Zodac (Zodak) vintage figure review thread

[Spacedust]

One of the better recent responses last week when we looked at Gwildor - maybe the unpopular characters generate as much discussion as the popular ones!

Anyway, this week, lets head back towards the beginning of the line, and discuss one of the most debated characters - is he good, is he evil, or what? It's ZODAC.

Zodac (to use his original spelling) was one of the characters released as the second half of the first wave of figures.

The back of box run-down listed him as an Evil Warrior, but none of the accompanying mini-comics even featured the character, leaving fans curious about him and his strange 'cosmic enforcer' tag.

When the Filmation cartoon came along, on the very few occasions that he appeared, he was presented as a 'neutral' watcher, neither on the side of good nor evil, but generally on the side of good, warning the Sorceress of some impending danger.

The figure itself seemed to be Evil orientated - it had the 'clawed' Evil Warriors arms and feet. But as the character appeared in so little material, it was still unclear.

As I mentioned in another thread recently, I personally made up my own back-story that Zodac was a neutral watcher, but Skeletor had used his black magic on him to turn him evil.

It was also unusual at that stage for the figure to come with a laser pistol, at the time when most characters had swords and shields and suchlike.

The figure had a red colour scheme with white accents, and the armor and pistol also come in black versions with the Weapons Pak. (Kobra Khan later had a orange version of the gun).
Some fans who play along with the 'evil Zodac' concept use this black armor to signify changes in side.

The figure's card and other early media spelt the name 'Zodac', but on the character's few later appearances, it was 'Zodak'.

Anyway, other than a couple of sparse Filmation appearances, Zodac was one of the least used characters in the franchise.

One of his only notable appearances was in one of the UK Ladybird books, 'He-Man and the Astroid of Doom', which, despite being one of the later books, featured Zodac as an Evil Warrior.

For the 200x revamp, the Four Horsemen originally designed Zodak (note the spelling) to look much more alien and unworldly. However, they eventually reverted to making him more human, as well as black, to give the line some ethnic diversity.
The final figure kept the original's red armor colour scheme, but replaced the white with silver. The new figure also had a removable helmet (revealing bald head), and white markings over the body.

The accompanying Mike Young Productions portrayed a noticeably different Zodak from the vintage series, showing him to be a wise old guardian, seemingly not intergalactic, but possessing some supernatural abilities. His brother had been murdered by the Snake Men centuries ago.

All-in-all, the original Zodac figure was an average one, with mostly standard parts and a standard twist-waist action. So I'll give him an average 7 out of 10.

[pH6]

Zodac was one of the last figures I ever got and one of those I never saw as a kid anywhere. It's rather boring actually. Most interesting part is his back: Are those body hair or wrinkles? I still lean toward the latter.

[Orko's Magic Hat]

Zodac was my 2nd MOTU figure and still one of my favourites.

I got him at Heathrow Airport before boarding our flight, I was allowed to get something to play with on the flight (I already had Prince Adam in my Mum's handbag)

I remember seeing seeing Trapjaw, Tri-Klops, Faker, Whiplash and Evil-Lyn, but couldn't make up my mind, as we were rushed, I quickly chose Zodac, I don't know why as the other figures were more eye catching or had more accessories.

Anyway, I remember getting a lot of play out of Zodac, I still like the fact he is quite simple to look at and he has a ray gun and wolf-feet and claws. I remember my Dad actually broke Zodak whilst trying to fix one of his arms back on - his whole body ended up exploding

Although I really like the new 4HM Zodak, I still like the vintage design, I think of them as two seperate characters - hopefully one day we get a classic styled Zodac(hint, hint)

Figure Rating - 9/10

[Captain Atkin]

Classic Zodac looks like he stepped out of a Flash Gordon comic from the 1940s. I love that classic design. Simple and cool.

[CocoaSmooth]

Zodak when compared to the the others back in the day was pretty plain...his feet didn't match his body....He had to be the worst out of the initial wave.

[kylefromdirtnapp]

I gave him a 6. A character that is just kind of "there". I have 2-the original is a good guy, and one with black weapons pack accessories representing evil.

[braxsis364]

Zodak has allways been one of my top favorets. I inmagined Zodak suffered some sort of head injury. and as a result had to have most of his head replaced with cybornetic inplants.

I inmagined the cosmic enforcer tag meant that he was a cop and tryed to arest evil warriors. not to sucsesfully I might add with the way my little brother played. and when he told me that Zodak, was some sort of universel cosmic protector. that flew around thro space, on some sort of magicall space throne. I just did'int belive it, I said well why is'int there a space traveling throne toy. for him available,I stoped watching the toon because Skelertor couldint even win once.

I have only recently seen all of the shows I missed when I was a kid.so for Zodak ill go so far as to say he was the most different and thought provokeing. with Skelertors arms and legs, and Sratos upper body. oh allmost forgot to mention. I used to switch up zodaks allegence to good or evil. and he couldint realy make up his mind. I have to give Zodak a pefect 10.

[Mike Bock]

Just wondering if you played with Zodac.
Due to his weird role across the classic MOTU verse he wasn't a very playable character.

He started up as a bad guy then as a good guy and then he turned neutral and mystic.
Speaking with my friends about this we noticed that nobody actually used him as a warrior. Filmation's influence was very strong. So I wanted to check with the org to see how many played with Zodac.
As a kid I found it very hard to play with him. I used him like how he was portrayed by Filmation. So I never used him in battles unless I wanted him to be captured.

He was the guy that nobody knew what to do with him.

[Midwinter]

I actually played with a lot of the toys before I saw them on the cartoon so I didn't have the storyline from the show to influence me.

I always used him as an evil warrior. I kind of based this upon the artwork on the back of his packaging. For some reason I assumed he was fast and a quick draw with his laser gun. He was not one of my main evil warriors that I played with though because he looked too human.

[The_Robin]

I remeber using him as the main prison gaurd in Snake Mountain. Anytime a new slave came in, you went to Zodac..

[zodak74]

He was one of my favorite figures as a kid. The Filmation version of things and how he was presented in the DC comic series didn't have any bearing on how I used him... I got on board with MOTU before those two canons came along. I had him switching sides a lot (the human look vs. the fact that he had the evil warrior arms and feet plus he packed a pretty mean-lookin' laser pistol)... more often good than evil. When I got the Point Dread playset I used that as his base of operations with the Talon Fighter being his mode of transportation. With the tagline "cosmic enforcer" from the package, I thought he was a bit of a police or security kind of figure on Eternia. More than a few times if Evil-Lyn or Tri-Klops were plotting something against Skeletor, Zodac was the one who helped them out. And when the Horde came along, Zodac would help Skeletor prevent the Horde from taking over Snake Mountain. So yeah, I had a lot of uses for him!

[Orko's Magic Hat]

I played with him loads and mostly he was on Skeletor's side.

[Megalodon]

Well since Zodac was my first figure he saw alot of play (Especially as a good guy..)

[Warpigs]

I was pretty young at that time so I didn't know much of the story line on Zodac.. so he was a good guy for me. I quess I figured him good because he didn't look like one of Old Skull Faces henchmen. He got quite a bit of play.

[Dr.Tod]

As my friends and I weren't able to watch the He-Man cartoon when we were young(unable to receive the reight TV-Channels) we only new Zodac from one audiobook where he tryed to help Skeletor. So for us he always has been one of Skeletors henchmen. But no one of us was a big Zodac fan - maybe because he looked too normal - just a normal guy who's wearing a red helmet and is a armed with a laser gun *how boring is that if you could although play with the water spitting Kobra Kahn instead

But The_Robin is right - Zodac was a great figur to get captured or imprisoned by the other "cool" guys.

mfg
Dr.Tod

[motu77]

I always had him as an evil warrior. He was Skellys second in command and was kind if like Starscream was to Megatron. Zodac beat He-Man in a few of my battles.

[Spacedust]

Yes I certainly did.

Although I generally followed the cartoon-lore for most of my MOTU games, I always had Zodac as an Evil Warrior. I had my own little backstory of how he was once a guardian of Grayskull, but Skeletor had used his black magic on him and turned him evil.

He probably wasn't centre to many of my games, but I sure did use him.

[He-bro]

I didn't have a He-Man figure for a long time so I used my Zodac as He-Man with a helmet on.

[theplant]

for me he was a wise old guy hanging around at skeletor's. his flying throne made him so majestic. id didn't like his gun, though

[Arkangel]

i saw the cartoon, but was so small i did not see nothing beyond but figures moving around, so yeah, played a lot with any sorts of figure regarding there role in the series, i remember poor all stratos which i constantly chew the head

[Sleeper]

Absolutely. Just read my thoughts on him in this thread:

http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/...d.php?t=157736

Although he only made "cameo" appearances during my playtime, he was a very important figure in my collection. I never had the Sorceress, so if Castle Grayskull was ever under attack, and for whatever reason, He-Man was nowhere around, Zodac would see to it that the secrets of Grayskull were protected. He would give them a false sense of security by allowing them access to the Castle but was quick to zap them back to Snake Mountain if they got out of hand.

[Captain Atkin]

All the time. I loved his retro look.

[Gonzo Merman]

I got a Zodac back in the day. The first day I got him, I had to go to the Hospital and I lost it there. But I thought he was a good guy though.

[He-bro]

I got a Zodac back in the day. The first day I got him, I had to go to the Hospital and I lost it there. But I thought he was a good guy though.

That's sad, did you ever get another one?

[danbrenus]

I ever really liked Zodac, like all of the first wave he had those magic something, but from the beginning he was different.
His science-fiction stiled outfit was far from the heroic fantasy fashioned MOTU standard, and suggested to me he was intended to be some sort of galactic authority whit superior knowledges stranded on a savage planet among barbarian warlords fighting each others.
Maybe he could've used a more proper mold for his body, pass for the klawed finghers, the finns on the forearms and legs can simulate gauntled and boots(I guess) but the hairy torso was a really odd choice.
But the true mistake I blame the author about Zodac is the criminal under-usement of him in the early mini comics, his full potential was way greater than those of Stratos, Mer-man ,Man-e-faces and many others, but it was wasted for some reason,what a shame....
I'll give him a 10/10, he deserve it.