Masters of the Universe Classics

I still remember getting Dragon Blaster Skeletor. I wanted to love that figure and I just really disliked it. I can't even totally figure out why. This is definitely a time in my collecting when I was getting weirdly sensitive to the fact that Skeletor figures were basically a skeleton man wearing a cute bonnet, because the 'hood' was never attached to anything. And for some reason that bothered me way more in MOTUC than it ever had before. And that issue was very pronounced with DBS.
The dragon was kind of too big and didn't really look good in most poses -- and yeah, not being able to do anything with it beyond leave it on Skeletor's back felt kind of lame considering the 'upgrades' the line was supposed to be about. I dunno. Just wasn't a good figure for me.

To be fair to MOTUC, though - the original Skeletor (especially with the Alcala head) is still top tier one of the best Skeletor figures ever made. And to be fair to Dragon Blaster Skeletor -- I still really want to get the Origins version one day if I can ever find it for a reasonable price.
 
Origins Dragon Blaster Skeletor and Snake Face just resurfaced at my Targets out of no where. I got excited seeing them, but realized I have them already. But that's kinda what led me to hunting down the Classics Dragon Blaster.

Maybe in Masterverse they'll actually articulate the dragon.

I know Classics didn't focus on the gimmicks. But having Masterverse, and seeing what they have been able to do for $20-25, it feels to me like Classics never reached its potential. What did they charge originally for those figures? $30? 10-15 years ago? As a line, as the sum of its parts, MotUC is a gorgeous, aesthetically consistent, action figure line that really showed off the characters in a revitalized way. But they feel more like art pieces than toys. Origins and Masterverse feel like toys you can play with. Both lines pose better than Classics. I'd even say that Origins is even more faithful to the look of the original toys.
 
Classics were $20 initially, but because they were on-line only you had to bake in shipping costs too, which hiked the price considerably. Of course you could offset that invrease per figure if you bought multiples (which i sometimes did) and they did have a lot of great sales early on. In those first couple of years they had sales where you could get figures like Beast Man, Teela and Battle Cat for half price - all of which sell for crazy money now. I think I bought like 5 half price Beast Man, 3 Battle Cat an extra Teela or two during those sales for customs. Thats not even talking about the ridiculous Big Lots dump that happened. So much cheap Classics fodder for cheap.

Man... those were the days.
 
I remember my shipping was $6.70 for years so the figures ended up being $26.70. That number is baked into my brain because I thought it was so high but at the same time I wouldn't have dreamed on missing out.
 
Those sales are what suckered me into Classics. I picked up a few at Big Lots too. But the real gateway was the DC vs MotU 2pks at TRU. This made MotUC available at retail. I picked up whatever I could, so that got me Superman/He-Man, Luthor/Skeletor, Supergirl/She-Ra, Aquaman/Merman, Hawkman/Stratos, Green Lantern/Zodac. That was truly what got me into the line. From there, I cherry picked, but also grabbed figures I knew would be popular that I loved as a kid, like Teela, Fisto, Two-Bad, for fear of missing out. I had to have them, and main cast like Man At Arms, Beast Man, Tri-Klops, Orko, Hordak, etc. There were some went out of my way early on to get, even for an inflated secondary market price, like Ram Man. I know Whiplash eluded me for a long time. I eventually picked up most of what I really wanted.

And then I just sort of quit. That collection felt complete, and I had more of a limit of what I wanted to spend per figure. Until recently. Maybe within the past year or two, I started filling those gaps. I think things like Super7 continuing other licenses in this style was a major catalyst. Masterverse and Origins certainly had some influence as well. The figures I really wound up spending more than I wanted to on were the Filmation versions. Those were averaging around $100. But they look so good with the animated style of Thundercats Ultimates and Silverhawks Ultimates and GI Joe Ultimates.

Most of what I've gotten from the main Classics line have hovered in the 50-60 range, with some as low as 20, some as high as 80. But picking them up definitely got me understanding why people regard the line so highly. It really did capture the essence of Masters of the Universe, in a way that honored both the toys and visual media the characters are based on.
 
NORM said:
Those were averaging around $100. But they look so good with the animated style of Thundercats Ultimates and Silverhawks Ultimates and GI Joe Ultimates.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this idea. My MOTU stuff is in an entirely different room from those other lines and I've been thinking a lot about packing up my classics Filmation stuff since I have the Origins Filmation line now and they seem to be going deeper. I don't know why it never occured to me to just make a little cartoon display with the abandoned Super 7 GI Joe figures I have and the Silverhawks and Thundercats but I think I may do that.
 
Like this?
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