MOTU Origins Rise of the Snake Men Wave 11 In Hand Review

The Snake Men are in the house and we’ve got them! Get set to slither into this MOTU Origins Rise of the Snake Men Wave 11 In Hand Review!

The Snake Men have finally landed in the Masters of the Universe Origins line, and we have them for an in-hand review! This new wave includes some vintage fan favorites and some new characters as well. We get Rattlor, Kobra Khan, Snake Armor He-Man and the newest member to the MOTU line, Bolt Man! Mattel has really cranked up the quality, detail and design of these new figures! We get some all-new sculpting and beautiful new details we have never seen before in the Origins line, along with some creative ways to bring us the fun action features we all loved as kid! To answer 2 questions right off the bat, no Kobra Khan does not squirt water and Rattlor’s neck does not pop up…. but Rattlor does come with a neck extension and he actually freakin’ rattles!!! I could play with that all day long!!

MOTU Origins Snake Men were revealed at SDCC 2022! In a grand reveal during the Mattel Panel at the 2022 San Diego Comic Con, the Snake Men made a huge splash! As we previously covered in our two articles Snake Men coming to MOTU Origins in 2023 and More Snake Men coming to Origins in 2023, thanks to our friends at @canaldosrosmineiros predicted that several Snake Men would be joining the MOTU Origins line in 2023! Also, as we covered in our MOTU Origins January 2023 Leaked Figures article, but now we are bringing you an in-depth review of the figures IN HAND! So, let’s slither right into it!

Rise of the Snake Men 2023

As Mattel exclaimed at their debut of the Snake Men during this year’s SDCC, 2023 will be the Rise of the Snake Men featuring brand new figures and brand-new packaging. The Rise of the Snake Men harkens back to the 200x Snake Armor theme with the snake hunters with the serpent claws! They made a point to let us know that this is Wave 1 of multiple Snake Men Waves!!! As we know from the original vintage Snake Men, the Origins versions come with new tooling, so it was exciting for the design team at Mattel to work on these.

Packaging Design

The Rise of the Snake Men packaging features the Snake Men graphic looming over the Masters of the Universe logo. The blister features snake pattern detail and texturing, and the faction logo, which is an updated version of the vintage Snake Men logo. As you can see, Mattel has really stepped it up on the card back packaging by not only adding the Snake Men faction’s sticker to the front of the blister bubble, but they have added spectacular Snake Men art to the top of the card back!

Rattlor

I am purposely starting out with Rattlor as he is undoubtedly my personal fav of the wave! Being a completely amazing homage to the vintage figure, Mattel really hit a grand slam with this figure. Rattlor has all new sculpting and a really fun action feature that he actually rattles! Although Mattel choose to go with a neck extension, rather than the vintage signature pop up feature, this Origins of Rattlor is incredible! With all the incredible snake scales sculpted on his body, Mattel left no body part of uncovered, he is truly a Snake Man unmong Snake Men!

Unveiled on March 19, 2022 during their live stream, CANAL DOS ROSMINEIROS, revealed the first of Snake Men coming to Origins in 2023 were none other than Rattlor and Tung Lashor, but he was ultimately released with Kobra Khan as we now know. Now Kobra Khan has a buddy to pal around with to conduct his Snake Men hijinks. A completely new sculpt, Rattlor’s body is a little smaller than the standard MOTU figure to accommodate his cool extending neck action feature. He features a similar tail, like Whiplash, but this tail is a soft rubbery plastic that is attached at his mid back versus his shoulders. I wish they had made Whiplash’s tail the same way. Rattlor’s tail is easier to whip around since the plastic is softer as opposed to the rigid plastic, they choose to make Whiplash’s tail out of. The snake markings on Rattlor’s arms and legs add some depth and dimension to this mostly maroon, red snake and he’s got a gaggle of yellow abs in classic MOTU fashion. The vintage version of Rattlor’s neck would pop up when you clicked his tail, which was a really fun feature. But this Origins version, in order to keep the parts swapability and all of the removable parts, they added a neck extension piece which is FULLY ARTICULATED!!! The funnest part of Rattlor is that is actually Rattles just like the vintage figure and it is so fun to shake him and make that rattling sound!

Up Close and Personal with Rattlor

Here we can see Rattlor’s head, which has spectacular detail and looks just like the vintage with some slight updates in true Origins style! He has some great snake scale details on both the front of his face and the back of his head. He also has a red snake tongue sculpted in his mouth with pink mouth accents. With those piercing yellow eyes and white fangs, he is still a fan favorite!

Rattlor’s torso has some incredible detail, true to the vintage figure, keeping that same proportions that made Rattlor unique. His brightly painted pale yellow chest has a tone of snake like details in it! He has a tan / orangish colored belt that has a cool green Snake Men logo painted on it!

On his back side, you can see that cool soft plastic tail he comes with. That is packaged detached in the blister bubble, and you need to snap it onto Rattlor’s body. It has some amazing scalely detail on it and a color fade from the burgundy red color to yellow at the end of his tail. The tail is made of a soft rubbery plastic that can easily be whipped around, so it adds to the fun of Rattlor! I only wish Mattel had chosen this method for Whiplash as it would have been much better that the ridged tail that does not whip that he came with.

A whole new arm sculpt, Rattlor’s arms have a ton of amazing snake scale detail on them as well! They are then further accented with yellow and blue strips down his arm, just like the vintage figure. Rattlor’s hands are also a new sculpt with scaley snake detail on them as well!

Here for Rattlor’s legs, we also have a whole new leg sculpt. Rattlor’s legs have a ton of amazing snake scale detail on them as well! They are also accented with yellow and blue strips down his legs, just like the vintage figure. Rattlor’s feet are also a new sculpt with scaley snake detail on them as well!

Rattlor comes with his classic Snake Men staff in a matching burgundy color. He also includes a pale-yellow neck extension piece that can be used to simulate that cool neck pop up feature of the vintage figure. By including the extension piece, Mattel was able to maintain Rattlor’s part swapability.

Kobra Khan

Kobra Khan, another long-awaited member of the Snake Men how now joined the MOTU Origins line! Kobra Khan is another wonderful tribute to the vintage figure, looking ultra-classic. Just like on Rattlor, Mattel choose to forgo his vintage water squirting action feature in order to maintain his parts swapability. He also comes with his vintage style orange blaster and a translucent green squirt effect.

Up Close and Personal with Kobra Khan

Kobra Khan has that same large open mouth as the vintage figure did, but this time instead of squirting water thru the hole in his mouth, you can plug in the green translucent squirting effect piece instead. He also has the same face design with those white snake-like eyes, and scaly green head.

Here we get a better look at the side of his head, and Mattel did a wonderful job and recreating the look of the vintage Kobra Khan figure.

Here we can see Kobra Khan’s chest looking just like the vintage figure. Same scaley chest and back design with the brown stiped accents.

He also has the same vintage style green belt and brown scaly shorts.

Kobra Khan uses what look to be the standard MOTU Origins creature arms, but if you will notice the forearms are newly retooled to add some additional creature details sculpted into them.

Kobra Khan uses the standard MOTU Origins green creature legs and creature boots in brown.

Here we can see the classic red blaster that matches the vintage one. Kobra Khan also comes packed with a translucent green squirting effect piece as well that plugs into the hole in his mouth.

Snake Armor He-Man

Snake Armor He-Man is a fairly new character in the world of MOTU as he was not part of the original vintage line. This version of He-Man comes with all of the weapons and accessories that the 200x version of Snake Armor He-Man. The details in He-Man’s snake armor are incredible! There are all sorts of hidden items in his arm and the intertwined snake men logo as well! He comes with the same head and sword as the 200X He-Man figure, but the similarities end there. As he has incredibly detailed chest, shoulder, arm armor along with an all-new loin cloth design!

Up Close and Personal with Snake Armor He-Man

Snake Armor He-Man’s head sculpt is the same head that came with the Wave 9 200X He-Man but with a slightly different hair color.

He Man’s chest armor has incredible detail in it! It has the 200X crest in the front and is made of that silvery plastic that the MOTU Origins figures sometimes have. His chest armor wraps around his right shoulder with some rivet details that add to the interesting design.

His shoulder arm is also incredibly detailed with some nice texture and a hidden easter egg Snake Men logo on it. The silver armor design then wraps down his arm with some lines accenting the design all the way down his right arm.

Mattel did an incredible job at really making this look like knight’s armor the way they incorporated the different pieces in his chest and arm design.

The armor design then wraps down his arm, and he has an additional piece of wrist armor strapped to his wrist. That piece of armor has a jewed gold oval accent sculpted on it as well. And there is a slot for his yellow pincher accessory to plug into the front.

Snake Armor He-Man’s loin cloth design is also all new with silver and pine green accents. His belt has a Snake Men logo at the center of it and connects to a brown leather like piece that hangs in the front. He then has silver armor pieces that hang at his hips and his back side.

Continuing that Knight’s armor design, Snake Armor He-Man’s arm design continues down his right leg, followed by silver ankle bracers. Those too have some incredible details as well.

He is wearing pine green colored boots that match the colors of his loin cloth straps.

As you can see, Snake Armor He-Man has a really cool ankle guard design. There is a snake head sculpted into the top portion with additional snake like details down the rest of it.

Snake Armor He-Man comes with the same sword of the 200X He-Man from Wave 9. He also includes a new snake pincher accessory that clips into the front of his wrist gauntlet.

Bolt Man

The newest faction, the Rulers of the Sun, is joins the fight against the Snake Men helping He-Man and friends! Yes it’s Bolt Man, Bolt Man has the power to heal and recreate the life force of molecules. He can regenerate and restore that which has lost its energy force and people only need to touch this band to do so. He was part of the original Rulers of the Sun line from Olmec toys. As with the rest of those characters, they all shared the same arms, wrist, torso, legs and boot design. But would use different head sculpts, color pallets and unique armor to make the different characters. This enabled the small toy company Olmec Toys to be able to afford to product these figures back in the 1980’s. Well Mattel kept that design aesthetic going with all of the Rulers of the Sun figures and Bolt Man is no ecception.

Up Close and Personal with Bolt Man

Bolt Man’s face sculpt is an all new design to te world of MOTU as he comes from the Rulers of the Sun universe. He has a nice smile on his face, and dark piecing eyes and some nice detail to his lips and eyebrowns.

He has black colored hair and is wearing a light blue bandana around his head.

Bolt Man has unique and newly sculpted chest armor. It is also a light blue colored plastic with a large lightning bolt on the front with lines as accents. The back side has two holsters for Bolt Man to hold his lightning bolt accessories.

Bolt Man shares the same arm design as Sun-Man and Digitino, but this time with a light blue color to his arm bracers and orange accents.

Bolt Man shares the same waist and leg design as Sun-Man and Digitino, but this time with a light blue color short, black belt and an orange diamond design on it. His boots are also the same light blue color with orange tips.