Masters of the Universe Classics has been going strong since 2008’s SDCC exclusive King Grayskull. That’s 11 years full of releases. It has outlived its vintage inspiration, and has dumped dozens upon dozens of new characters and different takes into our laps. Even with all the figures we’ve received, it continues to find new ways to refresh old characters. While the Filmation cartoon inspired figures might not appeal to everyone, I am in the camp of enjoying these decidedly animated-looking counterparts to familiar faces.
The newest wave of figures should be landing on doorsteps everywhere. This wave is all Filmation versions of regular figures, so there’s no new characters here, just different takes. The animation style is stripped down, simpler, and lacks the so-called “Classicized” elements many have come to expect in the regular offerings. I’ll be covering the good guys today, and the bad guys on Wednesday.
I will admit something upfront; it’s hard to come up with new things to say with any new round. The figures follow a familiar formula in terms of articulation and appearance. There’s the single jointed knees, the single jointed elbows, the same type of hips with varying flexible loincloth coverings or skirt options, the same type of heads. There has been the welcome addition of wrist and ankle joints that vary from the older figures, but otherwise, the consistency remains…consistent. And that same consistency will be a plus for some people, and a minus for others.
Let’s start off with someone who only made a handful of appearances in the cartoon: Fisto
I loved Fisto as a kid, and was happy when he finally showed up on the cartoon. While there was always a part of me that wanted to see a huge onscreen fight between Fisto and Jitsu, that was not to be, since Jitsu only showed up as Chopper and was barely there. Fisto got a little more screen time, but he was still one of those characters that was relegated to only a handful of appearances. Since the cartoon was not what you would call “violent” outside of a few judicious tosses there and there, a character like Fisto, who walks around with an instrument of pure face-punching glee at the end of his arm, could never live up to the promise of that big metal fist.
The figure itself looks like his animated counterpart right down to that burly beard, which, while not as complex as the previous Fisto’s Classics-styled beard, still looks like it deserves to be on the wrapper of a roll of paper towels.
My Fisto has one eye that has a little Jack Elam tilt to it, but otherwise it’s an excellent cartoon replica. His oversized fist lacks the silvery punch of the Classics version, but the gray is faithful to the cartoons look and it works overall as a duller metal. With Fisto I really only need one thing: can he punch? Yes, he can punch. Sold.
Despite his hand being a weapon in and of itself, Fisto also comes with a sword. I’ve never been of a mind that either Fisto or Jitsu need swords since they both carry giant metal hands around, but I’m also not going to turn down an accessory with a figure as stripped down as this. Besides, who am I to say Fisto isn’t all “punch slice punch slice punch slice” whenever the bad guys come to town?
All the articulation that is here works as well as expected. I still retain a bit of paranoia that my hips will be stuck after way too many Mattel figures (and a Super7 or two) that needed to be put in the freezer, but Fisto’s hips were fine. As the torso is a new sculpt there is no ab crunch. The most hinderance in articulation comes at the neck. Like all MotUC figures, The peg is a ball, but the clearance there is engineered so there’s not much in the way of motion outside of just side to side. They have the potential to have so much expressive mobility if the ball was utilized correctly, but it’s the weakest area.
Overall, though, Fisto is a satisfying version of the character if you’re into the animation aesthetic.
Up next we take a look at She-ra.
She-ra has had a few figures so far, but none have been as straight from the screen as this one. In the’80s, She-ra’s action figure was much more stereotypically “girl’s toy” than “boy’s toy,” with a different aesthetic and rooted hair that didn’t match up to the vintage line, and the MoTUC She-ra featured some classicized elements, so this is really the first opportunity to get a purely cartoon version that looks like what most people are going to be familiar with. If you watched the Princess of Power cartoon and pined for a figure of that She-ra, you’re more or less getting your wish.
After my Filmation Sorceress had a paintjob that looked as if someone threw paint at it from across the room, I’ve been skittish about face paint of the females in the line, but I got a good one this time around. Everything looks like it is where it’s supposed to be, with two eyes that are facing more or less in the right direction and are the same color. It ain’t perfect, but it’ll do.
The hair features a bit more flex than the previous She-ra figures, at least from what I remember, so she’s able to turn her head a bit more than I was expecting. She has no bicep cuts but features the swivel hinge elbows that streamline articulation. I don’t mind that here, as the previous single joint + bicep swivel would have allowed the same range of motion anyway.
She has wrist hinges that go side to side, but there’s enough give in her grip that she can fake the sword-aloft pose despite the hinges not being set up to do so.
Like many other females in the line, she doesn’t have hip swivels, just regular joints, so you do lose a bit of motion there. The torso is solid, but she has a waist swivel at her belt. The ankles are the new-style so you can get her heeled feet to cooperate a little better than with the older-style articulation.
She-ra comes with a cartoon-styled version of her sword, plus a shield (sword-to-shield) and boomerang (sword-to-boomerang). Since her sword was capable of transforming into different things on the show, I like the inclusion of a couple of things to replicate that particular peculiar power. Who among us doesn’t find that we need a boomerang at odd times in our life?
These are not going to be for everyone, but for those who are up for new variations of old favorites or who may have been pining for these versions since the cartoon aired, both of these do their job nicely. Come back on Wednesday when the bad guys take over.