Masters of the Universe had a big presence at the San Diego Comic Con this year. Mattel made a big splash with their reveals (Snake Mountain, anyone?), and they announced that Masters would be getting a big push from now since there is a movie in the works.
That means we will be seeing more media presence, licensees, and product diversification – the latter is both a blessing and curse for those of us that tend to buy just about anything representative of this property. Just to show they mean business, Mattel’s new partnership with Super7 was unveiled for Comic Con, and there were all kinds of new products being offered up at the Skeletor’s Lair pop-up store. One of the items that is still getting a lot of buzz is the “Stage One Prototype” action figures, and being the good MOTU fans that we are, we grabbed a set to bring you the skinny.
For those of you who did not know Super7, they are company that specializes in most artistic vinyl toys with limited production runs. However, they are probably best known for their Alien figures that were released last year and the subsequent partnership with Funko in bringing us the diverse 3¾ throwback ReAction line. So, while these Stage One Prototypes fit pretty closely with that model, the pop-up store had a very diverse spread, from tumblers to t-shirts to Chia Pets, and I am a bit embarrassed about the amount of money I dropped there. These Stage One figures are certainly getting the most chatter, though, because their hypothetical existence from the early 1980s asks a question that could have turned the property on its head.
We all know that one of the defining traits of Masters of the Universe is that the original action figures were built on chunky, hyper-muscular bodies there were unlike anything seen in the action figure world up to that point. But Super7 poses the question: what if MOTU had been developed a few years earlier using the then industry-standard five points of articulation 3¾” figure base made famous by Star Wars? Masters of the Universe would have a completely different look and feel to it today had that been the case, and Super7 has put together a group of four figures that represent what that look might have been. The result? A charming, yet somehow disconcerting collection of “prototypes” that really make you wonder what could have been.
I say disconcerting because, while I find this to be an interesting and very fun exercise, I cannot imagine what MOTU would have been had this direction been taken. So I don’t think this is something that most collectors would value or even consider to be “the new thing, or how it should have been” (though reading around the Internet, some people seem to be genuinely outraged at their existence, which is . . . typical), but when you can go back for a bit of faux revisionist history, it is fun to see the results.
That being said, I think the guys at Super7 pretty much nailed what He-Man, Skeletor, Beastman, and Mer-Man would have looked like in the 1970s, at least in the unpainted prototype form. These have been given the standard five points of articulation and the sculpts, while very retro and stylized to fit the quality of the times, are done very well and accomplish exactly what they set out to do. I actually like that these are unpainted “first passes” because when there is no paint present, you get to see how the sculpt stands on its own, and these are all very interesting. They run the gamut of fairly heavy redesign (Skeletor) to pretty much exactly how I would picture the character retrofitted into this style (Mer-Man).
They guys at Super7 are obviously big fans of the MOTU villains (as am I) so I really dig this character roster. He-Man was going to be a given, as was Skeletor, but I love that they picked Beastman and Mer-Man to round out the set. In fact, the latter two are my favorites of the group (big surprise on Mer-Man, I know) and those designs, coupled with the perfect color of cast plastic, make the set for me and I glad I picked it up. As I said, Mer-Man is pretty perfectly translated over, and Beastman is too; He-Man doesn’t have that default “He-Man look” to him, but the adapted look fits perfectly with the style. Skeletor is the furthest departure from the original, in my opinion, and the bone structure in the face is completely different from the real vintage line, and it drastically changes his look. That doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing, just that Skeletor might have felt like a very different villain had he debuted in this style.
Am I glad I picked up this set? Absolutely. Am I also glad that this is NOT the style that MOTU took when it debuted so many years ago? You better believe it. Like I said, I love this exercise in re-imagination, and I hope that we see more from Super7 – both in character and production past the “prototype” stage, but I shudder to think about how different Masters would be today if this would have been how it started. I will be on board for all of what might come from this line because I love MOTU so much, but I am glad that these exist now — instead of then. Super7 is really good at what they do, so I am very interested to see how they proceed as a partner to Mattel; it is like the union of total opposites, but, somehow, it worked out very well in its own unique way.
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