The Masters of the Universe/She-Ra Thread!

[Leo656]

I took my Castle Grayskull out of the box today to assemble and do a review video.

I love it. It's awesome. It's everything the vintage one was but with some minor improvements.

There are a few things the original did slightly better, as I address in the video (hopefully posted within a couple of days). For example, the green could be darker with more black shadow/detail, but it's a MUCH "Earthier" green than what early pictures suggested, nowhere near as bright or "blue-green" looking as some photos showed. It's a lot closer to the original than one might think, so for those who said the color was a huge turn-off, you may be pleasantly surprised. The weapons rack could definitely be bigger, and there could be a couple of more weapons, but it works fine. And the bird on the elevator could be larger, like the original.

That's really it for nitpicks, though. Objectively, I feel like everything about this Grayskull takes everything the original one did and moves it a step forward. Wood- and stone-grain floors, over the smooth plastic of the original. A bigger, sturdier ladder that slots neatly into grooves in the floor which hold it in place. Nice, thick pegs on the tower platforms to hold the flag and the turret gun securely in place, but can still smoothly pop on and off without fear of breakage. The gun is larger and moves up and down better; it's more of a snug fit so it can be positioned better, rather than just loosely flopping up and down like a see-saw. The locking mechanism on the Jaw-Bridge works great and feels like it will hold up well to lots of use. The peg that holds the throne in place is much thicker and more durable than the original, and the trapdoor mechanism also feels like it's a lot better-executed. Little pegs on the tower platforms to better hold the figures in place while they're manning the gun or stationed by the flag, or whatever. The elevator glides nice and smooth, and the pulley works great. And even though the weapons rack is smaller, with fewer weapons and fewer places to put them, like everything else the clips to hold the weapons feel more sturdy and very unlikely to break. It's very lightweight but doesn't feel at all brittle or prone to breakage; all of the plastic feels solid but just pliable enough. It doesn't snap shut like the original, but instead there are sturdy pegs that slide into receiving holes and two hooks that securely hold it shut. Ultimately, I think it works better because of the new mechanism and the newer plastic; the tabs on the vintage castle were pretty easy to snap off, but this feels "safer" as there's less stress on the hooks than there would be on the original tabs. And obviously, the computer panels actually being molded plastic that snaps into the wall are way cooler than some flimsy cardstock cut-outs. And the little fabric/ribbon flags are a super nice touch. Plus, the Sorceress figure is a terrific bonus.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love and adore the original Grayskull; some jerk stole mine at some point, but I played with that thing to the death, and it had a bunch of broken pieces to show for all the playtime it got. But this one really does feel like someone said, "How can we do the same exact thing we did Then, without changing it too much, but still taking Every Single Thing about the original and improving it by a step?" Obviously the Classics Grayskull is like taking the original and improving everything about it by about ten steps, but I feel like it's an apples-to-origins comparison. But keeping it strictly to how this new one compares to the original... yeah, I think it's objectively better in every way except the color, and even that to me isn't a big deal at all.

If a person already has a Classics Grayskull, you probably don't need this one, unless you have kids and are nervous about letting them play with it, in which case this should do the trick nicely. But if you still have an original vintage Grayskull... y'know, I still think this is worth getting. Not only are there a ton of small but noticeable improvements, but the fact is that it's getting harder and harder to find the originals in near-pristine condition for a reasonable price. So for example if you have a vintage Grayskull that's incomplete, this is still a pretty good buy at the price. And if you don't have ANY Grayskull at all, well, this is a Must-Buy for sure. And I think if a person is new to collecting and isn't in love with the idea of paying eBay prices for the original Grayskull, they could sleep easy buying this and not feeling like they were missing out on anything.

I still hope/plan to get a replacement vintage Grayskull in "complete" condition one day, but if for any reason that couldn't happen... I'd still be very happy with this one being all I had.

I think it's great value for the price, and I'm seriously in love with it. Not sure where I'm gonna display it yet, but it's awesome. Way better than I expected it to be, even. If you've been on the fence at all about getting one, I say go for it.

I'll try and get some pictures later or tomorrow; been kinda busy the last couple of days.

[Leo656]

POWER CON EXCLUSIVES!!!

From Power-Con:

Mattel has provided us with a look at the Power-Con 2021 exclusives. Once again, they have delivered some incredible fan collectibles that are sure to be exciting for many MOTU fans!

Reveal #1
MOTU Origins: Horde Multi-Pack
$150.00 each plus S/H
Nothing can stop the Evil Horde, and that goes for their awesome figure variants. This MOTU Origins 4-Pack will contain blue-skinned Hordak, dark Grizzlor, a crimson Horde Trooper, and a shadow Horde Trooper.

Reveal #2
MOTU Origins: Faker 2-Pack
$60.00 each plus S/H
What’s better than a MOTU Origins Faker that comes with an orange cingulum militare and Havoc Staff? How about a beast his can call his own? That’s exactly what you get with this 2-Pack of “Leo” Faker and Dupli-Cat, his robotic feline mount

.

Reveal #3
MOTU Origins: “Secrets of Grayskull” Accessory Pack
$30.00 each plus S/H
Now that fans have the outstanding Origins Castle Grayskull available for their collection, Mattel expands upon it to make it even better! This pack comes with the castle’s humanoid robot, a 3D dungeon grate that includes a tentacle, and the Spirit of Castle Grayskull. These accessories are a must-have to complete your Grayskull display.

Pre-orders begin next Saturday, May 15th! Details will be posted very soon about the pre-sale. Keep an eye out for more Power-Con 2021 updates, and we hope to see you this September 11 & 12 in Anaheim, California.

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Holy SH*T, I have to get all of those. Jesus CHRIST, that's awesome sh*t.

[Leo656]

So I took some Grayskull pics.









I don't know what kind of paint they used for those light green "highlights", but the flash makes them stand out a lot more than they actually do in real life. At regular room lighting they're barely even visible. Tons of people online are really hating on this Grayskull because of how the colors look in flash photos, but honestly the pictures don't do it justice at all. The main green is much more "earth tone" than it looks and the light green is a lot more subdued and barely shows up. I'll try and take some no-flash pictures later so you know what I mean. I understand why people have the reaction they do based on pictures but I swear to God the thing doesn't actually look like that in "real life".

[IMJ]

Art of Chris Anderson

Stumbled upon this guy's work. Interesting stuff - the link should take you directly to the MOTU search on his site.

[Leo656]

WIND RAIDER PIC!


That is SO cool. Glad I pre-ordered it. I love that it comes with a display base, and has a little more color detail than the original. If it's anything like most of the newer updated toys in this line, most of the brittle/breakable parts will probably be more durable, fingers crossed on that. Finding a vintage Wind Raider with both its wings is getting harder and harder, but the plastic from the Origins line seems like it's got just enough give to avoid snapping, most of the time.

Glad I've got this pre-ordered. Once the pre-orders for the Con Exclusives go up I'll have everything that they've announced so far on order. Really exciting!

[IMJ]

I'm not really diving into the vehicles for this line, but I never had a Wind Raider as a kid.... I'll probably be down for this one.

[Leo656]

I played with mine until it broke, like a lot of the sh*t I had. I still have it in a box, I think, but it's busted.

I had most of the vehicles, actually, but unfortunately thanks to my Mom's typical housecleaning method of "Throw everything haphazardly into the toy box and whatever happens, happens", most of them are broken now. Thankfully, most of them aren't actually that expensive to replace; I got a near-perfect Roton off of eBay a couple months ago for $20, the only thing "wrong" with it is one sticker being askew.

I loved all the vehicles, beasts and playsets from the original line; that's part of what made it so special. G.I. Joe obviously had tons of awesome stuff like that, too, but the MOTU toys being so big and "beefy" by comparison gave them a totally different feel. Thankfully, my Dad loved He-Man and MOTU so I never even really had to ask for any of that stuff, he just bought much of it for me unsolicited. He was great at keeping track of what I had and what I didn't and he constantly surprised me with new stuff.

The updated vehicles they've done are a nice upgrade over the originals, though. So I'm definitely all-in on everything they end up doing. There's a few things that I highly doubt they'll reproduce, either for size, mechanical issues, etc., but I wouldn't doubt that most of the "basic" vehicles are reasonable to expect. Like I don't think they're going to do Spydor, unless it's like $80 or more, because that thing would be a nightmare to produce. And I'm not too sure that they'd do a Dragon Walker, although if they did make one and it would work for more than an hour without breaking that would be kinda neat. But I think stuff like Bashasaurus and Road Ripper are probably pretty likely.

They're getting pretty deep into recreating the original line already, plus a few extras. So cool.

[Leo656]

Wind Raider in-package photo:


Neat!

[Leo656]

Actual hi-res pictures came out today of the first Wave of the "Masterverse" line, which apparently is coming out next month:









Those cloth-goods capes are pretty crummy, and Evil-Lyn with her variant helmet head on looks like she has no neck, but otherwise they look MUCH better than all of those leaked pictures have suggested. I'll be picking these up.

[Autbot_Benz]

That MossMan root arm is cool wish they would do that with a Swamp Thing figure

[Leo656]

Everybody's joking that it basically IS a Swamp Thing figure. On account of it honestly looks way more like Swamp Thing than it does Moss Man.

[Leo656]

Today's Mail!

Once a month or so I try and pick up a Classics figure, preferably an important character who isn't super-expensive. That's getting harder and harder to do. But Randor was "only" about $100, and he's pretty important, so I went with him this time out. I still need Teela, Man-At-Arms and the Sorceress, but I need to save up for any of those since they all hover at the $200-250 range.

That said, super happy with this guy! They also did a version of Randor that comes in his vintage Mattel costume with the "armor", but I wanted this one more, for now. I might get the other one eventually but this one was preferable to me because it's how he looked in the cartoons. Price was about the same so that's what it came down to.

I'm gonna try really hard to commit to saving up, so I can get either Teela or Sorceress next.

[Leo656]

Pictures of the crummy toys from the crummy Netflix hard-reboot that's due out in the Fall.





Blech. I mean, I guess they're not terrible, and I get that they're "for the kidz" and it's a "new reimagining" and all that. But they make Masterverse look like Classics by comparison. And I just plain don't like these "reinvent the wheel" type of reboots in general.

Maybe if they're super-cheap, like ten bucks or something. So far everything about the reboot sounds lousy, to me. But admittedly it's early yet.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Pictures of the crummy toys from the crummy Netflix hard-reboot that's due out in the Fall.
https://news.toyark.com/wp-content/u...igures-001.jpg
https://news.toyark.com/wp-content/u...igures-002.jpg
https://news.toyark.com/wp-content/u...igures-003.jpg
https://news.toyark.com/wp-content/u...igures-004.jpg

Blech. I mean, I guess they're not terrible, and I get that they're "for the kidz" and it's a "new reimagining" and all that. But they make Masterverse look like Classics by comparison. And I just plain don't like these "reinvent the wheel" type of reboots in general.

Maybe if they're super-cheap, like ten bucks or something. So far everything about the reboot sounds lousy, to me. But admittedly it's early yet.

Is He-Man with the red armor meant to be him having done the Battle Cat sword laser on himself? Because the imagery of powering up by doing what looks like seppuku sounds funny.

[IMJ]

SO do we think that those Power Con exclusives are going to be sold eventually as wave figures at retail?

[joe-eyeball]

Originally Posted by IMJ

SO do we think that those Power Con exclusives are going to be sold eventually as wave figures at retail?

I’d bet at least some version of them will be released at some point. I mean the last round of power con figs were released with some different paint apps.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by joe-eyeball

I’d bet at least some version of them will be released at some point. I mean the last round of power con figs were released with some different paint apps.

I'm really considering picking them up, but it's a whole thing - close to an unplanned 300 bucks, getting up on the day to be online, going through the "refresh the screen" thing... you know.... all of it together.

If it was simply "order these", then I'd probably do it, but it's the whole thing.

[joe-eyeball]

Originally Posted by IMJ

I'm really considering picking them up, but it's a whole thing - close to an unplanned 300 bucks, getting up on the day to be online, going through the "refresh the screen" thing... you know.... all of it together.

If it was simply "order these", then I'd probably do it, but it's the whole thing.

I hear ya! I’m going to go through the process and pre order through BBTS. The Power con stuff is supposedly easier to snag through pre order than a lot of other cons that have exclusives? Hoping that holds true this Saturday for me.

[Leo656]

I doubt the Grayskull accessories will be released by themselves. Copy-Cat might be. I doubt Leo Faker will, or Filmation Hordak (they're already doing two other Hordaks). Actually I kinda doubt any of the figures will, the more I think about it. LoP Beast Man and Mer-Man had unique sculpts but all of these are mostly just repaints. Black Face Grizzlor is a nice homage to a vintage variant, but is so similar to regular Grizzlor that it probably won't make a dent as a regular retail figure.

I'm mostly excited for the Grayskull accessories but I definitely hope I can swing all of them. I'm most excited by the figure set because it confirms Grizzlor and Horde Trooper will both be figures in the regular line, soon. That's awesome.
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Copied from the Books thread, since it's toy-relevant:

The books I ordered from Power-Con came yesterday: The Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and the Character Guide and World Compendium Supplement Vol. 1


The Supplement is simply an add-on to the original Character Guide, with some updates and additional information the original book didn't have. Cool stuff.

But the BIG item is the Toy Guide. At 750 pages, it covers EVERY He-Man, She-Ra and MOTU toy line in existence (pre-Origins, so from 1982 through 2018 when production on the book started), and the level of detail is absolutely insane. Figure and packaging photos, background information, variant and re-release comparisons, Trivia Facts, release timelines, interviews with the creative staff and more. Every single figure, playset, beast mount, vehicle, and accessory pack ever released for the original MOTU, She-Ra, New Adventures of He-Man, 2002 Commemorative Sets, 200X reboot, MOTU Classics, Club Grayskull, and Super 7 Filmation figure lines is covered in detail. It's truly amazing.

That said, it doesn't cover EVERY single thing, such as kids' roleplay toys and other licensed items, as the thing would have more pages than the Bible if they literally covered every toy ever released. But even "just" focusing on everything released in the various action figure lines is a massive undertaking, and you have to figure that's what most people would be most interested in, anyway.

An easy recommendation for collectors and casual fans alike. It's available on its own through various retailers, but I pre-ordered the two books together through Power-Con (for about $100 altogether) to ensure that the people who worked on these books (as well as the previous several Dark Horse MOTU hardcovers) would be paid for their hard work and dedication in putting all of these things together. The staff who've worked on these hardcovers have lost money on each of them, pretty much doing them out-of-pocket as a labor of love for the fans, and the results have been incredible so I was more than happy to go with the "premium" option to ensure they get a little something for all their efforts this time.

[Leo656]

Update: My wife got me Scare Glow!


She technically ordered it for me before Christmas, and it finally showed up a few days ago.