MOTU Origins Mekaneck & Ground Ripper 2 Pack In Hand Review.

Quietly at revealed at SDCC 2022, and now we have the MOTU Origins Mekaneck & Ground Ripper 2 Pack for an in hand review!

Mekaneck and the Ground Ripper were silently spotted in the huge Eternia Playset display at the Mattel booth at San Diego Comic Con! And now just a couple months later, we actually have them in hand for a MOTU Origins Mekaneck & Ground Ripper 2 Pack in hand review! Back in March, our friends at @canaldosrosmineiros revealed that a Mekaneck Road Ripper 2 pack vehicle set was coming to Origins in 2023 and they were absolutely right! Yes, the Heroic Human Periscope and Warrior Carrier are everything we could have wanted, well almost everything. Of course, in typical Origins fashion, both vintage Mekaneck’s pop up action feature and the vintage Road Ripper’s ripcord action feature have been deleted from these new Origins versions. But in any case, this is still an amazing 2 pack, so let’s dive into the review!

The Ground Ripper looks fantastic as a perfect tribute to the vintage serpentine looking vehicle! Again, Mattel has been true to the vintage vehicle’s history in recreating the green speed machine! With the Dragon inspired head, grey front wheel and large back wheel, plus all those great stickers!

Something that most people might not realize is that Mekaneck’s club also doubles for a telescope! You will notice that there is a hole in the wide end of his club, and that’s really because it is Mekaneck’s telescope. And with the added MOTU Origins articulation, you can pose him scoping out the evil warriors in the distance!

Box and Art

The box features an homage to the vintage design with Mekaneck (instead of He-Man) tearing away from Castle Grayskull! This set comes with the Ground Ripper (back in the day it was called the Road Ripper) with an alternate head for the vehicle and Mekaneck with a neck extension piece and his famous yellow mace. This version of Mekaneck does not have his twisting, telescoping action feature so think of this figure as an homage to the MOTU Classics design where they gave him two neck pieces.

On the back of the package, we get the typical cross sell, but this time it full of Snake Men and Bolt Man! You also get illustrated instructions on how to switch out the neck piece on Mekaneck and the front “mantel” for the alternate head piece on the Ground Ripper. The funnest part of this illustration is the wooshing Ground Ripper as it gets pushed with “Real Racing Action”.

The rear artwork features the Ground Ripper parked next to Mekaneck peering over a craggy mountain cliff looking on to Tung Lashor and King Hiss standing on the cliff across the way. If you look carefully between the two cliffs in the distance, you will see Eternia in all it’s glory!

Pack Out

Mekaneck comes packed with his trusty speed demon vehicle Ground Ripper, alternate mantel head for the Ground Ripper, club/telescope and a neck extension piece. Below you can see the complete pack out.

Road Test!

We took Meckaneck out for road test to test out his “Real Racing Action”. Mattel went to the added detail to retain the original “seat belt” to strap Mekaneck in, because of course SAFETY FIRST! We wouldn’t want Mekaneck to go flying off as he zips across your living room floor! Unfortunately, it does not retain its action feature of the zip cord used to power this green speed demon, but boy did he fly across my living room floor! After an actual road test, the Ground Ripper really has “racing action”! It zipped across my hardwood floors with a lot of speed and zip! Watch “Maverick” take this puppy out for a test drive below!

Mekaneck

Mattel has been true to form when it comes to the design for Mekaneck! He is sporting his vintage inspired look with his classic red Mekaneck armor, blue outfit and large yellow club! As mentioned during the Mattel SDCC reveal panel for the Rise of the Snake Men, just like on Rattlor, we suspected that the action featuring extending neck on Mekaneck, and indeed it is a neck extension piece, rather than the vintage style neck that pops out of the torso, in order to retain his parts swapping ability like that the rest of the Origins characters. With Mekaneck’s extension piece on, he looks great, and we are sure the Ground Ripper will be a tactical advantage for him! The neck piece is cast in a matte gray plastic and the mechanical and circuit detail on it.

Up Close and Personal with Mekaneck

Head:

Mekaneck’s head is a perfect interpretation of the vintage figure! With those shinny vac metal triangular googles, red helmet and smirk on his face, this MOTU Origins version of Mekaneck looks great! As you can see the silver paint app for his google design wraps around the rear of his head.

Extending Neck:

Unlike the vintage Mekaneck figure where you twisted his waist and his neck would pop up, this version of Mekaneck has a neck extension piece. This is similar the neck extension piece that also comes with Rattlor. It works well and is articulated; it also allows his head to remain articulated as well. But the vintage pop-up neck was sure fun, so a bit of a bummer that he doesnt retain his action feature.

Chest & Back

A simple re-used of Stinkor’s battle armor, Mekaneck uses the same armor but in a soft red plastic. There are some silver paint apps on the front, framing the bottom rectangular half and also at the round sculpted piece near the neck area.

The rear of the armor is again the same design as Stinkor’s with a criss cross design molded into it.

Arms, Waist & Legs

Arms:

Mekaneck’s arms are a simple reuse of the standard MOTU Origins buck like that of He-Man with the arm bracers. His arms are a blue plastic color with flesh colored hands. He comes with one right gripping hand and one left open plam hand.

Waist:

Mekaneck’s waist is also a simple reuse of the standard MOTU Origins buck like that of He-Man’s waist. He is wearing a blue belt with a black loin cloth..

Legs:

Here again, Mekaneck’s legs are also a reuse of the standard MOTU Origins buck in a blue plastic color. He is wearing blue pants with silver boots. Now his boots are not painted silver, but rather made of that marblely looking silver plastic.

Ground Ripper

The Road Ripper too looks fantastic as a perfect tribute to the vintage serpentine looking vehicle! Again, Mattel has been true to the vintage vehicle’s history in recreating the green speed machine! With the Dragon inspired head, grey front wheel and large back wheel, plus all those great stickers! They even included the “seat belt” to strap Mekaneck in, because of course SAFETY FIRST! We wouldn’t want Mekaneck to go flying off as he zips across your living room floor! It is a bummer that this Origins version does not retain its action feature of the zip cord used to power this green speed demon, but it is still a blast to play with!

The ground Ripper includes an alternate “mantel” as Mattle calls it, but I call it a head, LOL for the front of the vehicle. Similar to the two “head” pieces that came with the Sky Sled, the Ground Ripper includes another sleek looking designed mantel piece to change out the look of the vehicle. Where the vintage mantel looks like a dragon’s head, this alternate head resembles a cat.

You can easily swap out the front manel pieces by simply pulling it off, or you can call Mekaneck to come do the job!

Up Close and Personal with the Ground Ripper

Front End:

The Ground Ripper comes packed with 2 alternate “Mantels” or “Heads” to the front end similar to that of how the Sky Sled worked. You simply pull it off to switch them.

The first “head” is just like the vintage Road Ripper, complete with the dragon like sculpt and red and yellow eyes.

The alternate “head” is mor lion or cat like looking. The “head” has a lot less detail in the sculpt but the back panel has a bit more variation in the design.

Here you can see the back side where the control panel for the Ground Ripper is. The vintage style head has a sticker that matches the vintage. While the alternate head has an all new 2 part design. Both have computer like screens, buttons, and dials.

You can also see the single grey wheel in the front with those ribs in the side walls of the wheel for a perfect homage to the vintage Road Ripper.

This is a straight on view of the control panel for the front end and you can see the whole computer console and the difference between the two.

Back End:

The back end of the Ground Ripper is a perfect homage to the vintage Road Ripper. The sculpted details are amazing, and the stickers all very nicely applied. The back wheels are large and made of a hard plastic. But boy do they roll well!

Here you can additional views of the back end. One thing you will notice is that this Origins version of the Ground Ripper does not have that little hole in the back where the vintage one did to insert that rip cord. This modern version does not include that action feature, but it run very well with manual push power!

The details here are amazing, and again, beautifully applied stickers! The great thing is Mattel ships these with the stickers already applied!

Seat Belt:

Here is a view of the seat belt. Of course Mekaneck needs a seat belt when he goes racing accross your living room floor, because of course, SAFETY FIRST! LOL!

This one works just like the vintage one! Made of a nice soft pliable plastic and loops around and hooks onto a peg on the other side.

The vintage Road Ripper was notorious for the peg and the seat belt breaking off. Hopefully this new one is constructed much better.

Photography fun

This new Mekaneck Ground Ripper 2 pack was so much fun and take cool photos! Shoving that Ground Ripper across the floor was so fun too! If any of you follow our Toy Habits Instagram page and The Toy Sorceress Instagram page, you will see the Toy Sorceress loves Toy Photography, so here are some photographs for your enjoyment and inspiration!

Where to Buy

BBTS

Walmart

Amazon