I’ve talked up Gygor so much since he was revealed earlier this year at Toy Fair, there was no way my review, eagerly anticipated by many of you, was going to do justice to him. I toyed with ideas like making some sort of mock-toy commercial, but I don’t have the kind of A/V equipment required to do that (though I do have a friend who might be able to help…but I only thought of that a second ago). So, my apologies for not having anything more momentous than a standard review to celebrate his arrival.

I love gorillas. Like great white sharks, alligators, and Komodo dragons, gorillas are living monsters–but they’re good monsters, the ones on us mammals’ side (more or less). What’s more, gorillas weren’t really known to exist in the Western world until the mid-1800s, before which they were simply tales brought back by the occasional adventurer of large hairy man-like beasts roaming the Dark Continent. They were Victorian England’s version of Bigfoot–except they were real.

While we’re discussing history, let’s talk about Gygor’s. Gygor was never actually produced for the original 1980s Masters of the Universe line. He only existed as a prototype. I first became aware of Gygor’s existence when reading Roger Sweet’s account of his time at Mattel, Mastering the Universe, and I instantly wished that young Poe had had the opportunity to play with a big yellow armored ape wielding a battle axe.

Like Battle Cat, Gygor was a repainted animal figure from Mattel’s 1970s Big Jim line. There were supposedly later revisions to the figure that featured a saddle for figures to ride on, but personally I think the version above is preferable.

In raiding the Mattel vaults for material for Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel came across the original Gygor prototype photos Mattel was later given the above prototype photo by Emiliano Santalucia of He-Man.org. At this point, Gygor had gained some minor notoriety among He-Fans, but it would be false to say fans were clamoring for Gygor. I certainly was more than ready for one, but there were plenty of fans who were mystified by his appearance at Toy Fair in February. Of course, we now know (as many suspected) that Gygor was also a way to get at least two uses out of one mold–i.e., the Shadow Beast. (more…)