Mer-Man [Turtles of Grayskull]

The Ocean Warlord heeded Skeletor's beckoning from Snake Mountain at his own peril. The two always held an uneasy alliance, but Mer-Man did not suspect that he was walking into a trap. He was taken by an alien called Krang, covered in Mutagen, and awoke forever changed in both his mind and body.

I've been saying this entire time that Turtles of Grayskull feels like a designer toy line and nothing is a better example of it than Mer-Man. I am not a professional photographer, so hopefully the picks can come close to just how cool this toy is. Freaky sculpted detail and colors brings this classic character to life in an all new way. Mer-Man has been mutated and is even more monstrous now.

You can swap out his traditional legs for a fish tail for a more... mer-person... appearance. Just LOOK at this thing! A small detail that really blows my mind is the use of translucent plastic. It's not just really pretty, but makes Mer-Man look like he's from the deep dark ocean. Speaking of, they've given him a Angler Fish flavored mutation. Which just makes him look even scarier. In addition to the freaky looks, he's carrying a trident and a gnarly take on his classic sword for battle. Both weapons are super fitting. It's really hard not to be enamored with this toy. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of my all time favorite monsters, which makes me appreciate Mer-Man as is. However, the new mutated version of him is AWESOME. Dang, Angler Fish are scary.

Fish Lips

This past weekend the Mrs. picked up the Lords of Power version of Merman up for me. I've been trying to find these guys (damned elusive Beastman) and was very thankful for her efforts. If you didn't already know, Lords of Power was the original name for Masters of the Universe during it's development. These LOP versions are based on the mock-ups for the developing line. MOTU Origins is a very neat line like that, G1 He-Man stuff to the weirdest detail. However in the Masterverse line, they're doing the Barbarian He-Man. I honestly don't know what extent Mattel has in mind with all this. Either way it's super fun.

The most noticeable difference between this and the standard Merman is his head. The sculpt is more detailed and closer to his depiction in the original paintings. That old concept figure was mostly modeling clay meant to sell an idea. Details like the fishy bits stood out more as they were basically glued onto the base toy. Aside from that, Merman is the standard Origins figure with all the bells and whistles you'd expect. As an adult, I really appreciate the weirdness of classic MOTU. Merman is a good example of that.