He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was at the height of its popularity at the time I was getting into it. I mostly relied upon a second-hand toy shop in town and yard sales to fill in the ranks of my collection. When She-Ra: Princess of Power made its debut I was well into my own personal He-MANia, so I easily made the transition from the “Most Powerful Man in the Universe” to the “Most Powerful Woman.” It never occurred to me that She-Ra was “just for girls” — I just saw her as the sister of He-Man and she was his equal. That was enough to make her cool in my book. It didn’t hurt either that She-Ra also had a bunch of cool bad guys to fight like Grizzlor, Leech, and Mantenna – that more than compensated for the pink and sparkles. Even though the Horde was sold under the MOTU brand, it was always POP in my mind.

Full disclosure: I only had a vague recollection of Frosta from the Filmation series. So going into this review I don’t really have much nostalgia for her, but my overall fondness for POP in general helps make her a little more palatable. (more…)

Note: The following is a review by Doc Thomas, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Poe Ghostal. You’ve been warned. –PG

Cy-Chop is the absolute most balls-to-the-wall bizarre action figure in this whole shambolic Masters of the Universe Classics mess. And it IS a mess – between the toyline and the hype and the problems with Digital River and the problems with not-all-inclusive subscriptions and with customer support and and WSODs and reuse and quality control and every other stupid thing that has gone wrong with the whole line it is a CRAZY mess, and there is no disputing that. I have said frequently that long after MOTUC is over we’ll be looking back at it as one of the best action figure lines ever, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t completely fraught with avoidable nonsense and things worth getting up in arms over, especially considering the premium we pay on these figures.

So here’s Cy-Chop, and he’s weird. I mean, he’s more than just weird, he’s COMPLETELY BIZARRE, and there are a lot of reasons why. There are a lot of reasons to like him, and a lot of reasons NOT to like him. Let’s try to break this down, shall we? (more…)

These Millennium-based figures are always a bit tricky to review, because the characters they’re based often have had minimal character development and never had a toy. One or the other is generally required for me to establish enough of a connection to a figure to get excited about it – though if the design is awesome enough, a lack of characterization can be an asset, because it allows your imagination to run wild (see: pre-prequel-era Boba Fett, Draego-Man). But if the figure has had minimal characterization, no childhood nostalgia for a vintage toy, and a relatively uninteresting design? It becomes really hard for me to get excited about that figure.

Image courtesy MegaGearX’s 200X Screen Grabs

To be fair, Dekker had an entire episode devoted to him during the Millennium cartoon’s run. Titled “The Island,” the episode established Dekker as a former tactician for King Randor and a mentor to Man-At-Arms. Written by Michael Halperin, who wrote the series bible for the Filmation cartoon back in the early 1980s, “The Island” is one of the series’ more memorable episodes (“memorable” in that I vaguely recalled that there was an episode devoted to Dekker and had to look up all the preceding information).

Ultimately, Dekker is just regular a guy. In a world populated by people with cybernetic suits, giant freakish metal hands, or reptilian ancestry, he’s the MOTUC equivalent of a guy in a suit. He’s like Ra’s Al Ghul in the Dark Knight Movie Masters line – a character first and a figure design second. But unlike, say, Filmation King Randor, Dekker is a regular guy
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