Mattel Masters of the Universe Classics Filmation He-Man

or He-Man 2.0 if you prefer.


Mattel offered this guy last year, and I missed it. I picked it up on eBay for a ridiculous markup, but so it goes, amirite? I always hoped Mattel would offer toys that looked more like the Filmation cartoon from the 1980s, and now their licensee Super 7 is going to town with that idea. More on that later.

This figure went on sale around February of last year, and as I said, I missed it. Mattel sold these exclusively through their MattyCollector.Com website, and more customers went away empty-handed than acquired the figure. Mattel relied on forced scarcity to sell these, and since 2009 I've collected this line. I made more purchases from eBay, Amazon, and online retailers than I did Mattel, because they were so hard to acquire. Most of these purchases were well after the figure had been released, and I bought most for far less than what Mattel charged for them. (You can see why the Matty website has folded and a boutique toymaker called Super 7 is making these now.)

Typically, I came out ahead with this approach. But a few figures have cost me a pretty penny, this He-Man being one of them. But I'm glad I spent the money. As I said, I always wanted toys that looked like the cartoon, and now they're being made. The simplified look of the animation is an interesting contrast to the regular line's sculpting, which is detailed almost to a fault. This doesn't replace the first He-Man I bought in 2008, but it's a great companion piece. Now if I could afford the Skeletor...


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