I never had Scareglow as a child. By that, I don’t mean I never had a child version of Scareglow (though that would have been cool—like a Baby Alive, except not). No, I mean that when I was a kid, I never had the figure. In fact, I didn’t get him until I started completing my collection in my adult years. Because of this, I have no strong emotional tie to the character. He never figured into my epic story. He wasn’t there when Skeletor’s planet-wide earthquake leveled Castle Grayskull. Nor was he there when Teela finally married He-Man, only to discover he was actually a new Faker model. And sadly, he missed the death of Orko. He would have liked that; I know I did.
So, getting the new Masters of the Universe Classics Scareglow figure was kind of a thrill. I’d never opened a Scareglow figure before. The majority of my reviews of this line have been raves, and this one is no exception. This is simply a very cool figure. With his dramatic cape and Scythe of Doom, he actually looks quite regal. Though he’s still menacing enough that you believe his main power is scaring people. His bio takes pains to clear up the decades-long confusion about whether he’s a ghost of Skeletor or a ghost who works for Skeletor. In this case, it’s the latter. Of course, Mattel has given him a crazy “real name.” He’s Karak Nul, which annoys me, because I was going to name my first child Karak Nul, and now I can’t, because people will say, “Oh, you named her after Scareglow.” Anyway, his bio is significant, because it gives us our first insight into Eternia‘s afterlife procedures: “In death, he was cursed and banished into the dimension of Infinita…” Cursed and banished by whom? And are we saying that Infinita is in fact some kind of hell dimension? Is that where Orko is from? This raises more questions than it answers. But as with all the bios that accompany the Classics line, you can take it or leave it.
In terms of articulation, Scareglow follows the Classics model we’ve seen before. The noticeable difference this time is just how well the joints are camouflaged by the character’s paint application. He’s a skeleton—a rather beefy one—but still a skeleton. His joints are already visible, so the paint job simply incorporates the figure’s joints into his paint scheme. This is especially apparent in the torso joint and the knee joints. It’s a clever effect and lends a “seemless” look to his overall design. Scareglow comes with his day-glo green scythe and his Grayskull reliquary, which conceals a key. What kind of key? A skeleton key, of course. Is it a key to Grayskull? Or just to his employee locker in the Snake Mountain break room? My favorite accessory, though, is his cape. Though molded plastic, the paint job fades to near-transparency near the bottom, giving it a spectral appearance. The tatters along the edge and the scratches in the paint are very nice, and effective, touches. I think they could have gone further with this. I know these aren’t supposed to be totally new reimaginings of the characters, but I think a more Dementor-esque cloak could have been cool.
Finally, Scareglow wouldn’t be Scareglow unless he glowed. I was curious to see if glow-in-the-dark technology had improved at all over the years. I charged him up next to a light bulb for a while, then turned off the lights, determined to record just how long he could glimmer, glimmer. After about a minute, though, I got scared and had to turn the lights back on. You win this round, Scareglow…
On the FBOTU Scale of Fabulousness, I give Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics Scareglow 4 out of 5 frightened emoticons: 
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I never had Scareglow as a child. By that, I don’t mean I never had a child version of Scareglow (though that would have been cool—like a Baby Alive, except not). No, I mean that when I was a kid, I never had the figure. In fact, I didn’t get him until I started completing my collection in my adult years. Because of this, I have no strong emotional tie to the character. He never figured into my epic story. He wasn’t there when Skeletor’s planet-wide earthquake leveled Castle Grayskull. Nor was he there when Teela finally married He-Man, only to discover he was actually a new Faker model. And sadly, he missed the death of Orko. He would have liked that; I know I did.
So, getting the new Masters of the Universe Classics Scareglow figure was kind of a thrill. I’d never opened a Scareglow figure before. The majority of my reviews of this line have been raves, and this one is no exception. This is simply a very cool figure. With his dramatic cape and Scythe of Doom, he actually looks quite regal. Though he’s still menacing enough that you believe his main power is scaring people. His bio takes pains to clear up the decades-long confusion about whether he’s a ghost of Skeletor or a ghost who works for Skeletor. In this case, it’s the latter. Of course, Mattel has given him a crazy “real name.” He’s Karak Nul, which annoys me, because I was going to name my first child Karak Nul, and now I can’t, because people will say, “Oh, you named her after Scareglow.” Anyway, his bio is significant, because it gives us our first insight into Eternia‘s afterlife procedures: “In death, he was cursed and banished into the dimension of Infinita…” Cursed and banished by whom? And are we saying that Infinita is in fact some kind of hell dimension? Is that where Orko is from? This raises more questions than it answers. But as with all the bios that accompany the Classics line, you can take it or leave it.
In terms of articulation, Scareglow follows the Classics model we’ve seen before. The noticeable difference this time is just how well the joints are camouflaged by the character’s paint application. He’s a skeleton—a rather beefy one—but still a skeleton. His joints are already visible, so the paint job simply incorporates the figure’s joints into his paint scheme. This is especially apparent in the torso joint and the knee joints. It’s a clever effect and lends a “seemless” look to his overall design. Scareglow comes with his day-glo green scythe and his Grayskull reliquary, which conceals a key. What kind of key? A skeleton key, of course. Is it a key to Grayskull? Or just to his employee locker in the Snake Mountain break room? My favorite accessory, though, is his cape. Though molded plastic, the paint job fades to near-transparency near the bottom, giving it a spectral appearance. The tatters along the edge and the scratches in the paint are very nice, and effective, touches. I think they could have gone further with this. I know these aren’t supposed to be totally new reimaginings of the characters, but I think a more Dementor-esque cloak could have been cool.
Finally, Scareglow wouldn’t be Scareglow unless he glowed. I was curious to see if glow-in-the-dark technology had improved at all over the years. I charged him up next to a light bulb for a while, then turned off the lights, determined to record just how long he could glimmer, glimmer. After about a minute, though, I got scared and had to turn the lights back on. You win this round, Scareglow…
On the FBOTU Scale of Fabulousness, I give Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics Scareglow 4 out of 5 frightened emoticons:
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