Leech MOTU Origins Deluxe Hands On Review & Vintage Comparison
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Summary
Join us for a very highly anticipated Leech MOTU Origins deluxe hands-on review. When Leech was first announced by Mattel during their Week of Reveals back in March, I was super excited to get this Origins version of Leech in hand! Well folks, here he is in all his vintage style glory, and we will cover him in-depth in this hands-on review!
Leech was first released by Mattel in 1984 and was featured on the Filmation She-Ra Princess of Power cartoon. The vintage Leech action figure included the same suction feature as the Origins figure but had a lever in the back to activate his action suction feature. This Origins version of Leech is an amazing tribute to the vintage Leech, but totally upgraded! He features the same big red Horde symbol on his chest, suction cup face, hands and feet and all! But this version of Leech gets a major upgrade, he comes with the most amazing alternate head and hands with brand new sculpting, and I have to say they look fabulous on him! Let’s dive right in and take a look!
As you can see below, the new alternate head and hands look so wonderful on Leech and give you the option to display him in a totally different look! Out of the two heads, I think this alternate head is my favorite. And this alternate head has a rich history, which we will go into further detail below.
This is the classic look for Leech, just like the vintage figure we all know and love! This version of Leech was so much fun to stick to smooth surfaces as you are going to see further in this review!
Packaging
Axel Gimenez brings us yet another work of art with Leech’s card backart. Set in a swampy bog, Leechuses his suction feature to raise Tung Lashor, who is rumored to join the Origins line in 2023, above his head. It is not known if Leech is simply raising Tung Lashor up to move him, he or if he sucking the life force out of him. We don’t want to see anything bad happen to Tung Lashor, but Leech has to do what he has to do and what he does best is suck! Since this is a deluxe figure, we are also treated to a beautiful illustration of Leech on the front of the package as well. And as you will notice, that illustration features his new alternate head sculpt.
Package Contents
- Leech figure
- Suction cup head
- Suction cup hands
- Normal head
- Normal hands
- Crossbow
- Mini comic
Action Feature
When Leech was first announced, one question we had was how well the action feature would work? The yellow burst on the front of his packaging says, “Figure really sticks to smooth surfaces!” Well, now we can see Leech’s action feature in action for ourselves!!! He really does stick to smooth surfaces! You can see his suction cups on his face, hands and feet have little tabs to help release him from his suctioned grip. I have just seen an in-hand review, by non-other than Pixel Dan and boy did Leech have an incredibly strong suction feature! We will put Leech to the test during this review! After doing a comparison to the vintage figure, the Origins Leech stuck to smooth surfaces like a champ!
Head
Leech comes packed with 2 head sculpts, the first that resembles the vintage style head and the second being his “MOTU” classics style head. The MOTU classics style head sculpt was created by famous figure sculptors, the Four Horsemen, and looks spectacular! In a perfect tribute to the vintage figure, the vintage style head includes the same vintage style suction cup on the front of his face, and allows you to stick Leech to all sorts of smooth surfaces. I had so much fun sticking Leech all around the house! His alternate head sculpt, is a perfect Origins adaptation to the classics style head, which closely resembles the Filmation cartoon look of Leech as well. With that alligator style head, and all those sharp white teeth in his large open mouth, Mattel did an amazing job with this head sculpt and I think is my favorite head sculpt of the two.
Chest & Back
Usually when a new toy line starts out, they try to reuse as many common parts as possible, but as you can see, this torso for Leech uses all new tooling, not yet used in the Origins line. And Leech’s torso is a unique design, so very unlikely that this tooling will be used again for another character, signaling the health of the Origins line! The same can be said for Mantenna too, which we hope to cover in a future review, as soon as we can get our hands on one! The details on Leech’s chest and torso are just absolutely beautiful! The sculpt mimics that of the vintage figure complete with the accent lines wrapping around the chest and back and the raised scale like design around the neckline area. That bright red horde bat logo on his chest is the cherry on top of a perfect Leech Origins figure!
Arms / Waist / Legs
Leech’s arms are also a brand new sculpt made of all new tooling. His arms are symmetrical except for the black arm band he is wearing on his left bicep. The reddish orange straps on his wrists are a perfect recreation of the vintage action figure. He comes packed with the suction cup hands, but also includes a pair of alternate hands, which we will cover below.
Leech’s waist includes a brown belt he is wearing, just like on the vintage figure, with a large belt buckle on the front and round rivets all the way around the belt. His lower waist area is green with a linear pattern on it, just like the vintage Leech figure had as well.
Leech’s legs use the standard Origins leg buck, which is probably the only part of him that is a reuse. But when you get to the boot area, this is where we see the black ankle guards with the red Horde logo. Leech comes only with a pair of suction cup feet, just like the vintage figure, but articulated at the bootcut. It would have been nice if they packed him with regular feet as well as he is a little bit hard to stand on the suction cups.
Accessories
Being that Leech is a deluxe figure, we are treated with several more accessories than come packed with the standard MOTU Origins figures. His accessories include an alternate classics style head, alternate creature like hands and a red Horde Crossbow. Let’s take a closer look at each below.
Alternate Head: As we covered above, the alternate head that comes packaged with Leech is in the MOTU classics style. This sculpt was created by famous figure sculptors, the Four Horsemen, and looks absolutely amazing! If I were to imagine what a regular head would look like for Leech, this Origins representation is the perfect sculpt! I love all the sharp teeth and his deep wide-open mouth which is colored red inside and with some detailed sculpt lines inside. The exterior captures the look of Leech perfectly extracting that big suction cup off his face, and now he looks like he always should have!
This alternate head sculpt captures the look of the 1980’s Filmation carton perfectly and the details are stunning! To the left, we can see what Leech looked like in the Filmation cartoon series, and on the left is Leech with his new head sculpt, which does a brilliant job of bringing us that Filmation look in a vintage Origins style. This same head sculpt, but in a different scale that was used for the MOTU Classics Leech as mentioned above.
Alternate Hands: For the first time, we get some non-suction cup hands for Leech. Although non-human looking, the creature like 3 finger hands seem to fit Leech perfectly. And when Leech is sporting these new beauties, they seem to fit him perfectly!
Crossbow: The crossbow that comes included with Leech is the same Horde crossbow that came packaged with the Horde Troopers and Hordak as well. This one is in a bright red colored plastic, in contrast to the more subdued burgundy color of the crossbow that came with the vintage Leech. The front of the crossbow looks to have some sort of animal head carved onto it. It’s to tell if it is a wolf, a boar or a bat of some sort, but it is in the same sculpt as the vintage crossbow.
Night of the Leech Mini Comic
In the included mini comic that comes with the new Leech Origins Deluxe action figure is “Night of the Leech”. Spoiler alert, we will show you the entire mini comic below, so if you don’t want to know, stopping reading now LOL …
In “Night of the Leech”, He-Man, Buzz-Off, Stratos, and Snout Spout find themselves in the Swamp of Gangoon. When all of a sudden, He-Man gets sucked under the swamp by none other than Leech! Not heeding the warning of his heroic friends, Buzz-Off takes off from the rest of the group to search for He-Man.
Leech sneaks up on Buzz-Off and captures him! Snout Spout and Stratos are left looking for their flying friend, when they encounter a shadowing figure that looks like He-Man. But wait, that’s not He-Man…. no it’s more awful than that….. it’s Zombie Slime Pit He-Man!! What has Leech done to their Heroic Leader?! Slime Pit He-Man attacks Snout Spout and Stratos, carrying Stratos off to an unknown location.
Snout Spout tracks Slime Pit He-Man back to the evil Horde hideout, the Slime Pit! Where he finds Leech waiting to attack him! But wait, not only is Leech attacking… but the ones who he thought were his friends are now attacking him too! To Snout Spout’s horror, He-Man, Stratos and Buzz-Off have all been turned into Slime-Pit Zombies!! Spount Spout may not be as powerful as He-Man, but what Leech doesn’t realize is, his evil plan is about to fail! Snout Spout uses his powerful elephant spray to wash the evil slime off his heroic friends, releasing them of their slime zombie spells! And now Leech is now surrounded by the Heroic Warriors, ready to surrender!
Vintage Comparison
As you can see below, Mattel did a masterful job at recreating the vintage Leech for the Origins Line. If anything, they have improved upon a classic and out did their previous version. The vintage Leech is a more subdued darker green color, and of course is a 5 POA figure. The suction feature on the vintage figure required you to press a button on Leech’s back to activate the suction. It might be because this figure is nearly 40 years old, but the suction on the vintage Leech did not work nearly as well as the new Origins Leech, which does not require you to do anything but stick it to a smooth surface. The Origins Leech is also a brighter green and has brighter accents on him as well. With the modern articulation and alternate head and hands, this is the truly the quintessential Leech figure and I think, outdoes the vintage by far!
Rating
Toy Sorceress
Michael
The version of Leech is absolutely amazing, he is the perfect translation from the vintage figure with the modern articulation we all know and love from Origins! His suction action feature works fantastically and was so much fun to test out! His alternate head sculpt just absolutely makes this figure one of my favorite Origins figures thus far. The only criticism I have is that with the suction cup feet, he is a little bit difficult to stand, so it would have been great if they packed him in with some alternate feet as well. But this is Leech after all, and most likely you will display him stuck to something! But besides that, he is absolutely perfect, and for that reason I give Leech a 6.5 out of 7.0 stars! I absolutely love how Leech came out and I highly recommend you pick one or two up!
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