Designed by MOTUC brand manager Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich, the 3rd figure in the 30th anniversary subline is The Mighty Spector. This one didn’t seem to go over well when it was revealed, but after Draego-Man any new character would look unimpressive. After Scott explained that this was the design he submitted to the 80s MOTU Create-A-Character contest as a child, it started to grow on me.

Aesthetics and Build
This isn’t the first figure to use the name Spector. One of the 4 heads included with the Eternian Palace Guards was sculpted to look like Scott Neitlich, and was given the name Lt. Spector. The Mighty Spector is supposed to be the same character, after he gains a time travel suit. Spector’s head seems to be sculpted to look like that same face is under the mask. You can see this especially in the prominent chin and lips. Besides this, you can see some details that aren’t always sculpted onto masked figures, such as ears.

Spector’s body mixes the standard human parts with the armored boots and pelvis (from Man-E-Faces, etc.), and a new tech gauntlet (where some accessories can be attached) for his left wrist along with MEF’s armored hand. Most of his body is a dark purple (not quite as blue as he appears in my photos), with a metallic purple on his pelvis (which there is unfortunately an extra splotch of on my figure). Most armored parts are painted a sort of gunmetal gray and some are gold, along with some red and green details.

Is this some mysterious Eternian language, or does that spell something?

Articulation
Spector has the usual MOTUC articulation, with a ball-jointed neck, double-jointed ankles and shoulders, triple-jointed hips, and joints for the boots, knees, wrists, elbows, biceps, abs, and waist. His armor doesn’t seem to get in the way of articulation at all. With no helmet or hair to get in the way,  the head can move up, down and side to side with no problems. The joints are nice and tight, really tight in some cases.

Accessories

Accessories include some removable armor with gun holster, a blaster gun, mini cosmic key, and plasma knife. The armor is a bright yellow with some gold details painted on and a spade symbol in the center. (I just noticed the armor is kind of shaped the flux capacitor. Coincidence? Probably.) The leg holster is a separate piece that attaches to the armor’s belt with a peg. It has a band of the green rods that power the blaster and key, and as a neat detail, one is missing. The blaster is some kind of futuristic laser gun, which I think has a cool design. It fits nicely in the holster and has one of those green rods in the back. The mini cosmic key plugs into the tech gauntlet thing on Spector’s left wrist, and also has one of those green rods sticking out of the back. It can be swapped out for a key emitting a plasma knife. Spector was another victim of cost cutting. He was originally shown with a plasma whip as well.

Hey, those green rods look a little familiar.

I’m tempted to rip the helmet off an extra one of these guard heads.

While Spector is still not quite one of my favorites, he can be a fun figure with some neat accessories.

The Mighty Spector was sold in May 2012, so you’ll have to check places like Amazon, BigBadToyStore or eBay to get it now. New figures go on sale on MattyCollector.com each month, usually on the 15th. The lineup for the June 15 sale seems to be:

Horde Prime
Snake Man-At-Arms (includes the second mini-comic)
Griffin (oversized beast)
Beast Man (reissue)
Evil-Lyn (reissue)
Tytus (giant, reissue)

Now available year round:
He-Man
Battle Cat
Skeletor
Panthor
She-Ra
Swiftwind
Hordak
King Hsss