I later discovered Ninja Turtle versions, and set some friends to the task of hunting them down AND then found out about the He-Man versions too. My first He-man set was a desperate play for a 5 pack, because it had Scareglow in it. (review on the way sometime).
One day while bored and cruising the net, a dangerous occupation I know, I saw these Masters of the Universe sets on sale on Amazon and with a bit of careful planning, decided to take the plunge. Sigh.
This Cliff Climber set wasn't on special as such, BUT it was only 10 bucks and the Skeletor face glows in the dark. Perfect! Having no idea what the hell a Cliff Climber was, would the novelty of a Glow Skeletor face be enough to justify bored frivolity?
Read on....
Having no idea about the Cliff Climber, googling was required. It turns out it was a kind of accessory pack for He-man figures and the whole thing gives off a bit of a Centurions toy vibe. Very interesting. Oddly the artwork for the original toy feature a lot of Man-at-arms, but this set comes with Fisto. While not being a big fan of Fisto back in the day, I must admit, I've come to like the guy now. As many do, all thanks to He-Man Revelations:
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| "I'd sure like to fist him" - Fisto as he declares his intention to punch Skeletor. |
The packaging is a plastic Skeletor head with a small cardboard bottom. There is nothing contained within the cardboard though, so its just there to add some artwork and stabilize the head. Seeing a shelf load of these would be cool.
After you break him out, there is the instructions sheet and a bunch of baggies of pieces. I was impressed at the amount, I did not expect that many pieces. Interestingly they aren't arranged in sets. So the Climber kit is spread between a few bags etc.
You end up getting, the Cliff Climber gear, an Orb Pedestal thing, and a weapons rack with a few weapons. The weapons rack was a nice addition and simply adds a bit of easy value to the whole thing. It also tickles the nostalgia centre of the days when weapons packs were a thing.
But first let's check out the GLOW.
Nothing too exciting here, BUT if you look at the face from the back, due to the bend, it always looks like his face is following you. A nifty little optical illusion.
Here is a scan of the instructions, sadly it was a big bit of paper, and my scanner only goes up to A3 size, so... The bottom multi-language bit is gone.
First up, FISTO!
He comes unasssembled, but NOT as unassembled as the instructions say. So let's put that little fella together.
These pictures badly illustrate that his furry pantsu piece has a front and a back.
And there he is, with a bonus sword. Fisto doesn't come with his usual chest armour, though, he comes with a brick connection piece, which is used to mount the Cliff Climber on him. These minifigures are great and highly articulated.
Ok, what's next? Oh yeah, the floor and the weapons rack.
The floor was the back of Skeletor's head, it doesn't glow. The weapons and rack are assembled form various pieces.
Weapons included are a sword, a mace, a halberd and a drill thingo, which is part of the Cliff Climber. (and I think provided the engine for the gimmick). It's pretty cool that i had to build the weapons. Good fun, and very inventive.
Ok, so why does Fisto want the Cliff Climber? Why to get this thing on top of Skeletor's head of course!
What can I do? Oh! Maybe all these pieces here can help me out!!
As far as I have been able to ascertain, the blue thing is the Orb of Knowledge and is a piece that works for the Megablocks castle Greyskull. Lets go.
There are two hinge areas. One at the back by the neck area and one at the front for the windshield thing. Annoyingly the windshield will often pop off if you press on the windshield. It's due to the nature of the connection. But once you have it in a good spot, you can just use the back hinge n problem.
Ok, I've put his shoes on.
Let's climb! The hook nicely whips around the, well, anything and can loop and hook itself. Handy. If you really want to roleplay, you can even spin the things and wind up the string to draw Fisto up!
Somehow it doesn't quite work the same way as the images suggest...
So, Fisto climbs to the top
Gets his orb and climbs down again! Rather nicely you get extra orb pieces, so you can have one sitting in a bowl, or one that Fisto can hold.
I was surprised at how well Fisto can stand with the goofy boots on.
And that's about it really.
This set surprised me with its value. Normally, you'd fork over 5 bucks for the minifigure alone, but this set provides a minifigure, and a bunch f accessories for 10 bucks, not including shipping of course. So I feel it was a pretty good purchase. HOWEVER, a lot of that hinges on my carnal desire for glowing plastic. There are two other sets without glowing faces of Skeletor, and I think that those accessory packs are more exciting than the cliff climber. One's a sky sled (I think that's what it's called) and the other is some gun emplacement thing. Those other sets have different Skeletor heads though.
I feel happy with what I got, and to be completely honest, I was pretty surprised to see a reference to such an obscure and, realistically, kind of naff accessory. I can't imagine the Cliff Climber being high on kiddies Christmas lists back in the 80s, so even though I'm not the biggest He-man fan, it pleases me to see this kind of niche reference.
The verdict
I wouldn't recommend this set by itself, but if you happen to have other figures then I would. If you happen to like cool glowing Skeleton heads, I would also recommend it. I suspect Skeletor here will be front and centre of my Glow shelf. When my lazy arse gets about to setting it up.
Build wise, I can't really comment with much authority not being much of a block building lego guy, but it was easy enough and surprised me with a lot of inserting pipes into holes. No fists were inserted into holes though, make of that what you will.
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