He-Man (Mutated) (Turtles of Grayskull) Review

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He-Man (Mutated) (Turtles of Grayskull) Review

He-Man (Mutated)
Turtles of Grayskull (Mattel)Remember when I said I'd only be collecting the Mattel Turtles of Grayskull line for the TMNT figures? Well, that ended up being a lie as I ended up getting the line's wave one He-Man, and that soon led to me getting some of the Origins figures. I'd love to get to some of those sometime, but for now, I'll just talk about He-Man, the "most powerful mutant in the universe."

I already talked about what the "deluxe" figure packaging was like with Sla'ker, but all the basic figures are on simple cardbacks. The graphics are nice, with an "exploding rocks" background and two characters on the upper corners. The good guys have He-Man and Leonardo, while the bad guys have Skeletor and Shredder. In this He-Man's case, the baddies are shown, which makes sense as Eternia's hero found himself exposed to mutagen and becoming their pawn, as the bio on back and included mini-comic will tell you. The back also gives you some glorious artwork, and from what I've seen, Mattel's crew makes sure to go all out with the illustrations for the Origins line, and that includes Turtles of Grayskull.

Being doused in mutagen caused He-Man's appearance to change notably, but he at least didn't get transformed into another character like Faker did. His skin changed from a human tone to a ghastly purple, while his hair not only turned green, but became a bit longer and shaggier as well. He also has a headband on as well, so did that come with the mutation or did Shredder and Skeletor just put one on him? The grimacing expression and red eyes are nice, signifying that He-Man has been turned into nothing more than the villains' feral attack dog, and the paint overall is very clean for a mass market toy. I noticed a bit of green spots over the headband, and while it could be a stylistic choice to make it look like hair strands off it, I'm just assuming some paint chipped off it.

The comics depicted mutant He-Man as bigger than usual, but his figure is 5 3/4" tall, the average height of an Origins figure. His arms are certainly bigger than usual, though, another side effect of his mutation. The purple skin is cast in a semi-translucent plastic, with green veins painted onto the body, and some of his clothing, namely the harness, wristcuffs, and belt, are separate pieces that can be removed. He also carries the same modular nature as the Origins line, being able to pop apart at the head, shoulders, wrists, waist, and shins to swap with other figures, because mix-and-match toys are fun, right? His boots haven't changed much, aside from the brown and black color scheme, and the exposed toes on his right foot. Both the harness and boots carry clean paint, with little in the way of fuzzy and uneven edges.

The articulation is standard for Origins, and by extension, Turtles of Grayskull. He-Man has a barbell head, swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles, ball-jointed hips, and swivel waist, shins, and bandana knot. Aside from a slightly loose left knee and a right arm that likes to pop out easier than it should, the joints move well, and He-Man can take plenty of good poses. His sole accessory is a spiked club, something he didn't have in the mini-comics. But hey, he's gotta have something, and since he was separated from his signature sword during the time he was a hulking beast, it would contradict with the comics if he had it.

He-Man's the face of MOTU, so he's gotta be in the first wave, and Mattel depicting a He-Man on the side of evil that isn't a robot duplicate is interesting. While the latest wave has given us a more standard version, I'm in love with the design here, and I plan on getting both franchises represented in the line, even if that means I'll have to do a lot of searching to get them all.

- 9/29/24