So what does Cora think of the new Masters of the Universe toys revealed at San Diego Comic Con?

So do you want to know what I think of the new Masters of the Universe toys revealed at San Diego Comic Con – illustrated with photos of my toys from my own collection which were not revealed at San Diego Comic Con, at least not this year? If yes, then you’re in luck. And if no – well, then I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to skip this post.

Two weeks ago was San Diego Comic Con, which meat that this was the weekend where we got a look at what will entertain us in the year to come. This year’s San Diego Comic Con was a little bit more muted than previous years with many of the big film studios opting not to show off their upcoming releases. However, there have been plenty of toy reveals, including several happening on the preview night, which I forgot all about, so I woke up on Thursday morning to plenty of photos of upcoming toys.

I already did social media threads about those reveals on all four main social media platforms (Twitter, BlueSky, Threads and Mastodon), but here is a more detailed summary of my thoughts on those reveals.

I mostly link to Toy Habits, because they have good photos of the toys revealed and their articles are in English. Of course, plenty of other sites showed off these toys as well.

Masters of the Universe Origins Figures

Many fans feel that the Origins line, once the bread and butter of the Masters of the Universe revival of the 2020s, has been treated like something of a red-headed stepchild in recent years. For those who don’t know the differences between the various Masters of the Universe lines, the Origins line consists of figures in a 5.5 inch scale which look pretty much like those you had as a kid, except that they have more articulation and all parts are interchangeable. Origins figures are also pretty inexpensive or at least they used to be and therefore ideal for casual collectors and people old and young who actually play with their toys.

Origins had been going strong into 2023, but Origins releases have dwindled in the past two years, superceded by other toylines. Plus, many Origins figures have been shunted off to Mattel Creations and are no longer as widely available as they once were. Meanwhile, there are still fourteen figures from the vintage line which still haven’t been remade in Origins.

The trend to downplay Origins continues and so, there were only four new Origins toys revealed at San Diego Comic Con this year.

We’re finally getting Dragstor, which will make Sebastian from the German fansite Planet Eternia who’s a huge Dragstor fan, very happy and indeed he completely freaks out on the He-Manisches Quartett podcast. Dragstor even seems to have his action feature – you could wind him up with a ripcord and then he would race across the floor – which is a rarity for Origins figures. With Dragstor finally coming, there is only one Horde member from the vintage line still missing, namely Multi-Bot (see the Classics version here) and we’re also one step closer to completing the vintage line.

The second reveal is a completely new character, a Horde member named Sting-Or. He was created by artist Axel Gimenez and appeared on packaging artwork a few times. I like him, plus he is the first new Horde member (along with the Horde Revenant from the Battle for Eternia four-pack) that we’re getting as a toy since Cy-Chop back in 2012. Of course, there have been other new Horde members introduced since 2012 – e.g. Tarangela and Succubug from the Masters of the Universe Revolution prequel comics and Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio from the 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon (Lonnie actually did appear in the Filmation She-Ra cartoon, but she was a very different character there) – but none of them ever had toys. Considering the Snake People are multiplying like the proverbial rabbits, it’s nice to see the Horde get some love. I also really need to re-do my epic Evil Horde group photo, especially since I now have all the Horde members who were ever made as toys. Though I might as well wait for Sting-Or to retake the picture.

This reminds me that of course there is another new Horde member introduced since 2012 who does have a toy, namely the Mighty Motherboard.

While San Diego Comic Con was going on, another new Origins figure – Spikor from the Sketchbook Collection – also just suddenly appeared in Target‘s online store. For those who don’t know, the Sketchbook Collection is an Origins subline which features versions of familiar characters based on early concept art. The Sketchbook Collection is rather divisive. Some people enjoy seeing those early, never-realised concepts brought to life. Besides, a lot of those designs are really cool – concept Spikor looks a lot scarier than the actual figure. Others feel that many of those concepts were never realised for a reason and call the Sketchbook Collection “trash” and “not my Masters”. Others criticise that offbeat weirdos like the Sketchbook Collection are sold at retail, while characters from the vintage line are sold at Mattel Creations.

I’m in the pro camp. I like the Sketchbook Collection though I wish Mattel would give those characters their own names and identities like the Classics line did with the characters now known as Demo-Man, Vikor and Vykron, all of whom were based on prototypes and early concepts (at least one of which was actually intended for an unproduced Conan line). The reasoning of Scott Neitlich, brand manager of the Classics line, was that if those characters were given unique names and identies, they could be used in future comics, cartoons and films. Which is exactly what happened to Vikor, who appeared in Masters of Universe Revelation as one of the fallen heroes of Preternia, and Demo-Man who showed up in a couple of comics. Now I disagree with Scott Neitlich in many points,  but I agree with him here. And to me, the Sketchbook Collection are their own characters.

Which brings us to…

Masters of the Universe Origins Playsets

The final Origins reveal on the first night of San Diego Comic Con is one nobody expected, namely a slightly altered reissue of Castle Grayskull. I do like it and the addition of the playmat with the moat from the early prototype and the spacesuit from the expensive Power-Con set are nice. However, I already have an Origins Castle Grayskull and I’m not buying another nigh identical one just for some extras. Especially since there is a third party playmat for Castle Grayskull – as well as playmats for Snake Mountain and the Fright Zone – which are very nice.

I suspect Mattel is reissuing Castle Grayskull ahead of the live action movie just to have it available again, since the original Origins Castle Grayskull is mostly gone from shelves by now. But wouldn’t a movie Castle Grayskull make more sense? Or maybe this is a cynical crash-grab to get some more money out of fans before the Movie Castle is released next year.

San Diego Comic Con also saw the triumphant return of the Snake Lair, a crowdfunded playset to serve as a base for the Snake People, who were the only faction that never had a homebase in the vintage toyline. According to Masters of the Universe lore, Snake Mountain was the original homebase of the Snake People and Skeletor and his gang are basically just squatters (and spectacularly got their arses kicked, when Kobra Khan and Evil-Lyn released the Snake People from the void where they had been imprisoned in the 200X cartoon). But now the Snake People are about to have a homebase of their own.

Mattel initially unveiled a prototype Snake Lair at last year’s San Diego Comic Con, but it was met with a lot of criticism, because the prototype looked very different from Axel Gimenez’ original concept art. It was also huge and the crowdfund was supposed to start at a terrible time – smack in the middle of the summer holiday season, when a lot of people don’t have money.

The new Snake Lair (see a video by Pixel Dan here) not only looks a lot more like Axel Gimenez’ original design, it’s also a lot more atmospheric and spooky. This place looks like an ancient ruin inhabited by horrors from the dawn of time. It also has an impressive array of torture devices – stocks, an Iron Maiden and a tentacled trap. The Snake Lair will come with an undead Lady Slither figure – there are different factions of Snake People and the Snake Lair actually belongs to Lady Slither’s faction, so King Hiss and his bunch are still homeless I guess – as well as High Priest Pythonus and a delightful two-headed dragon called Chimera for Lady Slither to ride upon (when she is in human rather than snake form) as stretch goals. These are all great, though I prefer High Priest Pythonus to the Undead Lady Slither, because I already have a non-undead Lady Slither figure. And I have a conflicted relationship with my Lady Slither figure, because she arrived the day after my Dad died. I literally found her on my doorstep, when I came back from the funeral parlour. It took me a long time, until I was even able to open the box and I can never look at her without being reminded of the circumstances under which I got her. None of which is Lady Slither’s fault.

To me, Chimera is actually the coolest of the three and very reminiscent of the vintage two-headed dragon by Imperial Toys, a Hong Kong based company that produced rubber monsters in the 1970s and 1980s which were sold in dollar stores and at fairgrounds and which literally every kid had. I remember dearly loving my Imperial Toys monsters – not that I ever knew the name of the company until I was an adult. I remember buying an Imperial Toys King Kong (whom I called Tarzan, because I kept getting King Kong and Tarzan mixed up) at the local Schützenfest, when I was about six, and cradling him like a baby on the way home. I had Godzilla and Mothra, too, and loved to flap her wings. Eventually, all my Imperial Monsters were thrown out over some toxic paint or material scare (probably justified – Imperial Toys was a cheap bottomfeeder company). A lot of us also used their Imperial Toys monsters with their Masters of the Universe figures, because the scale was about right and Masters and monsters just go together. So I really want Chimera, because he is an updated take on a long lost childhood friend. Though – considering the Eternia playset didn’t reach 10000 backers – it’s very unlikely we’ll get him. In fact, it’s possible that we might not ever get High Priest Pythonus. And since we still haven’t gotten Elder Keclar, the stretch goal from the Eternia playset that wasn’t reached, we may well never get these figures.

Shortly, before the crowdfunding went live, Mattel changed the tiers and announced that Chimera will now be the 6000 backer goal and High Priest Pythonus the 8000 backer goal, both of which are doable. Supposedly, there is no 10000 backer goal, though they may well announce a new one, if the crowdfunding goes well.

The Snake Lair crowdfunding is now live, so order yours and make sure we all get it.

On a related note, can some company maybe make updated versions of the old Imperial Toys monsters – with non-toxic paint and better materials, please? They don’t even need to be articulated – the old ones weren’t either. I just want them back.

Which brings us to…

Masters of the Universe Origins 200X and Mondo

We’ve known for a while now that there would be a subline of figures based on the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon (nicknamed 200X by fans) in the Origins line. The enthusiasm for this was rather muted, because there have already been several 200X designs in the main Origins line, so no one knew what exactly the point of all this was. The fact that Mondo – producer of beautiful but very expensive high end action figures – also announced a 200X line didn’t help either.

Now that a whole lot of these new Mattel 200X figures have been revealed at San Diego Comic Con, I like them a lot more than I thought I would. These figures really capture the 200X look in Origins scale and fit much better with your Origins and Cartoon Collection figures than the actual 200X figures, which don’t really fit with anything else.

As you can see, the new 200X figures are not nearly as detailed as the figures released in the early 2000s, but they are a lot more poseable – the vintage 200X figures are notoriously stiff and often feel more like statues than action figures – and they look like the characters from the cartoon.

There’s also a nice range of characters in this new line – something which was a major issue with the 200X line, which had umpteen increasingly bizarre He-Man and Skeletor variants, while other characters were hard to find or never produced at all.  Plus, we finally get a 200X accurate Evil-Lyn, since both Classics and the previous Origins version only repainted the existing Teela body. It’s also nice to see Moss-Man and Clawful, since the 200X Moss-Man looked nothing like his cartoon counterpart and Clawful was never made at all. Of course, there are still several prominent characters missing: Teela, the Sorceress, King Randor, Trap-Jaw, Fisto, Mekaneck, Buzz-Off, Sy-Klone, Two-Bad, Orko, Stinkor, Webstor and all the Snake Men as well as second-tier characters like Count Marzo, King Grayskull, Keldor, Evil Seed, etc… Though I suspect that at least the major characters are coming somewhere down the line. As for the weird variants, we will probably get Snake Armour He-Man, since he featured quite prominently in the cartoon, and Disco Skeletor is pretty much a must.

I also prefer the Mattel figures to Mondo‘s 200X figures, which surprises me a little, especially since so many people seem to be over the moon about the Mondo figures. Now the Mondo figures are beautiful and amazingly detailed (here’s a closer look at them in a video by Pixel Dan), but they’re also stiff and look more like statues than action figures. The Mondo figures will look great on a shelf, but you can’t really do a lot with them otherwise. Toy photo stories or nature toy photography won’t work with these. Quite possibly, they can’t even stand without their bases – note that the He-Man figure is held up by a translucent stand. Not to mention that I can probably buy three or four Mattel figures for the price of one Mondo. And talking of Mondo, they also showed off stunning large-scale She-Ra and Swift Wind figures, which are gorgeous, but I won’t buy them.

In general, Mondo seems to appeal to a different audience and that’s okay. I have seen Mondo figures in person and while they are beautiful, none of them ever really made me want to buy one. They’re similar to statues, something that looks great on a shelf, but that you can’t do very else with. And that’s just not what I want from toys. I don’t play with them in the conventional way, but I do want to be able to pose my figures, take photos of them. I want them to be able to fight and also to kiss. Furthermore, I want a large selection of characters and while Mondo offers a lot of figures, half of them are either variations of Scare Glow or Skeletor rather than some of the non-A-list characters. And given Mondo‘s prices, it’s pretty much impossible to collect them all.

Another thing that bothers me about the Mondo figures is that while all of them come with several interchangeable heads, most of them have an angry look, including the women. If you give me four different headsculpts, is it too much to ask that at least one of them is a smiling or at least neutral face? Especially since the angry faces often look as if they’re stuck on the toilet with a bad case of constipation.

Besides, they’re simply too expensive for my taste. For the price of one large Mondo figure, I can get eight Masterverse figures, which are also beautiful and detailed, or ten Origins figures or a couple of Classics figures, which are extremely beautiful and detailed as well. And yes, some Classics figures are very expensive, but most of them are still cheaper than the Mondos, yet I can do so much more with them.

On the downside, there have been no regular figures from the Cartoon Collection (an Origins subline based on the look of the characters from the Filmation He-Man and She-Ra cartoons) revealed so far. At a panel, it was revealed that there would be a Mattel Creations exclusive She-Ra and Swift Wind set released, which looks great (even though I already have a Cartoon Collection She-Ra), though it is weird that Mattel and Mondo both offer the same things – 200X figures and a She-Ra and Swift Wind set in the same year. Besides, She-Ra’s steed Swift Wind is long overdue, though Mattel can’t tell me that they couldn’t sell a flying unicorn with rainbow coloured wings at retail. What is more, Swift Wind opens the gate to all the other horses from the vintage Princess of Power line – Bow’s horse Arrow, Catra’s horse Storm, the translucent twin horses Crystal Sundancer (usually ridden by Sweet Bee) and Crystal Moonbeam (usually ridden by Peekablue) and even Teela’s unicorn Charger from the early mini-comics. Though getting all of these is pretty much a pipe dream. Even the Classics line only made Swift Wind and Arrow. Even though the Classics horse is an amazing sculpt and likely didn’t come cheap.

And there are hints that the new 200X line is intended to supplant the Cartoon Collection. If this turns out to be true, it means that the Cartoon Collection will forever be incomplete, because there are a lot of characters, both main characters like the Sorceress, Queen Marlena, Fisto, Scorpia, Mekaneck, Kobra Khan and pretty much the entire Great Rebellion except for Bow and Frosta as well as fascinating minor characters like Count Marzo, Evil Seed or Shokoti, still mising. Though at the Masters of the Universe panel. the Mattel representatives said that there were not abandoning the Cartoon Collection altogether.

Nonetheless, it is very frustrating that Mattel keeps starting new lines and sublines instead of completing the one they already have. This is even more notable in the Masterverse line – for those who don’t know, Masterverse is Mattel‘s 7-inch scale collector line – which is littered with abandoned sublines. And yes, I know that the main characters sell the best, but is it too much to ask to get a Queen Marlena or Count Marzo or Scorpia on occasion rather than the same five or six characters over and over again? They could even sell the less well known characters via Mattel Creations rather than at retail.

Which brings us to…

Assorted Crossovers

The current powers-that-be at Mattel love crossovers. And so we’ve had Masters of the Universe cross over with Wrestling, Stranger Things, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and most recently Thundercats. And in fact, there were more Thundercats crossover figures announced at the Mattel panel, including new versions of Lion-O and Panthro and Panthor-Man – basically Panthor as a Thundercats warrior. Panthor-Man is a no-brainer, since they already did Battle-Cat-Man and I’ll probably get him, but I really don’t need another Lion-O and Panthro, since these characters already appeared in the line (Lion-O) or have been announced (Panthro). Besides, there are still several Thundercats characters who haven’t yet been announced in this line like Jaga, WilyKit and WilyKat, Pumyra, Bengali, Lion-S, Snarf and all of the villains except for Mumm-Ra.

The fans have been divided on the crossovers. Some like them, especially if you happen to be a fan of both properties, while many others feel that Mattel is pouring too many resources into those crossovers (e.g. the Turtles of Grayskull versions of Moss-Man, Mer-Man and Rattlor looked cooler than the regular versions) and not enough into the regular Origins toyline. The fact that this year’s San Diego Comic Con exclusive was a Turtles of Grayskull Skeletor/Shredder mash-up with a throne rather than an Origins or Masterverse figure or set didn’t help either, though rumour has it that the Turtles of Grayskull throne was developed as an exclusive for a US retailer, probably Target or Walmart, who rejected it, so it was turned into a Comic Con exclusive. Nonetheless, I didn’t order the Skele-Shredder with throne. If he is drastically reduced somewhere down the line, I might get him, mostly because the throne is cool, but not at the regular price.

And now, pretty much out of the blue, Mattel announced yet another Masters of the Universe crossover, this time with Transformers. The first two figures, a Megatron/Skeletor and Bumblebee/Man-at-Arms mash-up, already went on sale at Mattel Creations during San Diego Comic Con. I didn’t order them, cause even though I like both properties, these figures just don’t do anything for me, which seems to be a pretty common feeling about those. They don’t actually transform – which is pretty much the point of Transformers – but are basically just Masters of the Universe characters in robotic looking armour. Mashing up Skeletor and Megatron at least makes sense, since both are the prime villains (would Evil-Lyn be Starscream then?), but Man-at-Arms/Bumblebee doesn’t work for me at all, because are very different characters. Actually, the best Transformers equivalent for Man-at-Arms would be Optimus Prime, because both are father figures – though Optimus as the main protagonist would probably be mashed up with He-Man. Whereas I see Bumblebee more as an Orko equivalent. And indeed, this video of the Masters of the Universe toy panel shows that an Orko/Bumblebee mash-up was considered as was a Bumblebee/Buzz-Off mash-up, which also makes sense.

ETA: According to Toy Habits, the mini-comic that comes with the Transformers/Masters of the Universe crossover figures teases a Starscream/Scareglow mash-up, which makes no real sense at all. Starscream is Megatron’s much abused second-in-command, which means that the logical Masters of the Universe equivalent would be either Evil-Lyn or maybe Beast-Man, though personally I think Lyn would work better, if only because I spent years assuming Starscream was female. Starscream is also intelligent like Lyn, while Beast-Man has been many things, but never particularly intelligent (unless you know his origin in the German audio dramas). That said, the comic does do a decent job explaining why Transformers inspired armour is suddenly the hottest trend in Eternia.

Which brings me to my main issue with those crossovers, namely why must everything be a mash-up? Now when I was a kid, all the characters from everything I ever liked (not limited to SFF franchises either – characters from various crime dramas also lived in this world as well as kiddie cartoon characters and even soap opera characters) as well as my own original characters all lived in the same universe and they all interacted with each other. Characters fell in love, married and had kids across franchise lines. They fought together, partied together, saved the universe together. If you’ve read the Darth Vader Parenthood Award for Outstandingly Horrible Fictional Parents and Jonathan and Martha Kent Fiction Parent of the Year Award posts, the respective ceremonies where everybody is interacting with everybody else is very much what it was like.

That’s also why the fact that most of the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie was set on Earth didn’t bother me as much as many others, because in my mind He-Man and friends had visited Earth before, though not to run around Whittier, California, but to visit Antwerp, because Antwerp was/is the secret center of my universe. Yes, I’m weird.

So in theory, I should be eating up those crossovers, because they canonise what I have been doing in my mind for forty-plus years. However, in my mind, there were no mash-ups between characters from different franchises, they just interacted with each other. No one felt the need to dress up like someone from a different franchise – okay, characters did dress in local clothing (which Gwildor actually does in the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie, though he accidentally wears women’s clothing) and everybody dressed to the nines when they went to a wedding or a big ball (an aspect that no toylines except Barbie and the vintage Princess of Power line ever addressed at all – where is my dress uniform Man-at-Arms or Adam in his formal funeral/coronation suit or the Adam/Teela wedding two-pack?). So what I want are characters from different franchises in the same scale, so they can interact with each other (and maybe occasionally a version in evening or party clothes), not characters from different franchises cosplaying as each other. And indeed, the main reason I bought the Thundercats crossover figures is, because I like Thundercats and this gives me Thundercats figures in scale with my Masters of the Universe figures and because they are a lot cheaper than the beautiful but expensive Thundercats figures from Super 7.

ETA: Pixel Dan made a video about the crossover and collaboration mania in the US toy industry. And he is right, those Godzilla Ninja Turtles crossover figures look like a lot of fun, though I won’t be buying them.

Which brings us to…

Masters of the Universe Masterverse

There were a lot of Masterverse figures revealed at San Diego Comic Con, more than I expected, because Masterverse is rumoured to be rebranding as a movie tie-in line next year, and they all look amazing.

In recent times, Masterverse has focussed mainly on their New Eternia and New Etheria sublines, which reimagine the classic characters in new and creative ways. The only other remaining Masterverse subline is the Vintage Collection, which offers the characters in a more classic look. I mourn many of the abandoned Masterverse sublines like Revelation/Revolution, New Adventures, Princess of Power, He-Man ’21 or Rulers of the Sun, especially since none of them were ever completed – Rulers of the Sun and He-Man ’21 had only two figures each, New Adventures had three – and I would have loved to finally get all the New Adventures characters, particularly the Space Mutants, in scale with other Masters of the Universe figures. But the New Eternia/New Etheria sublines have been a consistent joy, simply because they offer something new and different and even managed to make some of the sillier designs and characters like Terror Claws Skeletor or Snout Spout look cool.

Two Masterverse Vintage Collection figures randomly showed up at (I think) the Walmart site shortly before San Diego Comic Con, namely Stratos and Man-at-Arms. Stratos looks good and suitably different from the previously released New Eternia Stratos. Besides, there is a whole species of Avionians who all look rather similar, so having multiple slightly different Avionians is not a problem at all.

The Classics Hawke figure actually comes with two heads – that of Stratos’ sister Hawke and his wife Delora, so you can make two different Avionian women with one figure. I only have one Hawke, cause she’s kind of expensive, but if I ever find a second one for a good price, I’ll get her and give her the Delora head, so Stratos has his wife and sister.

The Vintage Collection Man-at-Arms looks good as well, but even though Duncan is one of my favourite characters, I’m not sure if I’ll get him. Like the vintage figure, the Vintage Collection Man-at-Arms has a clean-shaven face – his iconic mustache didn’t come in until the Filmation cartoon. And there certainly is a use for a clean-shaven Man-at-Arms to depict the younger Duncan. However, the New Eternia Man-at-Arms already came with both a mustachioed and a clean-shaven head and I have both versions on my shelf, since I bought a second one on clearance. So basically all that’s different about this Vintage Collection Man-at-Arms is that his armour and loincloth are a little different and that he has a sword. And that’s just not enough.

Meanwhile, the Masterverse figures revealed at San Diego Comic Con are all New Eternia/New Etheria figures (more New Etheria than New Eternia) and they’re all amazing.

The New Etheria Mantenna is pure nightmare fodder – in a good way. Mantenna is something of a goofy character and often used for comic relief, particularly in the Filmation She-Ra cartoon, where Hordak keeps dropping him through the trapdoor in front of his throne. But this version of Mantenna shows how scary the character can truly be.

The New Etheria Mosquitor looks great, very insectoid and very scary, once again demonstrating that the Horde is supposed to be terrifying. However, I couldn’t help but notice that the emblem on his chest – which was translucent plastic behind which you could see the blood of his victims churning on the original figure – has been replaced by a plain silver armour piece. It’s obvious that Mosquitor wouldn’t have his vintage blood pumping action feature, but I would have preferred it if they had used translucent red plastic to simulate the blood, just as with the Classics figure. Because Mosquitor just isn’t the same without the blood. I mean, Mosquitor is an insectoid vampire monster who sucks his victims dry (and he was once deemed either too scary or too unsafe for German children, which is why he was never sold here in the 1980s) and his action figure should at least hint at this.

Pixel Dan, who’s a huge Mosquitor fan and had an epic freak-out upon seeing this figure, asked one of the Mattel designers about the lack of any blood on the figure and received the answer that apparently Mosquitor will have interchangeable chest plates, some of which do show the blood, once again rendered as translucent red plastic. And indeed, the interchangeable chest plates are shown off during a later walkthrough and interview with the lead designer by Pixel Dan.

The New Etheria Dragstor looks great and Sebastian from Planet Eternia will be very happy indeed to get two Dragstors – though interestingly enough he said at the latest He-Manisches Quartett podcast that he felt lukewarm about the New Etheria Dragstor because of too many departures from the vintage figure. Meanwhile, I love that this version of Dragstor has wheels instead of hands. It not only fits the character, who is a hybrid between a human and a race car, but also shows the full body horror aspect of the Evil Horde, because Dragstor was once an ordinary Eternian who was kidnapped by the Horde, brainwashed and turned into a vehicle against his will. The fact that he has wheels instead of hands now hammers home that aspect, since Dragstor can’t even open a door or drink a cup of coffee after his transformation.

BTW, part of the reason Dragstor is so popular in Germany is because of his prominent appearances in the German audio dramas. Except that writer H.G. Francis had no idea what Dragstor looked like and assumed he was a dragon character based on the name [To be fair, what little we see of Dragstor’s face does look rather reptilian]. So audio drama Dragstor rides around on the evil mechanical horse Night Stalker (even depicted on the cover of episode 33), which makes no sense at all, because he can literally turn into a car.

The truth is that the Evil Horde is utterly terrifying. They are an evil galactic empire, “spreading through the galaxy like a virus”, conquering and enslaving every planet in their path. So far, so standard, however, what sets the Horde apart from other evil galactic empires is that their most prominent members are literally monsters from classic horror movies and comics. We have Nosferatu (Hordak), the Wolf-Man (Grizzlor), the Creature from the Black Lagoon (Leech), Frankenstein’s Monster, only creepier (Modulok), a bug-eyed monster (Mantenna), Irina from Cat People (Catra), an evil witch (Shadow Weaver), a mutant insect (Mosquitor), a killer robot (Multi-Bot and also the Horde Troopers) and a scorpion woman (Scorpia). Their headquarters is called the Fright Zone (coming soon to my display) and either looks like a horror film set (toy) or a Gigeresque industrial nightmare (cartoon). Several Horde members (Leech and Mosquitor) have the ability to suck out the life force of their victims. The Fright Zone itself can suck the life out of planets and people, which is why its surroundings always are a polluted wasteland. If the Horde conquers a planet, they will not only suck the land dry and leave behind a polluted wasteland, but they will also enslave the population. The Horde steals children, often the children of local rulers, but also ordinary kids, and raises them to become Horde members. The Horde also brainwashes pretty much everybody, including their own members. What is more, the Horde is a hotbed of intergenerational abuse. Hordak was a victim of abuse at the hands of Horde Prime, who is his brother in most versions, and bullies and abuses his subordinates in turn. Shadow Weaver, his second in command, abuses her adoptive daughters Adora and Catra. Finally, the Horde experiments on captured victims to turn them into weird body horror human-machine hybrids like Dragstor or Snout Spout, a firefighter who was given a metallic elephant head by Horde science, but managed to break his conditioning and fights with the good guys.

The Horde has always been a not very subtle metaphor for colonialism, but they are also utterly terrifying, even if most media portrayals soften the horror aspects somewhat. The Filmation She-Ra cartoon only hints at the full horror of the Horde, because it was aimed at children and subject to pretty strict content guidelines. They were pretty scary in the 200X cartoon, but only made a cameo appearance, because the cartoon was cancelled before they could be fully introduced. The 2018 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power cartoon focusses a lot on the intergenerational abuse aspect of the Horde and did manage to make the Horde appear scary, particularly in the final season, when Horde Prime shows up, but the 2018 cartoon also makes Hordak’s operation on Etheria seem more like a super-toxic workplace than a terrifying unstoppable force. The Horde in the 2018 cartoon is more like the Brake Vocational School (the most toxic place where I ever worked, so toxic that I left after a month and still got bullied after it was clear that I was leaving) than an evil galactic empire. The closest that we’ve ever come to seeing the full horror of the Horde depicted was in the DC Eternity War comics and Masters of the Universe Revolution, where Grizzlor, Leech and Mantenna reduce poor Stonedar to rubble within seconds, while Hordak is lounging on his throne.

Which brings us to the final Horde member revealed at San Diego Comic Con, namely a New Etheria Despara a.k.a. Force Captain Adora. This is a new look for the character, which blends the Despara from the DC Eternity War comics with Force Captain Adora from The Secret of the Sword.  The Hordak mask, somewhat more stylised here, is from Despara who wears it in honour of the man she believes is her father, but she has the longer hairstyle of Adora from the Filmation cartoon rather than Despara’s buzz cut. The dual swords are from the Eternity War comics, but the armour is not Despara’s black armour, but looks more reminiscent of the armour female human Horde members like Adora’s friend Lonnie wore in the Filmation cartoon.  All in all, it’s a great look and there are interchangeable heads (which means you could make Filmation Lonnie), too, plus it seems as if the armour is removable. What is more, considering Adora is one of the main characters of Masters of the Universe, there have been very few toys of her made in the past forty years. This is only the third Adora figure ever and the third Despara.

All of the New Etheria Masterverse figures look great. However, one thing is glaringly obvious. Except for the New Etheria She-Ra figure, which came out last month, they’re all Horde members. There is not a single Great Rebellion member in sight nor any of the female Horde members. The Cartoon Collection did a little better and gave us Great Rebellion members Bow and Frosta in addition to a bunch of Horde characters. But nonetheless, it is glaringly obvious that Mattel has decided to celebrate She-Ra’s fortieth anniversary by releasing versions of She-Ra in every conceivable toyline (there’s even a She-Ra Barbie) as well as her archenemies, the very same people who kidnapped and abused her, in toy form. In fact, it seems as if Mattel is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Evil Horde, featuring She-Ra. This is not only offensive, but also very illustrative that Mattel is still trapped in the same gender-essentialist bullshit that has kept He-Man and She-Ra apart for forty years. Note that the male Horde characters were all released in the He-Man toyline back in the 1980s – only Catra and Entrapta came out in the She-Ra line – because the powers-that-be at Mattel believed that little girls didn’t want monsters. They clearly never saw me playing with my Imperial Toys rubber monsters.

In fact, Mattel almost seems to be scared to release the members of the Great Rebellion in any toyline, because they are mostly female as well as pink, pastel and glittery and look like a Pride Parade, plus they have cutesy allies like Kowl, Loo-Kee or Madame Razz. In short, they might scare the male fans away, because Masters of the Universe is serious business with serious monsters and serious muscles.

It’s complete nonsense, because a lot fans would love to see more Princess of Power characters in either Masterverse or Origins or preferably both. There are even people who would love to see the Princess of Power characters in their toy looks, which are even more girly and glittery than the Filmation looks. And many of those fans are male. Indeed, I have heard from several male Masters of the Universe fans that they wanted Princes of Power toys as kids, but weren’t allowed to have them, because of gender-essentialist bullshit and parents fearing playing with She-Ra would turn little boys gay (that’s not how it works). Are there Masters of the Universe fans who don’t want Princess of Power characters at all or who only want the Horde members? Of course. But many of us love She-Ra and her supporting cast and would love to see more of them. Just think what the New Etheria line could do with Catra or Bow or Glimmer or Angella or Entrapta or Scorpia or Mermista?

Another theory about Mattel‘s reluctance to release more Princess of Power characters was mentioned on the “Eternia Four” podcast on the For Eternia YouTube channel. Allegedly, Mattel is deliberately holding back on releasing She-Ra characters, because they want to persuade Dreamworks, who now own the rights to everything Filmation ever made, including the She-Ra rights, which were shared between Mattel and Filmation, to sell the She-Ra rights back to Mattel. But if She-Ra is seen to be too popular and lucrative, Dreamworks will be less likely to sell. It’s a similar strategy to what Disney did, when they wanted to get the Fantastic Four and X-Men movie rights back from 20th Century Fox, except that Disney wound up buying Fox outright in the end. Mattel buying Dreamworks outright is not going to happen, but I do hope they get the She-Ra rights back and that we will see He-Man and She-Ra together on screen again after forty years and that we will get more Princess of Power characters in toy form.

Returning to (New) Eternia, the reinterpretation of Moss-Man looks great. It sets him apart from Beast-Man (the original Moss-Man was just Beast-Man with green flocking as was the 200X Moss-Man) and leans into the Green Man vibes of the character and perfectly captures the fact that he is an ancient nature god. It’s notable that this Moss-Man has no flocking – unlike his vintage, Classics and Origins figures – and neither does the Moss-Man from the new 200X line, which does seem to bother quite a few people. But then I think that flocking is on its way out for environmental (microplastic), durability (it sheds and older flocked toys often look terrible) and cost reasons. At any rate, I see fewer flocked toys in general, including toys that you’d expect to be flocked like the Masterverse Panthor. Sylvanian Families figures are still flocked for now, though I wonder if this will last.

Next, we have Anti-Eternia He-Man. For those who don’t know, Anti-Eternia He-Man is the He-Man from another universe, who is as powerful as the regular He-Man (and He-Man has Superman or Hulk level strength), but utterly evil. The character was created by H.G. Francis for the German Masters of the Universe audio drama series and appeared in episode 11, entitled “Anti-Eternia”. According to former brand manager Scott Neitlich, Mattel was initially unwilling to accept this character – because they thought he was a racist concept – and flat out refused to make an Anti-Eternia He-Man action figure, but this has since changed and so Anti-Eternia He-Man appeared at the tail-end of the Classics line as well as in Origins, the Eternia Minis line and as a deluxe large-scale Mondo figure. The reason for this is obvious. Anti-Eternia He-Man is fairly easy to make, because he is basically a repaint of He-Man in different colours.

The Masterverse Anti-Eternia He-Man actually does have quite a few new parts. His harness and loincloth are different, he has a new shield and is sporting a helmet modelled after Castle Hellskull, Anti-Eternia’s version of Castle Grayskull. He also comes with three Power Swords in a reference to Anti-Eternia He-Man’s other prominent media appearance (and the one that non-German fans are most likely to be familiar with) in the comic mini-series Masters of the Multiverse by Tim Seeley and Dan Fraga, in which Anti-Eternia He-Man goes in a rampage across the Multiverse to murder other He-Men and steal their Power Swords to gain the ultimate power, until a most unlikely alliance comes together to stop him. It’s a great comic mini-series and you should really read it. The three Power Swords the Masterverse figure comes with are the New Adventures sword (Anti-Eternia He-Man murders New Adventures He-Man in the second issue), the 1987 movie sword (the Dolph Lundgren He-Man is part of the alliance that tries to stop Anti-Eternia He-Man and meets his end at the hands of Anti-Eternia He-Man) and the Power Sword of the He-Man whom Anti-Eternia He-Man murders in the opening scene – apparently based on a sttaue or a Mondo figure.

Coincidentally, Masterverse packaging artist Simon Eckert said on the He-Manisches Quartett podcast that a Mattel designer asked him for his input on a specific figure. I’m pretty sure this was Anti-Eternia He-Man, because Simon Eckert is the person who designed Anti-Eternia He-Man and Castle Hellskull for the cover of the German fanzine Welt der Meister Magazin. Since Anti-Eternia He-Man originated in an audio drama, there was no visual representation of the character or Castle Hellskull before – only a description. And indeed, one of the Mattel designers explicitly namechecks Simon Eckert as well as the Masters of the Multiverse comic series in this interview with Mega Jay Retro.

Last but not least, we have Anti-Eternia He-Man’s sworn enemy, Prince Keldor (known as Skeletor in most universes). This is a most welcome surprise, because I didn’t really expect that we’d get another Keldor figure in Masterverse, since we already got King Keldor from Masters of the Universe Revolution. And if we got another Keldor figure in Masterverse, I would have expected Horde Acolyte Keldor from Revolution (easy to do, since he’s basically Horde Skeletor with a Keldor head and non-monster feet) over this.

This new Masterverse Keldor comes with two interchangeable heads, a hooded head which looks somewhat skull-like, though not yet a fully blown Skeletor, and what appears to be a reuse of the Classics Keldor head. I initially assumed that this was supposed to be the Keldor from the Masters of the Multiverse comic mini-series, where Keldor is the protagonist who is approached by two He-Men to help take down his wayward nephew Anti-Eternia He-Man. If this really is supposed to be the Masters of the Multiverse Keldor, I wish he looked a little less sinister, because that Keldor is a good guy, quite possibly the only Keldor in the Multiverse who is not evil. But the costume doesn’t really match that of Masters of the Multiverse Keldor and neither do the heads – Masters of the Multiverse Keldor has no facial hair and the facial injuries he receives in the course of the series don’t look like that. So maybe this is just a New Eternia version of Keldor who is evil like the rest of them. And in fact, Pixel Dan‘s interview with a Mattel designer confirms that this is New Eternia Keldor, not Masters of the Multiverse Keldor. Though if I’d still love to get Masters of the Multiverse Keldor, i.e. good guy Keldor eventually as well as He-Skeletor, especially since he is also easy to do – basically just a He-Man repaint in blue with slightly different armour.

One display case was still covered up on the preview night. A lot of us expected movie-related reveals, but then it turned out to be the Transformers crossover and the Snake Lair. But talking of the live action Masters of the Universe movie, the actual movie props of He-Man’s Power Sword and Skeletor’s Havoc Staff were on display at San Diego Comic Con as well and they look great. Sadly, there was no Masters of the Universe movie panel nor did we get a trailer or a decent teaser, just a video with the title/logo in umpteen languages. Filming finished a few weeks ago and there was a teaser shown at CinemaCon, an industry event for movie theatre owners, so they do have footage to show off.

At any rate, the reveals at the 2025 San Diego Comic Con prove that Masters of the Universe is far from dead, regardless of what a certain former brand manager (though he has been suspiciously silent of late) and umpteen German YouTubers (not silent, unfortunately, but making videos proclaiming the impending end of Masters of the Universe) claim.

And when the live action movie comes out next year, we can expect a flurry of merchandise, including movie figures.

Other Cool Toys

Of course, there were also plenty of non-Masters of the Universe toys revealed at San Diego Comic Con.

One thing that caught my eye were several Battlestar Galactica figures, based on 1978 original series, which I loved back in the day. There’s Apollo (one of my first crushes), Starbuck, Boomer, two Cylons, a Colonial Viper and Commander Adama, though oddly enough it’s the Edward James Olmos Commander Adama, while everybody else is in their classic 1978 looks.  These are definitely tempting, though in the end it depends on availability and price.

Another toyline from the 1980s that’s made a comeback is Jem. A company named The Loyal Subjects is making new Jem dolls. They already did Jem/Jerrica and Synergy and showed off Pizzazz and they just unveiled Glitter and Gold Jem as well as the Holograms Aya, Kimber and Shana. I loved the Jem cartoon back in the day and it still holds up remarkably well, so these dolls are very tempting, though once again it depends on price and availability.  You can order these dolls on The Loyal Subjects website, but the shipping costs are the big questions.

But whatever I wind up getting in the end, expect photos.