It has taken long enough, but we finally have the REAL version of Evil Seed in Masters of the Universe Classics!
I kid, I KID … kinda. Please, those weren’t “shots fired” and I am not starting an “era war” that some people like to attach to any conversation that does not support their preferred version of a character. So calm down. Please. I personally live in a MOTU world where both versions of Evil Seed can exist, but at the same time, I am not going to temper my unabashed excitement to finally have my preferred version of Evil Seed on my shelf. Ever since it was announced that Mattel could produce figures based on the Filmation series, he has been on my top-five most-wanted list. So, since several years have passed, having him now is just as much relief as it is excitement, especially as MOTUC transitions from Mattel to Super7.
Evil Seed remains one of the most memorable characters from the HMatMotU cartoon even to this day for me, and while I LOVE Skeletor and his crew, I am a very big proponent of getting more “independent” villains in the line. Evil Seed certainly qualifies as the latter, and in his featured episode, he brought all of Eternia to its knees, and it took the combined efforts of He-Man AND Skeletor (working together no less) to put a stop to him. That is a whole lot of evilness at one level, but since his goal was to take back Eternia for the plants, I have to have a bit of respect for his endeavor.
The “master of plants” persona easily made him identifiable as “yin” to Moss Man’s “yang” (stop laughing), even though they shared no association on the old show. As was customary for the villains, though, Evil Seed was dispatched by the end of the episode and never heard from again. To this day I remain sad that was his only appearance, but it makes me really appreciate the impact he had overall, and the talented people at Filmation really did a great job in making him memorable. Frankly, watching the episode now still creeps me out a bit.
A lot of that had to do with Evil Seed’s very unique design. There are very few MOTU fans that ride this one down the middle in terms of preference: you are either correct and love it, or very, very wrong and hate it. Ha! Frankly, I think the character design is inspired – he doesn’t just look like a whole loves plants, he actually LOOKS like a plant. The conical and decidedly creepy design of his head recalls an unopened flower or seed pod, and since Evil Seed was fighting to turn Eternia into an overgrown utopia for all things green, I wonder if maybe he look would have changed as well, as if he would have gained a second and stronger form in his desired world.
Most of the rest of his body was covered by long brown robes which added to his mystery, and this new figure actually helps reveal more than what we saw onscreen (though previously revealed production designs also support this), and that his body was a tangled mass of vines. Again, this draws his origins even closer to the plant world and really offsets his design from the very standard muscle-bound body type of most of the rest of the MOTU pantheon. Furthermore, that helps drive home that Evil Seed’s real threat comes from his abilities, and not his physical might. All of those things, coupled with his powers, and his chilling voice made for an impactful enemy that helps make the already colorful world of Eternia even more amazing.
Fortunately for all of us, the Filmation Evil Seed has gotten a figure that delivers at every level and stands as a near-perfect representation of the character. The Club Grayskull figures have had some very tight quality assurance and production value, and Evil Seed is a great example of what we have come to expect. I am a broken record in saying that the Four Horsemen have delivered another fantastic sculpt, and as can easily be deduced, the figure is 100 percent new with no previous reuse from other figures. If that benefit was bestowed because he is the subscription-exclusive, then so be it because the character design really demanded it. Plus, I am willing to bet that, if Super7 DOES continue to produce MOTUC, there are at least a couple of characters that could easily make use (at least in part) of that robed body.
The figure also includes two accessories, both of which show off Evil Seed’s mastery of the vegetative world. Both are vine attachments, but there are some neat things about them that showed some forethought from the design team at Mattel to really make them successful. Both are made a really rubbery material that helps carry out the intended purpose of the vines as implements of evil machinations. The first is a stream of vines that can be attached to his hand to look as though he is casting his environmentally friendly weapons. That is cool and all, but the other one, it is REALLY cool because these vines can stretch over the torso of a standard Classics figure to look as though it has been tied up in the green stuff. I REALLY dig this feature, and as I said, it is a thoughtful weapon for the character, but also well executed to serve its purpose well. My only nit is that I wish the light green paint highlights were more varied in color from the base so they would stand out more, but that is a bit trivial.
YAAAASSSSSS! I am so thrilled to get MY Evil Seed figure in the Classics line, and the fact that he turned out so great makes him even better. Plus, now I can use the 200x figure to be his head brute minion (because, let’s face it, that is pretty much where his characterization took him in the MYP cartoon). He can been Evil Weed, or maybe Crab Grass, as Benty suggested many moon ago. If you did not subscribe to the Club Grayskull, hopefully you have a friend that did, or it’s off to eBay for you. I can assure you, though, this Evil Seed is really worth it and he is probably one of my favorite MOTU figures released this year. He is awesome.
