Review > The Goddess (Masters of the Universe Classics)

"So, for $149.99 you get the vest, the axe, and the shield..."The second Masters of the Universe Classics bonus figure, the Goddess, is a product of the line’s two imperatives: to offer a lot of character variety, and to re-use molds as often as possible.

In the early days of MOTU, the origins of Teela and the character who would eventually become the Sorceress were very murky and intertwined. They were always intended to be different characters, as concept art by Mark Taylor shows; but somewhere between the early concepts and the production of the first mini-comics it became unclear who was who. Rather than producing two separate figures, Teela and the Goddess/Sorceress, Mattel produced one figure with aspects and accessories from both characters: the staff and snake armor of the Goddess, and the shield and hair-bun-wearing head of Teela.

Those first mini-comics confused the matter even further. I’m planning to go into this topic in much more detail later, but in her first mini-comics appearance in “He-Man and the Power Sword,” the character was called “the Sorceress”–and she was green. It isn’t until “The Tale of Teela” that she’s referred to as “The Goddess.” Over the years, fans began to view the Goddess as a different character–apart from Teela and the Sorceress–and now Mattel has canonized that idea in MOTUC.

Oh, and then there’s the whole “Her real name is Sharella” thing. That comes from a one-sentence mention in the description of He-Ro from the “Powers of Grayskull” licensing kit, where she’s described as a “tribal chieftess” who helps train He-Ro. But wait…there’s more. The “Sharella” name on the package is actually a sticker, and if you peel it off, you’ll find the name “K’yrulla”! That name seems to be original and doesn’t have any historical significance for MOTU, but it’s amusing that even now, the Goddess’s identity is something of an open question.

Packaging: Same great MOTUC packaging, though unfortunately the one new accessory–the spear–is hidden behind the figure. Still, I like how they sort of hung the Power Vest on the axe, as in the mini-comic image above.

Design & Sculpt: Let’s face it–this is a clear green Teela. She’s so much of a repaint I originally wasn’t planning to get her, until I realized I was never going to display Teela with her snake armor on. The Goddess offered me a way of doing that.

From that perspective, I viewed her a bit more favorably. I really like the sculpt and texture of the snake armor. Plus, with the snake armor on, the Goddess looks much better holding Teela’s snake-headed Staff of Ka than Teela does without the armor–and you can give the more plain staff to Teela, who was originally supposed to come with it anyway.

However, by re-using the Teela sculpt, the figure isn’t completely accurate–the feathers on the pelvis aren’t present on the Goddess (see above), and in fact, even the unproduced 1980s figure wasn’t going to have them. As I recently remarked in regard to the upcoming MOTUC Evil-lyn, I think the feathers should have been sculpted as a separate piece from the rest of the outfit. It would have allowed both the Goddess and Evil-lyn to have different ornamentation and increased the value and appeal of both figures.

I haven’t been too critical of the $20 price point for these figures, but this is one place where Mattel took the cheap route, and it bugs me. A lot. Not enough that I don’t like the figure, but it cost the figure a whole raven in the Overall section.

One more minor sculpt-related point: the gauntlets should be reversed, based on the art above. They were sculpted as-is for Teela, whose art depicted them reversed from the actual figure; but I believe, given the size and shape of the forearms, they could have been swapped in the factory and it would have looked fine. Of course, it’s an easy swap to make yourself. I don’t actually care enough to do so, but it’s worth pointing out.

Plastic & Paint: I will give props to Mattel and the Horsemen for realizing that molding the figure in plain green plastic would have been going a bit too far. Instead, she’s made from translucent green plastic, giving the figure an ethereal, ghostly look. It’s a nice touch and goes a long way toward making the figure less of a plain repaint.

The rest of the paint applications on my figure are fairly clean, with little noticeable slop. Again I’m impressed with the work on the snake armor, which has a great look and feel.

Articulation: The Goddess has a ball-jointed head, ball-jointed shoulders and hips, hinges at the elbows, knees and ankles (as well as excellent side-to-side movement on the ankles), and swivels at the biceps, wrists and the top of the boots. Theoretically there’s also a waist swivel, but like Teela it’s rendered immobile by the one-piece outfit.

As with Teela, the head is loose, and the Goddess is a bit of a bobblehead. There are a number of ways to correct the problem, but the one I’d prefer is that Mattel develops a better peg for the head and neck and uses it on Evil-lyn.

Accessories: I’ll say this for her–the Goddess comes loaded with accessories. The problem is that, with one exception, we’ve seen them all before. She comes with He-Man’s axe, shield and Power Vest, Teela’s shield, and a new spear.

The spear, as mentioned above, is based on the original conception of Teela, and I many fans–including me–will be swapping the spear for Teela’s Staff of Ka. It’s a nice weapon, and it even has a touch of paint applications on the spearhead.

However, there’s one more thing that needs to be mentioned: the Power Vest. On the original and reissue He-Man figures, the Power Vest appears to be made of dark plastic painted a fairly dark shade of gray, and is prone to paint chipping and scratching. The Power Vest that comes with the Goddess is molded in a lighter gray, which makes the red parts really pop, and better matches the original He-Man’s look.

I was pleasantly surprised by the vest and immediately put it on my He-Man. Perhaps more than anything else, the vest made me glad I picked up a Goddess.

Quality Control: Aside from the loose neck joint, no problems.

Overall: Ultimately, the Goddess is just a Teela repaint. But she does have a number of things going for her. She’s a unique character, she allows you to display both regular Teela and the snake armor version, she’s molded in translucent plastic, she comes with a new staff, and the He-Man vest that she comes with is arguably better than the one that actually comes with He-Man. All that makes me glad I picked her up, but as always, your mileage may vary.

[raven 2.5]

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14 Comments

  1. colin

    AWESOME!

    They sent a replacement!!!!!

    Theyre great!

  2. PrfktTear

    Sorry to hear that Colin… keep us posted!

  3. Colin

    I was so excited. I opened the packet…lifted her up to the light…and her leg fell off.

    Im so sad. this happened yesturday. I have emailed Matty collector.

  4. A great review Poe!

    I certainly couldn't have been so neutral. 🙂

  5. I've always been a huge fan of this character. It was nice to see her getting more attention when Baena's artwork went online, and it's so awesome to finally get her as an action-figure.

    However, the bobblehead really bugs me. And I still think that Mattel wasted a great opportunity when they didn't repaint the He-Man accessoires with bluish highlights, reflecting the early minicomics.

  6. Another great review. Perhaps the next time you could do a video opening the toy 🙂

  7. dayraven

    i love her.. and will so all the more after completing my warrior woman teela next month.

  8. Uki

    Another great review, Poe! I look forward to getting my Goddess out of her plastic prison tomorrow morning!

  9. I have mixed feelings on this one. There's things I don't like, but they're more in concept that execution. I'm holding off on my review until I know what to think.

    Thanks for the review, Poe!

  10. AmericanHyena

    And what's got two thumbs and single handedly (albeit accidentally) convinced Poe to get Goddess?

    http://www.poeghostal.com/2009/09/mattel-invokes-

    *THIS* guy.

    :-p

    (I takes my ego boosts where I can get 'em.)

    On a side note, have you tried putting Teela's armor on Goddess Poe? I find I actually like the darker tone and green eyes on her better.

  11. Fender Strat

    The Green Skrull Queen Veranke. Just give her pointy ears and lose the headress. Speaking of which, Hasbro needs to jump on the ball and make on. The Invasion figures are just slowly trickling out with the Gigantic Battles.

  12. Thomas B

    nice review

    i like my goddess. she had a bit of a warped leg but i fixed it in about 30 sec.

    the neck joint was loose but i wrapped a rubber band around the neck and no more loose neck.

    i LOVE clear figures and she adds alot of pizazz to my MOTUC collection.

  13. PrfktTear

    I haven't freed my Goddess open from her packaging. I'm waiting 'til tomorrow to give myself a toy to open on Christmas morning.

    I've been all about Goddess since they announced her. As a kid I didn't get many of the earlier mini-comics having gotten many of my figures second hand. However, I did have the original minicomic, the cover was printed on a firmer card stock rather than the glossy paper the later comics were given. So I've been aware of Goddess for quite some time (though as a kid never quite understood who she was in relation to Teela/Sorceress), more so than even He-RO, whose existence I only found out about in my late teens when I came back into my interest of MOTU and found out about him on He-man.org.

    Personally I liked the solid green originally shown to us, but after seeing the translucent green plastic, it seems to fit well and will give her enough distinction between Teela and Evil-Lyn.

    Needless to say without having taken her out of the package, I haven't been able to examine the armor, but the first thing I did think of was the possibility of swapping my existing He-Man's armor with the new armor. Also, I'm thinking of giving Wun-Dar the extra armor. I may even give Goddess Teela's snake armor as well. Thats whats great about being able to do so with this line, as opposed to DCUC or ML, being able to swap armor gives you extra play/fiddling value.

    Moving forward I may be a little more discriminating about what bonus figures I want, BA He-Man and Battlecat are two obvious ones, but at $20 a pop, they're going to have to really wow me. That said, even without having taken her out of her package, I have no regrets about Goddess and I am glad to have a figure of her in my collection.

  14. Mario

    I'm quite pleased with her. With the staff of Ka in hand, she really deserves a spot on any shelf.

    Good on you Poe for actually paying attention to the armor. I had just dismissed it as the same old, but will now be swapping. Thanks.

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