Masters of the Universe: Go Figure

Sometimes as a parent, you face difficult questions from your kids.

“Why is Skeletor half-naked?” my 10-year-old daughter asked with dismay. “Why is pretty much everybody in Masters of the Universe half-naked?”

I mean, she's not wrong. Although it is hard to distinguish who's dressing lightly and has green, blue or purple skin from who's just wearing the Eternia equivalent of spandex or unstable molecules.

I can't remember how I answered her, but I'm sure it was wise. Or else I just changed the subject.

We were digging through my old Masters of the Universe figures for some visual aids for this very blog, seeing as the franchise is back in the spotlight on Netflix with "Masters of the Universe: Revelation," under the guidance of Kevin Smith. As I'm typing this, I haven't seen any of the episodes yet. The trailer looks promising, and the voice cast including Mark Hamill as Skeletor and Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela is mashing up multiple aspects of my fandom.

Perhaps the most exciting appearance in the trailer was Stinkor, the skunk-like villain whose figure actually smelled weird. He's one of the more ridiculous figures in the line, but I appreciate how they just really went with the concept. I'm sure he'll be used to humorous effect in the show, but I hope they don't go too meta.

Stinkor's weirdness is only part of the reason he's so memorable to me. At some point in my adulthood (chronologically speaking anyway), I dug out the figure, took a closer look and realized... he's a repainted Mer-Man. I know the reuse of molds and interchangeability of basic components was part of the appeal of the line for Mattel, but a part of my childhood died that day. Or at least went off to sulk.

I couldn't find Stinkor in the tub my figures were in (hence the book cover above), and the plastic holding my Mer-Man together just disintegrated a while back. But I did find my favorite figure and his opponent in the most dramatic face-off of my youth.

Snout Spout is another character with a goofy concept that somehow works when it's played straight. I always thought of him as some kind of anthropomorphic cyborg elephant, but a more recent collector's edition figure comes with a removable helmet that reveals a pretty standard-looking humanoid face. So apparently he's just an Eternian firefighter with pachyderm-inspired equipment.

His action feature was that you could put water in his backpack and then press a button so he sprayed it out of his trunk. To me, this made him a natural foe of Saurod, who until I just Googled him I thought was called Sauron. He was introduced in the 1987 live-action film starring Dolph Lundgren and Courtney Cox, which I haven't watched in forever but doubt I could do anything but love, even today. Saurod had a switch on his back you could press down to make him spew sparks from his mouth.

At some point in battle, I had Snout Spout spray water from his trunk directly into Saurod's mouth – who then ceased spitting sparks.

I was concerned. I don't think I'd reached double digits in age yet (at least, I hope not) so I was lacking a little something called perspective. Had I just ruined my Saurod figure?

Turned out I hadn't, and he got better, as you can see from the recent picture above on the left. His helmet was lost somewhere along the way though. On the right is a photo of the intact figure from he-man.fandom.com.

Years later I read an entry on x-entertainment.com, where the author (whose current website is Dinosaur Dracula) ranked his favorite Masters of the Universe figures. Moss Man earned high marks because his power of camoflage worked so well the young author lost him in the yard. It reminded me of the time one of my figures also proved too powerful for his own good.

(And no, despite the picture at the top, the battle did not involve the Bashasaurus. But my daughters wanted me to include it in the post, and why on Earth wouldn't I?)

I'd love to hear about some of your favorite Masters of the Universe figures and memories.