Just a friendly reminder to He-Man fans. MOTU Classics Skeletor will go on sale today at noon (EST). He-Man and Beastman effectively sold out a few days ago so don’t wait until the next figure to combine on shipping. Chances are he will not last the month and you know Skeletor is going to be a hot item.

A reminder to all the He-Man fans out there. Today at noon (EST), He-Man and Beastman will be put up for sale at MattyCollector.com.

Mattel has released some images on their MattyCollector website showing off the packaging for the new MOTU Classics line. The packaging will be classic styled blister cards.

 
 

This news is about a week old, but I held off because I wanted to see the fan reaction. Read on for more including a side-by-side comparison.

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There seemed to be a lot of hype around SDCC about Mattel’s new online-only exclusive Masters of the Universe Classics line. The first figure, King Grayskull, sold out in a relatively short span of time. We saw our first glimpse of He-Man and Beast Man. We were also told Merman, Skeletor and Zodac were on the way. The He-Man.org forums were abuzz with delight at the relaunch of their long desired property.

Many of the other online toy forums, not so dedicated to a single property, were not so keen on what was seen. While it was said that the character choices could come from any line of the He-Man property, we wouldn’t be seeing any of those other lines for at least a year. It was also stated that all figures would match the chunky retro style of the original 80’s toys. Even if a character was chosen from a different line with obvious style disparities from the original show such as New Adventures of He-Man or the 2002 version of Masters of the Universe, the sculpting style would remain in the classic chunky look of the 80’s figures.

This disparity among collectors has a lot of people wondering what will happen to the line now that these details have come to light and those not a part of the ‘hardcore 80’s audience’ is turned off by what they’ve seen thus far. Will the sculpting style change to match the style the character is originally from? Its certainly with in the sculptors’ capability since its none other than the Four Horsemen at the helm on that end. Ultimately though, its Mattel’s decision.

He-Man.org is running a poll to try and determine what fans think of the new line and I think its highly important for all fans to respond. The choices basically ask if you would collect the line, if you would collect the line if certain figures showed up from different series, or if you would not collect the line because of the classic sculpting being used for every figure. Go here to vote and be heard.

Image courtesy of Figures.com.

The other day I posted that He-man and Beastman would be the next two figures in Mattel’s new exclusive Masters Of the Universe Classics (MOUTC) line. I jumped the gun a little because I was pretty sure I had a scoop since hadn’t seen the info anywhere else. It turns out, they were on display at SDCC and a bunch of additional info was revealed and posted to He-man.org. Here’s some of the highlights:
– King Grayskull sold out on both MattyCollector.com and at SDCC
– Availability will be:

• He-Man – October 31st
• Beast Man – November 15th
• Skeletor – December 15th (was not on display at SDCC)
• Stratos – January 15th (was not on display at SDCC)
• Merman – February 15th
• Zodac – Sometime in 2009

– He-Man will have both a normal Power Sword as well as the classic toy half-sword
– From the 12 regular figures released in 2009, two will be characters who never were available as toys ever, and two will be characters who were released in the vintage line but not in the 2002 line
– Figures are limited to 3 per household
– Mattel produced two “Spirit of Grayskull” figures (blue translucent versions of King Grayskull). One was raffled off on Saturday at the con to a lucky fan. The other one will be auctioned in October for Dream Halloween 2008
– No Chase figures are planned right now (THANK GOODNESS!), but they are still a possibility
– Convention exclusives are being planned in 2009 for both NYCC and SDCC
– Some figures will have multiple heads, like Mer-Man
– Bios on the card will be based on the story arcs from the classic toy mini-comics and 200x line
– Mattel is currently looking into the possibility of including mini-comics later in the line
– BAFs (Build a figures) are only a possibility if the toyline is successful
– Mattel is exploring the possibility of a subscription plan for the toys
– Mattel is exploring the possibility of a comic book series available via mattycollectors.com
– No news about the movie; they are still in script developement

I have included some more tidbits from He-Man.org that came up from a Q&A outside of SDCC after the jump.
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Tomorrow at 11am PST, Mattel’s collectors’ website, MattyCollector.com will go live. They will have up for sale the exclusives offered at SDCC. Included in those is the first figure in Mattel’s new Masters Of The Universe Classics (MOTUC) line; King Grayskull, which we first mention here.

The next two figures in the line will be He-Man and Beastman. Both are listed as coming soon this Fall.

From Mattel’s collector’s site for He-Man:

The most powerful man in the universe is back as a highly detailed, fully articulated action figure in the new Masters of the Universe® Classics series. He-Man® comes complete with power vest, axe, shield, the Sword of Grayskull as both a full sword and the light half of the Power Sword®. A must have for any MOTU fan! Coming this fall only on MattyCollector.com. While supplies last!

  

Beastman:

Skeletor’s right hand, um, Beast, will soon be available as a highly detailed, fully articulated figure in the new Masters of the Universe® Classics line. Comes complete with classic armor and whip. Check back soon for availability. While supplies last!

  

Mattel’s panel at NYCC has brought us some great news for He-Man fans. Mattel announced an upcoming line for MOTU spanning all previous incarnations of the property. That includes the classic figures from the 80’s, characters from the original mini-comics, the New Adventures of He-Man, the 2002 MYP MOTU relaunch series and She-Ra, Princess of Power. It was unclear if the She-Ra figures would be based on the series of the original figures.

Some quick details from He-Man.org:

• The line will be a 6″ Masters of the Universe collector’s line
• The line will be super-poseable, using high-end articulation
• It will be comparable to the DC Universe line that is currently being produced by Mattel and sculpted by the 4H
• Mattel stated this line is definitely going to be for the collectors, and not for children
• They will be shipped in even case ratios. Mattel said “You are not going to see six Skeletors and one Beastman”
• The first figure in the line will be King Grayskull, who will be a SDCC Exclusive.
• King Grayskull will have a chase variant that is colored to look like the statue of King Grayskull seen by Adam from the MYP Power of Grayskull episode.
• This collector’s line will contain “the entire pantheon of MOTU characters”, which will include characters from the classic MOTU toy line, the New Adventures of He-Man, MYP cartoon characters, characters from the mini-comics (a photo of the Green Goddess was flashed), characters from the unproduced Powers of Grayskull line (a photo of He-Ro was flashed), and POP characters (a screengrab of Force Captain Adora from SOTS was flashed)

I have included the lengthy notes from the Fan Q&A and He-Man.org’s exclusive Q&A after the jump.

I found it interesting to note that Mattel does not own the rights to any character in the Filmation series that was not a toy or in the original mini-comics.
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February 18th was the release date for the first box set of the 2002 He-Man and the Master of the Universe animated series. Just before that, however, some news started coming in about a defect on the first disc of the set.

BCI Guy a member of the He-Man.org forums and representative of BCI itself (the company producing the sets) had this to say:

“Sorry for the delay getting back to everyone, but I needed to make sure we were totally sure what happened, how we could fix it, and what we could do about it before reporting anything.

The masters that we received from Mattel are complete – the scene is not missing. The problem was in authoring. There is a layer break in the episode (Disc 1, Episode 4) and when the layer switches, it skips over about 3 minutes of the program. Unfortunately, it’s during a transition and there is no visible or audible break, so the only way to notice it’s there is through story continuity. And no one that watched the check discs caught that it was missing. Honestly, that’s not a valid excuse – it should’ve been caught by someone, and the authoring house needed to realize that one episode was running 3 minutes short. It’s inexcusable, and we’re taking drastic measures to fix this problem once and for all. We’re committed to giving everyone the best possible product – content, features, packaging and quality control. 3 out of those 4 is not nearly enough, so we’re moving Volumes 2 and 3 to a new authoring house that has assured us of the quality and depth of their Quality Control department.

We have already reauthored Disc 1 and will have replacements available by street date – Feb 19th. We will be setting up an 800# to request replacement discs which we will ship out along with a new exclusive bonus item for your trouble and as an apology from us.

We appreciate your continued support.”

This was posted here.

As a follow up a few days later, this was posted on He-Man.org, once again from BCI Guy:

“The replacement disc for Mattel’s He Man Volume 1, Disc One can be ordered by either sending an email to HeManDisc@gmail.com or calling 866-641-3472. Please include your name, your address, a daytime telephone number and the store name and location where you purchased your DVD.”