Toy review: Dragstor

Toy review

Dragstor was one of my earlier figures if I remember correctly. And weirdly the attached mini comic ruined him for me. Not the whole comic, but one image in it haunted me for a while. Almost 40 years later I had to look it up again. There are actually some videos about the mini comic on YouTube.

It shows the making of, what means Hordak turned a ‘weak little sop’ into ‘The warrior machine’. That’s the mini comic’s title, and though Dragstor turned out to be a war machine, for me he was the poor guy, the victim, the poor little sop. And there is this image of his face in horror while he’s magically transforming. That ruined it for me. A super villain can’t be a regular guy that transformed within a moment. Or can it? Not back then though.

The figure itself was well made I find. It was different than the standard figure, in dark blue and quiet heavy. The ripcord mechanism to start the engine was working well, while the paint was durable. So quality wise I had no concerns.

The body though, especially the arms, appeared a bit weak to the young me. And the unavoidable crossbow for horde members was a bit boring.

My uv light photo shows him in a different way. He’s mid blue, reminding me on the New Adventures Nocturna. The grey metal, the red bat on his chest, boots and parts of his outfit, as well as the orange gloves disappeared in the uv light.

Nowadays, especially after writing ‘Titfortat 11: Dragstor vs. Mekaneck: Machine neck’ I finally see his potential. A loud, powerful engine, vibrating, smoking, with unbearable power, torque, speed and noise. That’s a scary war machine, not a sop!

Dragstor in uv light

Titfortat 11: Dragstor vs Mekaneck – Machine neck!

Titfortat

Dragstor, Hordaks spy vehicle, front line breaker, henchman for special tasks, 29 points in the table of skills, is super fast. When that poor guy got into Hordaks hands, he was turned into a machine, a living super power engine. It took him years to manage living with all the power he got, and he was never keen to make it through those years. Noise, heat, fumes, the pain, and Hordaks never ending tasks are torture. Only Hordaks evil magic keeps him under control, otherwise he would drive right into the deepest ocean and never come back.

No surprise that Mekaneck is his natural enemy. The look out, Eternias eyes on the ground caused too many problems already. And it’s personal as well. How on earth could a reasonable human decide to modify his body, to turn himself into a machine? The remaining human in Dragstor hates Mekaneck for knowingly using technology in his healthy body. How can the long necked spy with 28 points, and only 6 points for speed, handle a ring fight with a powerful enemy? He’s not a fighter, but he knows his weapons, and is one of the smarter guys around.

Dragstor is already blowing steam and fire, so let’s do this.

The member of the evil horde is in rage, vibrating, loud, dirty, spitting black oil. He’s running towards Mekaneck, not wasting a moment to judge the situation. Mekaneck is almost to late, but still manages to make that important step to the side to get out of Dragstors way. He turns around, and runs again. Mekaneck can only jump to the side. With a loud knock the humanoid falls onto his chest, turning himself into that feared one-wheeler. He starts to drive in big circles around in the ring, with the hero in the center of the black cloud of fumes and anger. Is he trying to impress his opponent, or is he blowing off steam, because he could get a grip on him?
Then the long neck comes into action. First you would think Mekaneck is reaching for air, or for a better view on the situation. But that’s not it. He looks down, and then falls. Like a giraffe, or a tree, the huge spy goes to the floor without any obvious reason. The neck falls right into Dragstors lane, and from one second to another, he takes off like a rocket, crushing into the invisible wall of that titfortat ring, where so many fights already took place. Turns out Mekaneck is well aware how much his neck can take. The smart guy turned his neck into a weapon. The raging motor monster is destroyed by his shear anger and speed.

Crossover: Family horde

Crossovers

I totally understand that some people don’t like watching Family Guy. They go far to far sometimes, no, often. I love it. I do not like my crossover. Not because it is especially bad, or boring, no because it happened to be quite scary. Mostly Chris, who is now Creech, and even that name sounds intimidating, His leechy teeth look awesome, and he’s got green suction cups. Peter is Horde Pooper, the red bat goes well with his white shirt. He looks funny with no neck.

Megstor, Dragstor as Meg works well too. Both are kind of permanent victims of evil people.

Mosquitor and Stewie, that makes Mosqwie. His face impression is a bit weird. Maybe he’s insecure with the snozzle for his nozzle.

But his Teddy, Rupert, is the cutest Grizzlor ever. Lets call him Ruzzlor. He could easily tear them all apart, but he decided to enjoy the family life.

And last but not least Herbert with four legs and eyes apart, that’s Manbert the Hypno!

I made this drawing some years ago, and looking at it now I wished I had made it a bit more MOTU, and less Family Guy. What do you think?