Granamyr Great Magic Wielding Dragon Masters of the Universe Classics Action Figure Item No.: No. T5811 Manufacturer: Mattel Includes: n/a Action Feature: n/a Retail: $80.00 Availability: December 2012 Other: The Big One
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Never-before-made as a toy, Granamyr is the result of a long-in-development process where Mattel announced their intent to make the dragon, let fans vote on if he'd be red like the cartoons or green like the mini-comics, and then... well, they had to make it. A hair under two feet tall, this figure is one of the biggest things Mattel made in 2012. Of course, they made a lot of big things in 2012, many of which had some assembly required. (I read there were some issues with assembly, which you may want to research prior to assembling yours. I just put mine together and had no problems.)

With reused Draego-Man wings, Mattel and the Four Horsemen carefully designed the figure with almost entirely new parts. The dragon was designed to either sit back on his tail, or could stand with the legs fully-extended. It does look a little gangly when standing upright, plus care must be taken to balance him properly. The figure feels massive, a mix of hollow and solid parts which must be fitted together. I had to use some boiling water to get the wings on, and the head felt like it took a ton of force to get it on the peg. Of course, now it all stays on just fine.

Articulation is almost moot, as the thing is less of a toy than a wonderfully articulated sculpture. He's amazing, but his size, girth, and design don't really make it a "toy." Sure, it's technically an action figure, but it isn't a plaything. He's jointed at the neck, wings, pecs, shoulders, hips, wrists, knees, and ankles for a decent 16-18 points of articulation. (It depends on how you count the knees.) With all that articulation, he's probably going to spend most of his time sitting on a shelf looking down on He-Man, because he's just that big. The arms have pretty great articulation, with bend-and-swivel wrists making up for the lack of ball-jointed shoulders. He's pretty great at gesturing.

His head has a purple, metallic viking--meets-Darth Vader-style helmet with horns coming out of the top. It's awesome. This covers his red head nicely, which has piercing yellow eyes, big fangs, and wrinkly skin just like on the cartoons. The scaly detail is really amazing, as it's obvious a lot of work went in to making sure his purple belly scales and his black, glossy claws all came out looking right. It's really kind of spectacular, and it's nice to see this as an $80 action figure instead of a $260 resin, non-articulated statue.

It took close to a week to sell through, but it's a pretty amazing figure. Sure, it's expensive, but for a direct-to-consumer line with a smallish but dedicated fanbase to get something this massive is pretty amazing unto itself. I won't say it's as fun as 4-5 normal MOTUC figures, but it's an impressive piece that towers over most of the other figures I've purchased this year while seated. While standing, he's awkward but massive.

Mattel seems to be cranking out large items that sort of act as the toy industry's equivalent of sending a man to the moon. Other collector lines will point to this and say "Well they can put out a 23-inch tall Granamyr but we still don't have a Star Destroyer playset?" With Castle Grayskull coming in 2013, it's unlikely that Granamyr will be the line's high point, but it was certainly one of the brightest moments in 2012. I highly doubt we'll have another year that's quite this good, or another action figure-sized dragon of this level of girth. This is the kind of toy you can only make in an adult collector's market, because the character was not known for action. He sits in a hole and talks. This would probably have made for a terrible children's toy in the 1980s, but it suits me just fine as an awesome collectible in 2013.

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