Skeletor is a lot of things. Originally an evil demon before his origin was later rewritten into him being the former Keldor, who had been transformed into Skeletor, a skull-faced man. I've made countless jokes before about He-Man fighting an army of Halloween decorations, but the thing with Skeletor is... he was actually inspired by a haunted house prop.
Mark Davis has said that when he was designing Skeletor, he took inspiration from a neon-painted skeleton that scared the crap out of him as a kid in the Laugh in the Dark haunted house. Turns out, that skeleton was a little scarier than anyone knew. The same prop was later discovered not to be a dummy, but an actual corpse that had somehow found its way there. This was discovered when an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man was being filmed and the crew accidentally broke its arm off. Turns out, it was the body of Elmer McCurdy, a Wild West bandit whose corpse became a sideshow attraction that eventually found its way into that haunted house. Skeletor doesn’t just look spooky, he’s tied to a legitimately spooky true story.
This Mighty Masters figure of him is great and, just like the others, is a nice little replica of his original toy. He has the same swinging waist gimmick He-Man has and comes with his trademark Havok Staff to swing around while using it. It’s an extremely likable mini figure of Skeletor and... you know what? I always liked his demon origin better. You didn’t ask, and that was abrupt, but thug life.
I’ve always been a fan of Skeletor’s armor. Faker uses it in orange colors, and it looks fabulous. This is a great little figure to keep you company at your desk or even carry around in a cargo pocket. Just the right size and neatness.
Unfortunately, it’s also the last of the Mighty Masters for the time being. I really hope Mattel continues making these and that there are future series with more Heroic and Evil Warriors. I’ve heard talk of 3D prints of Castle Grayskull out there that are in scale with this... and honestly, that’s awesome.
He's the most powerful man in the universe, he's He-Man! The main hero of Masters of the Universe of course is in the initial Mighty Masters series and looking great.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he doesn't have the same swinging arm gimmick Man-At-Arms and Beast Man have. Instead, he features a pull-back waist similar to the original Masters of the Universe figures! I had wrongly assumed the swinging arm gimmick was line wide and am very happy to see variety like this. Considering the size and price, I'm impressed they even included gimmicks.
He-Man, like the others, is a fairly decent reproduction (there's some differences) of the original toy in mini figure form. He's got his trademark Power Sword, which even has a little holster on the back of his hardly-there armor.
So here's where I make an admission. MOTU came out when I was very young... and I totally thought he was the bad guy at first. Yep, you heard me. I thought Skeletor was the good guy.
That first commercial featured a skull-faced castle with a skull-faced guy and some normal dude threatening him. To be fair, I was 4 and completely not listening to or comprehending the dialog. I also liked monsters, which clearly has never left my system.
Well, it didn't take me much longer to realize He-Man was the good guy and the army of Halloween decorations were the villains. Who knew?
Oh... yeah. This Mighty Masters figure of the apparently good guy is pretty great.
Like Beast Man, Man-At-Arms was one of the first MOTU toys I ever got, even before He-Man and Skeletor (my older brother got those). So I’ve always naturally gravitated towards him, just like with Beast Man. His inclusion in the initial batch of Mighty Masters was pretty obvious, and welcome too.
This is a pretty nice mini figure recreation of the original toy, with the addition of his mustache. That’s something that was lacking on the original figure, but ever since its addition in the cartoon, it’s been present ever since. I actually used to draw it on mine with a felt tip pen. I say used to because as a kid I had no clue the ink wouldn’t rub off and redid it multiple times. For a while, Duncan found himself with a variety of different colored mustaches... which, to be honest, would be awesome if he did that in fiction.
A neat thing I’m finding with this toy is how his armor piece rides high, allowing the face guard to partially cover his face. That was something usually featured in the earlier mini comics that I always thought was neat and normally doesn’t happen on his toys. In fact, I don’t think it’s even intended on this one and mine could possibly be defective. It’s not on any pictures I’ve seen of these guys online. If mine does have weirdly molded armor... it’s welcomed.
Like all Mighty Masters figures so far, he has the swinging arm gimmick, which works well with his trademark mace. I’ve always enjoyed MOTU’s weird mixture of fantasy and sci-fi, and Man-At-Arms was an early example of that.
This little line has been a case of “Whoops, all bangers,” and I’m holding out hope that this will be an ongoing series. I can see it becoming my main MOTU toy focus.
When I first learned about Mighty Masters, it was one of those moments where it feels like I slipped into a parallel universe and toy companies are suddenly dialed directly into my specific tastes.
That’s been happening a lot lately.
Mighty Masters is a new expression of Masters of the Universe, featuring small-scale, fairly faithful recreations of the classic characters. After taking a little too long to show up at my local Walmart, I managed to complete the first series—and we’re going to take a look at them over the next few weeks.
Because they’re awesome.
I’m starting with Beast Man for a specific reason. He was one of my very first MOTU toys back when they originally came out, along with Man-At-Arms. So yeah, there’s a little bit of attachment here.
This is a really solid recreation in miniature form. It’s small, but it captures the look of the original toy surprisingly well—with a few tweaks. The original had more human-like feet, while this version gives him clawed feet like he had in the mini-comics, which I actually like.
He’s got articulation in the arms, legs, head, and waist. No rubber bands (thankfully), and no spring-loaded waist either. His right arm features a line-wide gimmick where it can be raised and then brought down in a swinging motion—kind of like a Super Powers Collection figure.
He also comes with a tiny version of his whip, which feels essential. You can’t have Beast Man without it—it’s how he keeps all those creatures in line.
For five bucks, this is a great little toy. Honestly, it’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been wanting—especially after the disappearance of the Mega Construx Masters of the Universe figures.
Like I said, I’ve got the full first series, and we’ll be taking a look at the rest over the next few weeks. Hopefully this line sticks around, because it’s hitting a really nice sweet spot.
Good morning Zone Base readers and welcome back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I've got a fun week ahead, but before that, let's talk about the past weekend. I hope yours was well, mine was busy. After a visit to Walmart with the Mrs and enjoying some pizza while watching Five Nights at Freddy's 2, I got to work assembling a new pantry for her. Our old one was a basic cabinet bought after we moved in and now that we've decided to stay for a little longer, it's time to upgrade some of our stuff.
The new pantry is very nice, but with nice comes a lot of work taking 7 hours. I took an break around 3am to enjoy some Fruit Riot and wacth the TFCON West cosplay contest on YouTube with the Mrs before finally finishing the new pantry. It's in place and she's happy which in turn makes all the work worth it. Sunday, I slept in. After waking and enjoying some breakfast, I disassembled the old pantry and threw it away. Apparently we did it just in time as I was discovering all sorts of structural damage while doing so. Good grief. After a few more tasks, I started work on building some Blokees kits before dinner.
The Mrs made some excellent beef noodle and mashed potatoes. Mom came over and we watched Japanese camper van videos, a recent addiction of mine. I'm not an outdoorsman like my brother, but these are fascinating. Admittedly because I like the gadgets, but still. After dinner I finished the kits while watching paranormal videos with the Mrs. Went went to bed with her falling asleep before me. I watched the newest episode of Kamen Rider Zeztz which was very good as usual and also a little relieving. I was pretty concerned about the ongoing plot (no spoilers). I also updated my Evercade EXP-R as they finally resumed the Highlight of the Month program after a lengthy absence.
This months game is Biomenace Remastered, which as the name suggests is a remastered version of the game Biomenace. Biomenace is a old PC game I'd frankly never heard of before and was admittedly not excited about going in. I was pleasantly surprised to really like it and enjoy the first few levels I got in before calling it a night. I plan to play it a lot more before the Highlight resets next month. However next weekend Pragmata comes out and that's going to take up a lot of gaming time for the next few weeks.
As for toys I got this weekend, boy did I get a good haul. Walmart had a nice selection of Blokees. I got Transformers One related kits. From Galaxy Version series 7 wave 2, I got 2 blind boxes which resulted in Orion Pax (miner) and Soundwave! I also got a Classic Class Shockwave that I look forward to building. Last week I was happy to see that Walmart was now carrying Blokees Marvel kits, but this week noticed they also started carrying Jurrasic World Blokees! I grabbed a blind box egg which turned out to be the Indominus Rex!
Not all were models, Walmart finally had Masters of The Universe Mighty Masters! A new line of pleasantly vintage mini figures that I've been chomping at the bit for. I grabbed He-Man and Skeletor. Man-at-Arms and Beastman are left to find to complete the series, hopefully leading to more waves. Last, but not least is my first experimentation with Armorsaurs. Armorsaurs is a new figure line with a show on Disney +. It's a western adaption of the South Korean show Armored Saurus in the vein of Power Rangers. I haven't watched the show yet, but the toys have been a popular subject in Microfans latley. Considering the new Microman and Micronauts toys out, it's worth noting that something adjacent would gather so much attention.
Armorsaurs features armored heroes with dinosaur themed powers and mecha. The figures have snap on armor as well as dinosaurs available to use them with. The smaller dinos are mecha that the figures can ride that convert from dino to vehicles. There's larger armored dinosaurs also for the figures to ride as well. Right now I'm keeping it small as I dip my toes into the pool. I picked up Liam, who is the series Red Ranger equivalent.
I also got some chrome sticker paper to accompany the colored sheets I've been using for Zone Base stickers. They look cool and I can't wait to print off a batch. I'll be attending Rangerstop this May, so be sure to get one if you're there. Brett, the organizer of Toylanta has taken it over and invited myself to operate Transformers content there! It's been way too long since I've attended Rangerstop and helped it grow is something I'm excited to do!
Well, it's time to get this week started. I've got some site pics to take and stuff around the house to do before work this evening. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of the sites first post and I'm really proud of it. It's super neat to watch it grow over the past decade and very flattering to see all of you come out and support it. Thank you so much. Please share the site with your friends and be excellent to each other.
