Thursday 18 December 2014

The 6 Pack


Now that Mutant Mania is finally out in Canada, I decided to do what I always do: Take what already exists and make my own teams.  I picked up six of the blind-box style pop cans to make a team called... wait for it... The 6 Pack!  I know!  I'm so clever!  Anyway, keep reading to see who made the team, and if I got any doubles that screwed up my plans.


THE 6 PACK

I don't know why Mutant Mania figures don't already come in a 6-pack like this.  Seems like it should have been obvious, what with the cans and all.  Maybe I really am clever!

THRILLER GORILLA

I'm going to say right of the bat that I bought this can before I came up with my 6-pack idea.  This was actually what inspired the whole thing.  I was like, "Aw!  I should have bought six at once made them a team!".  I figured I could just go and buy another five (like a normal person would do... more or less), but I wanted to do the 6 Pack properly and get all six at once.  Well, I ended up getting one double in the six that I bought altogether, so now Thriller Gorilla gets to take his place on the team where he belongs.  I'll spare you the details of the bios I'm making for each character (separate from their Mutant Mania bios), but I will say that this guy is the leader of the team.  And a genius.

I like how the green rubbery spine that can be seen through the transparent black figure kinda makes it look like he's wearing green trunks.  I don't know what the green in his mouth could be though.  Puke?  That is the puke of a gorilla genius!  Moose (the company that makes these guys) should have given clear spines to the transparent figures.  His arms also reach up and backwards, so it kinda makes it hard to stand him up, but it can be done.

RAT GNAW

I'm listing these guys in the same order that I pulled them from their cans, and that would also affect the way I see them in the story I'm making for them in my head.  I guess that makes Rat Gnaw the second-in-command?  Anyway, I like how tight the paint is on these figures, for the most part.  Sadly, some of the paint is missing from the mouse trap on Rat Gnaw's left foot, so I didn't even realize that it was a trap until I looked up his bio on the Mutant Mania website.  It looks like it could just be a boot or something.  Ah well, small complaint.  I love how they made him blue-green instead of a regular rat color though.  Makes him look that much more "mutant".

ZOM PUNK

Zom Punk would normally be on the Evil Zomboids team in the regular Mutant Mania world, but since I see the 6 Pack as my own creation, he's a hero now!  He's probably my favorite actual figure of the bunch.  The translucent red doesn't take anything away from him either.  If anything it makes him even better!  It makes him look less like a zombie and more like a generally mixed-up freak.  If you look at his character art on the Mutant Mania site, he's supposed to have a leg for an arm (his own leg, I'm assuming), and a goo-covered skeletal arm for a leg.  His left leg looks nothing like a skeletal arm though.  It's more of a monster leg that could just as easily be hairy as gooey.  That's not a complaint, it only makes him more of the unique freak that he is as one of the 6 Pack heroes!

T-WRECKER

The other mohawk lover on my team is T-Wrecker, another Mutant Maniac that could have jumped right out of the 90's.  He's the token "big guy" on the team, but he's got more than just muscle working for him.  Know what else he's got?  Boots!  Naw, it's teeth.  I mean, he's pointing right at them ALL THE TIME.  He knows what his strengths are.  His strengths are strength and teeth.

SHOCKTOPUS

When I first popped this guy out of his can I thought I got a defect in that one of his tentacles looks broken.  Turns out, he's supposed to look like that!  A defective broken tentacle is no good, bit it's fine if it's the way it should be.

Every team needs its deranged guy, right?  Sure.  Shocktopus is my deranged guy.  Look at him!  What else could he be?  The cook?  Well, yes, I suppose he could also be the team's cook.  He is the deranged guy and the cook!  Maybe his stumpy tentacle was a kitchen accident?

WASPINATOR

Say, doesn't that name belong to somebody else?  The 90's power of these guys just keeps on coming!  With a name like Waspinator, it's hard not to be tempted to make him the deranged guy on the team.  But I see him more as the pilot/driver/vehicle junkie.  And since he's translucent blue, maybe has has electric powers too!  Yeah!  And he doesn't need keys to start any of his vehicles.  Maybe his 6 Pack name can be "Hotwire".  Anyway, that doesn't matter right now.  What matters is that this bad bee boy is the final member of my team.  And he's a wasp, not a bee.  Was that racist?

But before we go, here's to the one who almost was (but wasn't).

CLAW BREAKER

Claw Breaker was in one of the six cans I bought, but I already had this exact version from another pack.  I suppose I could have just added the one I already had to the team, but in my mind his "doubleness" cancelled him out.  I guess if I didn't have Thriller Gorilla waiting to assume his rightful place on the team, Claw Breaker would have made it.  As such I see him as the main villain opposing the 6 Pack (along with his army of robots).  Maybe he and Thriller Gorilla started the team together, but had different ideas on where the team should go.  Either way, he almost made it, but didn't.

So there you go.  I always made my own teams and worlds as a kid, rather than using the figures as their intended characters.  Big lines bursting with characters like Mutant Mania are perfect for that sort of thing, and it's still as much fun to do today as it was back then.  Now I just hope the line does well enough to get a second series, so I can make a rival 6-pack for my 6 Pack.


1 comment:

  1. HA! Six pack. Nice. And I just love this pop can thing they got goin' on! Especially with how similar they are to the old MUSCLE figures - those coming in these plastic "cans" as well. It really is the perfect evolution to that line, with the mix and match thrown in.

    Anyway, those are some nice ones! As you say: I love how you can see the spine through the clear ones. I haven't gotten a clear one where that works as well as it does with yours, yet. I think it looks best on *ahem* Waspinator (you'd think that would be trademarked?). It's like you can see his digestive track, or something. Also, I think the T-Wrecker is AWESOME. Especially how he's pointing to his teeth. Claw Breaker is also high on my list, what with being a robot and all.

    Overall, this embodies your interest in teams and freaky monsters to a T. For not knowing what you were getting, this worked out amazingly well!

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