Fisto vintage figure review thread

[Spacedust]

I'm not getting onto the forum at the moment, but I still try and dip in for the vintage figure reviews - I love seeing other fans' thoughts and memories.

This week... well, it's been a few weeks since we've done a Heroic character, so put that right now, as we turn our attention to that Heroic giant-fisted warrior, FISTO.

Fisto was released with the third wave of figures. As the line started to drift towards many more creature-based characters, I liked that he was a humanoid. His action feature was his spring-loaded right arm, which brought his giant chrome fist smashing down.

Of course, although it was never played upon in any medium, there was always a speculated rivalry by fans between Fisto and Jitsu, who both had the same action feature.
The figure's sword was a purple version of Tri-Klops', and his armor was later recycled for the late figure Clamp Champ.

Fisto was given a great showcase in the mini-comic "The Clash of Arms", which is in my opinion one of the very best mini-comics, especially after the early ones.

The figure was also released in a pack with Stridor, and although not commonly used, this pairing was also used in "The Clash of Arms" and the odd other story.

There have been a number of debates over the years about who is the strongest Heroic Warrior behind He-Man, and the answer has often been cited as Fisto in terms of strength (with Man-At-Arms in terms of brains and leadership).

I always wanted a Fisto as a kid, but for some reason I never had one in my original collection. When I started re-collecting the line seriously, he was one of the very first figures that I got.

Fisto is about average to find on the second-hand (no pun intended) market, although his silver detailing has sometimes tarnished, and sometimes his arm spring has gone a bit limp.

Fisto appeared a few times in the second season of the Filmation cartoon series. While it was good to see him, I hated his voice - Filmation's limited vocal resources really came through with him.
He was also given an origin episode, "Fisto's Forest", which seems with many, including myself, to rank amongst the least favourite episodes of the series.

The character was given a 200x revamp. He was originally intended to be released earlier in the line (complete with an update of the vintage figure's sword), but was held back and tweaked to fit in with the (re)introduction of the Snake Men (which included his sword being replaced with a Snake-catching weapon, and some 'anti-snake' logos).
He also appeared late on in the Mike Young Productions cartoon series where - shock of shocks - he was revealed as Man-At-Arms' brother, and possibly Teela's real father! This revelation met with mixed reaction to fans.
Due to copyright conflicts, the revamped figure was marketed as 'Battle Fist', although the character was still referred to as Fisto in the cartoon.

All-in-all, in terms of the vintage figure, I really like the character. I was going to give him a very favourable 9, but I think I actually like him enough to give a full 10 marks!

So there is my own little Fisto review. Now I'd like to hear your own thoughts, comments, memories and such like related to the character.
And whether you post or not, don't forget to rate the vintage in the poll!

(And with us covering Fisto this week, I wonder which spring-armed villain we’ll be looking at next week!! )

[TriKlops1971]

Without a doubt, Fisto deserves a 10. In terms of raw physical power, he was defintely the second "most powerful man in the universe". There was a later episode (can't remember the name offhand) where He-man wasn't around and Fisto was chosen to represent the side of good in a contest against Spikor for a number of games pieces. This suggests to me that Filmation (and perhaps Mattel as well) viewed the giant-fisted warrior as second only to He-Man when it came to brute strength.

I thought "Fisto's Forest" was a good episode. Not great, but a heck of a lot better than that circus episode.

I liked Fisto's voice. I liked the action figure's appearance. In an alternate universe, I can see Fisto being the top banana among a group of heroes.

[motu77]

I have him at an 8.

Boy what happened to the participation in these threads? I guess people don't bother to check the polls forums.

[He-Fan]

Chris here...

Boy what happened to the participation in these threads? I guess people don't bother to check the polls forums.

I'm sure I'll have some Mods and Admins wanting to stick pins in a voodoo doll of me for keep stating my personal dislike of the sub-forums for the polls, so I'll do it just the once more and then shut up about it! I definitely believe that having these in their own sub-forum is likely to harm activity in these threads, and consequently the Classic MOTU Board is really quiet. To be honest, you wouldn't think that it should have that much of an effect given that the poll forums are only one additional click away, but I must confess (to my embarrassment) that it affects how often I check these sorts of threads and so I'm sure the same must be true for others.

On the subject of Fisto - I never had the figure as a kid, but having gotten my hands on one about four or five years ago, really love him! When I dig my figures out for a game, he's a character I will use quite often, the action feature is simple but effective, and I only wish I'd had one as a kid when I could have appreciated him even more!

Take care...

[TriKlops1971]

I'm inclined to agree that participation seems to be lacking lately. Me personally, I love the polls! It gives us a chance to tell how we feel about certain characters and their plastic incarnations.

[He-Fan]

Chris here...

I'm inclined to agree that participation seems to be lacking lately. Me personally, I love the polls! It gives us a chance to tell how we feel about certain characters and their plastic incarnations.

For myself, the thing I like most is reading about how people here used to use the characters in their MOTU games, it gives me inspiration for when I get my figures out! I think one of the strengths of MOTU is that, to a large extent, it was actually something of a blank canvas on which someone could paint their own concept of the MOTU world, and for me it's fascinating to hear about some of this stuff!

I've been posting on these Boards for donkey's years now, yet these figure review threads are some of my favourites from all the years I've been here!

Take care...

[Spacedust]

I'm kind of split on the sub-thread polls.

In one respect, I can understand it. The main polls were getting a little top-heavy will polls - everytime a member simply rated the figure in the poll it automatically put the thread back at the top of the topics - and there were a lot of them!

On the other hand, the sub-polls seem to get only a small minority of visitors compared to the main polls, and seems to have hit contributions to the weekly review threads hard. At least in the main threads they got noticed, and got a nice lot of responses.

It's pros and cons for both.

And as I've said before, I think we could really use a sticky thread for a quick rundown of review threads done to date.

But anyway, this is supposed to be about Fisto Well, he had a pretty good head sculpt

[Dr Bo]

I'm kind of split on the sub-thread polls.
But anyway, this is supposed to be about Fisto Well, he had a pretty good head sculpt

Yeah, as much as I liked the creature, monster and robots in MOTU I always liked when they introduced humans along the line. Since the FIlmation cartoon made MOTU more of a mentor / fatherly figure, I asumed Fisto was more like a fighting buddy / comrade-in-arm for He-Man.

Like the goatee, big fist and big studded armor. Made for a cool barbarian dude with both knightly presence and a macho stance. Just like He-Man, as a kid I liked to have him bare chested at first and suit up is armor for the big battle.

[danbrenus]

Fisto is a great caracter, when he shows-up back when I was a kid I said "Yeah, a viking warrior fights with the good guys!".
I really have liked to see more "real oriented" figure in the line, expecially when "gimmick figures" began to take the place of the caracters.
With the creature-oriented bad guys it works good but sometimes it happened potentially great characters was gives lame gimmick (like Mekanek).
Fisto had it all, good charaters, good armor, beautyfull sword and,yeah, good gimmick.
What else?10/10

[Evil_Horde]

I love the design of Fisto!! It's very very cool!!! 10 of course!

[PaoloKr]

Great figure Fisto.
9