would embrace the past and do something new. The price certainly didn’t hurt as Target put him on clearance way faster than I anticipated.
Let’s see if the New Eternia Clawful figure is my lobster (gold star if you got the FRIENDS reference) or if he leaves me in a crabby mood.
Packaging: The New Eternia packaging color scheme is consistent with the Revelation line. The only change is with the logo to reflect we’re in the New Eternia era now.
Masterverse has one of my favorite package setups these days. We get a nice wide window of the figure and accessories and great artwork with two different portraits showcasing both possible looks.
My favorite aspect of course is the awesome bio, which is always written with care in expanding the New Eternia story. This one cast Clawful like a precautionary tale with a playful question if he’s myth or real.
Likeness: A terrific aspect of the New Eternia line is the ability to go wholly old school or embrace the updated design.
Basic Clawful is a sensational figure with no additional help needed. While not as hulking as Two-Bad, Clawful looks just as formidable. It starts with his ferocious head sculpt with the fin and scales. The protruding teeth complete the look of a dude that would terrorize sailors.
His main armor/body is sculpted like a shell with a lined pattern across his chest. Along his arms and legs are ridges and bumps.
The highlight though are his pincers. The right one is massive with a tremendous amount of detail.
They remind me of the shell crackers you’d use for crab legs. How ironic. The left one is much smaller and is about the size of a regular hand.
Moving down to his boots, which offer some solid protection. They’re well detailed with studs and three “toes.”
Paint: Mattel continues to provide exemplary clean paintjobs for the figures. Clawful is a little better than the average figure thanks to some cool extra touches.
His eyes are somewhat opaque, but his irises are visible under the slightly haze white paint used. It’s a great effect and adds to the eerie factor.
While not as exaggerated as earlier figures, he still has distinct eyebrows. Clawful’s head has a red-orange wash, which further sells that monster crab visual.
The white teeth are neatly done with just a minor lining issue on the inner portion of the left fang.
His shell armor is a dark red with a black wash added to further pop out the sculpt detailing.
The belt looks like it was made of material under the sea with the slight gleam in the blue jewels. The boots have a darker metallic blue and they look even sharper.
Clawful’s arm has some airbrushed-looking gradient effect from his hands to his elbow. The larger claw has impressive washes and color gradients. That’s a very cool visual.
Scale: The New Eternia figures maintain the 7″ scale. While not the tallest of Skeletor’s Evil Warriors, his width and large pincher still makes for an impressive presence on the shelf.
Articulation: Clawful maintains the Masterverse standard of 30 points of articulation. While he’s ready for battle like the norm of the line, his right arm is key for slicing and clawing poses. Watch out Clamp Champ!
I haven’t had too many issues with the articulation setup of the Masterverse figures.
He even fares well with a legacy issue with the line where the figures have weak ankle joints causing them to wilt or fail to hold poses.
It’s cool to see the larger pincer has articulation too for grabbing poses.
Masterverse New Eternia Clawful has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- bicep
- elbow (double-jointed)
- wrist
- claws
- torso
- waist
- hip
- thigh
- knee (double-jointed)
- ankle
Accessories: With the deluxe figures, Mattel adds more to give the figure a two-in-one setup.
One is the classic, basic default look.
First up is his lone traditional accessory — his green staff. This has been included on all of his figures so it was a no-brainer inclusion. There’s a decent amount of detail in it from the crownpiece, handle, grip and diamond shaped bottom.
It’s useful in terms of giving Clawful something to clash with swords and shields.
While the MOTU Classics Clawful had a crab-like shield, the New Eternia version has a fairly basic one cast in a pearlescent orange sheen.
A fun inclusion is a new harness piece to reflect his attire in the original 1983 cartoon. The blue jewel has a cool sheen to it complementing the orange harness nicely.
He also has a spiked armband for his left arm.
That’s a sensible inclusion since his opponents would likely gravitate towards his “weaker” side.
Clawful’s main new piece is back armor that gives the illusion of a larger shell and more protection.
Regardless if I use the harness, this piece will definitely be on my NE Clawful. Like the rest of the figure, it sports some stellar paint work and excellent sculpting.
Worth it? The normal Masterverse deluxe figure price is $32.99, but during Target’s latest clearance cycle, I got him for $9.99. That’s a pretty hard value to beat unless Ross gets him a few months later for $5.99.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Where to get it? While I got Clawful at Target, that’s not much an option these days so you can grab him on Amazon.
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