I remember going to see the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie. I would have been nine years old. But such a memory! We went as a family, mom and dad, me and my two brothers, and we ate at a cafeteria style restaurant. Back then we had a mall on the east side of Spartanburg, “Hillcrest Mall.” The same theater is there, but the mall is gone. I remember when the movie was over and we got out to eat at the place, my father expressing dislike for the movie, which was shocking to me. I thought it was great! I may have been experiencing a hype fantasy…not hard for an extreme fan like 9 year old SpartanNerd. I had most of the toys and watched the show every day. I got the magazine.

I remember this being a hard time…we were seeing less and less of the toys at the stores. I would keep getting some MOTU toys for a few years…when I was as old as eleven or twelve I got Tyrantisaurus Rex and Evil Lyn for Christmas, and was made fun of by my uncles. I didn’t care.

I just wanted to set the scene for you. We would eventually get the movie on BetaMax and I would watch a blurry copy a whole lot. Sure, when I was 13-16 years old, not much toy business for me. A few legos, and some models cars and things. But I remember clearly being a Senior in high school and getting on the internet for the first time. Our teacher said, “Go to Yahoo.com. There you can type anything you want and the internet will search for it.” And what did I type…”He-Man.” I found Adam Tyner’s page, or what must have been the beginning of fan pages, and ever since that is how I have stayed afloat. In college I took my Mosquitor toy with me. I have no idea what happened to it. But Masters of the Universe have been my jam.

Why this trip down memory lane?

I saw these on sale last week during the Comic Con…I saw it online of course. But Movie Skeletor had the ominous “Only a few left.” At $33 each, I didn’t want to miss out.

I didn’t get the Super7 MOTUC version of He-Man, and their Skeletor was God Skeletor from the final scenes of the movie. (Was there a MOTUC of regular Skeletor?) But these were so cool I couldn’t pass them up.

I don’t collect this line. I have mentioned a few times that I was immediately put off when I saw the first images of He-Man. And it isn’t as elegant of a line as the Masters of the Universe Classics. The only one I had before these was 40th Anniversary He-Man. I don’t have the Skeletor, but I picked up that figure at Target for $20. I was drawn to the packaging and just the 40th anniversery-ness of it. But these guys come in the “boring” packaging that is one of the things that put me off of this line.

But I might be evolving on that…I will need to have a look at some other boxes next time I make my unfortunate visit to the department store (probably Wal-Mart.)

The side of the boxes give us some images. I won’t say they are wonderful, but they could be worse. He-Man looks like a member of 1980’s hair metal band. Skeletor looks like the mascot for Iron Maiden or similar. He-Man DOES NOT resemble Dolph Lundgren in the art. (The other side of the package just has the name of the character.)

The two boxes on the back can combine to create a scene…this represents the Great Eye of the Galaxy. Or something like that from the movie, where Skeletor is about to open up the power of Grayskull. As a piece of comic book art, this is great. I was about to throw this box away…instead I am going to cut off the back of the boxes. This would be a great poster. HINT HINT MATTEL!!! And at this point, isn’t this rare official art? The last official movie art we had would have had to have been Erle Norem’s work from the magazine, or maybe some movie posters.

LET’S LOOK AT HE-MAN

The inside of the box isn’t bad either. This rock texture makes for a good diorama. Here is what comes with He-Man. This figure boasts of 30 points of articulation, and it’s true. But it isn’t pretty. You can see the joints all over the place. He-Man comes with two knives (sheathed in the picture), a lazer pistol (in the holster), the power sword, two extra fists, and a classic toy sculpted head.

I remember after seeing the movie that my mom was concerned about a couple of things. The cursing, and He-Man used a gun a good bit of the movie, which was uncharacteristic of the character. We had toy guns, GI Joes, Transformers, but she didn’t like us playing with them. But our uncles kept giving us stuff…You can see that He-Man has no problem getting into this classic lazer gun pose. You can see the armor on his legs…this is sculpted on. It has good details on it. Very busy. What do you think about this head sculpt? Does it resemble Dolph to you? Not to me. You can tell they were trying really hard to capture his likeness. But it just isn’t quite there.

These two knives…I don’t think He-Man used these in the movie? The one on the boot keeps coming up. It is from an early He-Man design, and it must have been present in the movie version. The one on his belt seems superfluous. But I guess He-Man is “EXTRA” like that. Notice the cape. It is soft goods. It reminds me of old Batman toy capes. Just a note, it was taped to the blister card in the box, and I was freaked out a little removing it…I was afraid I would tear it. The pauldrons on the shoulders don’t hinder the articulation much, but his joints are very tight. His shoulder joint is massive, and I was worried I would break something in moving it around. But he is tougher than you think. I am uncertain what the design on the center of the chest is or on the belt. A dragon? A tornado? A lightning bolt?

You can evoke a more cartoon vibe by putting on the fist hand and the classic head. Once again, this looks a little bit too…something. Naive? Oblivious? Is he smiling? Is he talking? To me there is something about this head sculpt that takes away from the character of He-Man. Maybe he seems too “soft” or something. I will also say, this is the same “baby hand” fist that we got with the 40th anniversary figure. (Comparison below. Notice that 40th anniversary has a much larger chest.)

And I guess I have to show this off too.

The sword goes through a look at his neck, and the point end fits in a scabbard on the bottom under the cape. Why not a whole scabbard? Maybe this is what the movie props did? I don’t know? You can see that the armor is removable. They missed an opportunity here to put some stripes on his back from Blade’s Lazer whips. Then I would be inclined to remove the armor!

LET’S LOOK AT SKELETOR

Skeletor comes with what you see here. The Havoc Staff, a dark version of the same sword as He-Man, the Cosmic Key, and a fist and a chopping hand. Was this sword in the movie? I guess I need to go back and watch again. Pay attention SpartanNerd!

Skeletor’s articulation. isthe same as He-Man’s, but there is a problem…The Samurai armor that he has hanging down is stiff and so Skeletor can’t be on his knees. Which is fitting…Skeletor kneels for no one!

You can’t do much with the Cosmic Key. But it looks nice. It really can’t be held and doesn’t have anywhere to hang on Skeletor’s belt like it did in the movie.

Here we can compare the two swords. I guess they are similar, but they are. a little bit different at the hilt.

The sculpt of Skeletor is terrific! You can remove his head, but the hood remains attached. Under that is the ribbon chain, and under that is shoulder armor, and the soft goods cape…all removable. There are bone details sculpted onto the chest armor. Like He-Man, I can’t make out what the symbols on the armor are. The missed opportunity here is another hoodless Skeletor head, so we can do the post-credit’s scene “I’ll be back!” (Of course this turned out not to be true…very sad.)

So how does the SpartanNerd rate this sort-of impulse purchase?

Like I said, Skeletor is just about perfect as far as a sculpt. He-Man misses the mark as far as Dolph Lundgren goes…but the rest of him is pretty good. He-Man is very articulated, but you can see every joint in exposed detail, which is unsightly. Skeletor’s sculpt is so busy that you don’t see the seams so much.

There were missed opportunities on both figures. A hoodless head for Skeletor, and stripes on He-Man’s back.

The packaging was surprising. The art is good, but He-Man looks a little too “Motley Crue” to me. The scene on the back is epic…it reminds me of the big Todd McFarlane splash pages. (But no art is as good as McFarlane’s! Well…Maybe Norem’s.)

I felt like I had good value. I am going to go with 5/5!

The SpartanKid (College kid now….) He said “What other figures like this would you get. There is no market.” I disagree!

Give me a Kevin, Julie (Courtney Cox fans rally!), Music Store Guy, Lubbock, Movie Man-At Arms, Movie Teela, Movie Sorcerous (old crone!), Movie Evil Lyn. Surely there will be a Karg, a Movie Beast Man, a Saurod, a Blade, and a Gwildor. Maybe a dark shock trooper with a flying disc. Maybe even a Robbie’s Ribs cow!

Are you as enthusiastic as me, Hub City Geeks? Do you own these? Are you into the 1987 movie? Let me know in the comments!