Recommended music: Mark Mothersbaugh – Arena Fight
Greetings MOTU fans! I hope you had a great weekend and maybe caught Masters of the Universe again in your local theater. The movie is a blast, especially if you watch it more than once. For this #MastersMonday, let’s check out a figure from The Loyal Subjects: Battle Armor He-Man!
Released in the summer of 1985, New Champions of Eternia is a hardcover book in the Golden Books Heroic Champions series. In the story, new “champions” appear to join the forces of good but are revealed to be Skeletor and his evil allies in disguise. Queen Marlena figures out this deception, and the story dips into unused Filmation cartoon canon by revealing Evil-Lyn as scientist Evelyn Powers, Beast Man as technician Biff Beastman, and Tri-Klops as scientist Dr. Scope, all members of her earth-based spaceship crew.
While seeing this alternate origin story for these Evil Warriors in book form seems a bit silly, the book contains some fun artwork. Every illustration of He-Man inside the book by Jeffrey Oh features him in a traditional design, but the cover art by Fred Carrillo shows him in his Battle Armor garb. The Battle Armor look wasn’t used on many MOTU products but was always a favorite design of mine as a kid.
The Loyal Subjects included Battle Armor He-Man in the second series of their Masters of the Universe Action Vinyls line in 2019. Combining a chibi-esque, oversized head aesthetic with 10 points of articulation and detail, this 3” mini-figure delivers quite a punch 35 years after the original Mattel release.
Besides being highly poseable for a tiny vinyl figure, the paint job is also sharp. BA He-Man comes with his classic power sword, battle axe, and shield. While it is easy to swap limbs to customize figures in the line, the tiny ball joints occasionally loosen, which is annoying.
While the first wave of figures was 100% blind-boxed, this wave was mostly in window boxes, a nice improvement considering the $13-$15 retail price at the time. In the end, it’s a fun line that doesn’t take up much shelf space, and I’ll continue to share these on upcoming Mondays. Good journey!
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