MOTU Origins Mekaneck & Road Ripper Quietly Revealed at SDCC 2022

As everyone focused on the Snake Men and New Masterverse figures, MOTU Origins Mekaneck & Road Ripper were quietly revealed at SDCC 2022

UPDATE 08/26/2022: Amazon Link & Release Date Found

The Ground Ripper Mekaneck 2 pack was quietly unveiled at SDCC by being placed in the grand MOTU Origins Eternia Display. Today we found the AMAZON LINK for this new 2 pack! It is listed as the “Masters of the Universe Origins Ground Ripper & Mekaneck Action Figure” on Amazon’s website. It does not have any images and currently shows out of stock, but this is common place for Amazon as a place holder until they officially release the pre-order. It shows the release date as October 1, 2022. Be sure to check back often as the actual preorder can go live at any time! But this is an absolute confirmation that this set is really coming to Origins!

Back in March, our friends at @canaldosrosmineiros revealed that a Mekaneck Road Ripper 2 pack vehicle set was coming to Origins in 2023! This was very exciting news since fans have been clamoring for an Origins Mekaneck for a very long time now! Well, now that teased leak has been unofficially confirmed so to speak, because Mekaneck and the Road Ripper were silently spotted in the huge Eternia Playset display at the Mattel booth at San Diego Comic Con!

As you will see, Mekaneck made a quite debut sitting in the back corner of the ginormous Eternia Display at the Mattel Booth at SDCC. And as everyone focused on the Rise of the Snake Men and Masterverse Core 2023 Figures revealed during the Mattel MOTU Panel this weekend, Mekaneck sat quietly on his Road Ripper, going mostly unnoticed. But we noticed him and so did a few of our fellow Toy Collectors! Since we did not get to attend Comic Con this year, we rely on our fellow collectors to get some amazing photos coming out of the Con! As such, we want to thank Geek Dad Life for shooting some amazing footage of Mekaneck on the Road Ripper! We also want to thank action_figure_king and motulatv on Instagram for the additional photos as well!

As you can see from the various close up images below, 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, is a neck extension piece, rather than the vintage style neck coming out of the torso, in order to retain his parts swapping ability like that the rest of the Origins characters.

Pixel Dan also did a follow up interview with Mattel’s MOTU Brand Manager Josh Graham, and he officially but casually confirmed that Mekaneck and the Road Ripper or Ground Ripper as he called it are indeed coming to MOTU Origins as a 2-pack retail release. He confirmed that he will come with two different types of necks to pose him in order maintain his modularity. So, our suspensions were correct! You can watch that interview here: Mattel MOTU 40th Anniversary Product Interview at SDCC 2022

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! Speaking of the only thing we did not get to see is it this retains its action feature of the zip cord used to power this green speed demon!

Our previous coverage:

We previously teased that the Mekaneck & Road Ripper were coming to MOTU Origins in 2023! The Road Ripper, a has been a fan favorite and one of my absolute favorites as well! Below is a screen shot of the image they shared during the canaldosrosmineiros live stream! This is of the vintage Road Ripper and Mekaneck of course, but they were illustrating that they are coming in 2023!

Thank you again to our friends at @canaldosrosmineiro for sharing this exciting news and they were absolutely correct! Let’s take a deep dive into Mekaneck and the Road Ripper, shall we? Again, we are using Vintage images and artwork to illustrate our point as no official images have been released.

Road Ripper & Mekaneck History:

Let’s take a look at where these two fan favorites originated and the interesting history behind their design.

Road Ripper

Released in 1984, the Road Ripper was a 3 wheeled motorcycle with a bright green dragon themed design that carried one character who would strap in with a seat belt. It came with a red rip cord, when inserted into the rear and pulled out quickly would send the Road Ripper speeding across the floor!

According to the Wiki Grayskull:

The Road Ripper was a vehicle released in 1984. It was a vehicle belonging to the heroes and was meant to transport a warrior quickly. The road ripper had no offensive weapons. Although the toy sold well and was repackaged with He-Man, it was never featured much in the various media. It makes a brief appearance in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode “The Energy Beast,” where Orko is snooping around in Man-At-Arms‘ lab and finds its prototype and then proceeds to try it out, only to crash it in King Randor‘s throne room. The vehicle pops up again in the episode “The Time Wheel,” where Prince Adam/He-Man and Orko use it as their transport to and from the desert. It is never referred to by name in either episode.

Road Ripper | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom

Road Ripper artwork

The Road Ripper was featured in various art posters and advertising images for Mattel. Most famously was the artwork packing by John George. There were many concept sketches done as well, like the ones seen below.

Mekaneck

Mekaneck was released by Mattel in 1984. Member of the Heroic Warriors, Mekaneck had the power of long-range viewing. He was nicknamed the Heroic Spy and had a working title of Spy Man. Mekaneck had a periscopic neck that would pop up from his torso when twisting his waist. His body was a reuse of the He-Man buck, including blue arms, blue torso and blue legs with silver boots. But his torso had to be modified to allow his periscopic neck to fit inside. He had a unique body armor that was then used for Stinkor, and a yellow battle club.

According to the Wiki Grayskull:

Mekaneck was originally tagged by Mattel as the ‘Heroic human periscope’. He is a member of the Heroic Warriors, with the ability to stretch his bionic neck to great heights and see over great distances with his special visors. He is therefore one of the main spies for the Heroic Warriors.

Mekaneck was introduced into the Masters of the Universe toy line in 1984. The action feature of his figure was to stretch its neck when its waist was twisted. His working name was Spy Man, and appears in the Filmation series bible under this name.

Mekaneck | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom

Road Ripper and Mekaneck Vehicle Set

Set to come to MOTU Origins in 2023, the Road Ripper / Mekaneck vehicle set harkens back to the Vintage figure / vehicle sets! The Road Ripper was packed with Battle Armor He-Man back in the 1980’s but often, Mekaneck was pictured in the Road Ripper too, as seen below. There have been multiple versions of Battle Armor He-Man released, so packaging a brand-new figure like Mekaneck with the Road Ripper is a brilliant way to sell more product!

The Road Ripper was a favorite of Mattel’s to photograph in promotional catalogues like the image seen below.

Pictured below we can see what a MOTU Origins Mekaneck and the Road Ripper may look like together in using a Vintage set as a stand in. I think with the bright green color of the Road Ripper and the bright blue, red,and yellow colors on Mekaneck; the set will look fantastic!

Be sure to check out our NEW MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE SHOP PAGES! You can find links to your favorite retailers for all your favorite MOTU figures all in one convenient place from the vintage line all the way up to Origins.