Recommended music: Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me
Happy Monday, MOTU fans! Hope you all had a great weekend. For this #MastersMonday, we’re checking out another 1985 release from the vintage Mattel Masters of the Universe line. Let’s take a look at Mantenna!
The “Evil spy with the pop-out eyes” was another one of my favorite villain action figures when I was a kid. As a 100% new sculpt, the creepy monster design appealed to me. What set Mantenna apart from other figures was his action feature, where you slide a lever on his back to make his eyes pop out.
Though Mantenna’s pop-up eye mechanism was patented in 1984, the character was created after the original Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon. I first discovered him and the other Evil Horde members through Golden Books and the mini-comics that came with the fourth wave of MOTU figures. Later, Mantenna appeared as one of Hordak’s henchmen in 39 episodes of the She-Ra: Princess of Power cartoon and in the Secret of the Sword movie. The Filmation version of Mantenna appeared more bumbling and nervous than I had pictured him in the original mini-comics, but he could shoot multiple types of energy from his eyes in the cartoon, including freeze rays and stun beams.
He also appeared in the 2003 Mike Young Productions He-Man series and in flashbacks in the Revelation comic book. He even made a quick cameo in the third episode of Masters of the Universe: Revolution.
Like the other Evil Horde members who debuted in 1985, Mantenna was first sold on a standard-sized card. The back of the card had a short backstory about The Evil Horde and showed the first wave of Horde figures with the Fright Zone playset. Later, he was also sold in a two-pack with Leech, available only at JCPenney stores.
Like the other Horde members, Mantenna’s design has a bold bat theme on his chest armor, boots, and arm bands. He also came with the standard Horde crossbow, but this time cast in gray plastic. Some versions of the figure had extra orange on the chest, but the bats on the boots weren’t painted, and the red lever on his back was painted black for some reason. Even though Mantenna seemed a bit foolish to me after seeing him in the She-Ra cartoon as an adult, he’s still one of my favorite figures from childhood.
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