I can still remember my first… Masters of the Universe action figure.
I received a present from an aunt out in California. It was early in 1982, or perhaps some time in the summer. It was definitely before Fall; I know because I wanted (and got) Beastman for my birthday that year, so by November ’82 I was well aware of the Masters of the Universe… well… universe. Well enough to know what baddies I needed to add to my collection anyways.
The gift I received early in ’82 was the now legendary He-Man and Wind Raider gift set. And I admit, at first I didn’t know what to make of it. Was this some sort of doll? I certainly wasn’t used to such large/stylized action figures (Star Wars dominated my toy collection up until that point, and having completely missed the Mego boat but having an older sister into Barbies, I knew clearly the distinction between dolls and action figures. This ‘He-Man’ was nearly nude after all, was I expected to provide pants?) Or was it a baby toy? (He-Man’s simplistic construction, rubber head and wobbly leg joints, coupled with the fact that my aunt was notorious for sending me toys much more suited for toddlers even though I was about to turn eight had me wondering!)
But the packaging showed some pretty fantastical stuff finely painted in the style of the great Renaissance painters (at least it looked that way to me.) – these brutish warriors with massive bladed weapons and nightmare inducing monsters with saliva dripping maws couldn’t possibly be for babies or girls, right? I don’t recall if the set came with a mini-comic but if it did all that hauntingly beautiful Alcala imagery certainly hit me full force too (I know the comics swept me away eventually, I just don’t remember if it started here or later.)
And by gum, the vehicle was pretty darn neat, with it’s wind-up winch and stickers and such. And He-Man… okay he was a hugely muscled nearly naked nordic specimen of manhood… an odd choice for a child’s plaything by anyone’s reckoning… but geez louise was he armed to the furry-shorts-wearin’ teeth! I think I dig this thing!
Masters of the Universe consumed my toy collecting for only a very short couple of years. I had Greyskull and Panthor and Zoar and Kobra Khan and Battle Armor Skeletor and what seemed like a ton more. I played with them outside in the dirt and in the snow and at my cousin’s house and with friends; and once I even duct taped old Castle Greyskull shut and checked it as my luggage on a plane trip to Grandma’s (you should have seen the people at the luggage turnstyle when a green skull-faced castle popped out and began rotating past them.)
But as fleeting as childhood is, those moments of toy-obsession can be all the more fleeting; by 1984 my interest in MOTU was waning and I was moving away from such ‘childish’ playthings and into more mature themed toys like Transformers and Go-Bots.
I believe Clawful was the last new MOTU figure I ever received, and some time in ’85 I was offered a bunch of money for my ‘toys I wasn’t playing with anymore’ and sold my whole MOTU lot to one of my Dad’s coworker’s kid.
I don’t regret it at all. I wouldn’t have changed my mind at the time (I was too young for the yolk of nostalgia to fit) and I’m glad the toys went to a kid who got to enjoy them. (I hope he enjoyed them. HE BETTER HAVE!) And hey, I made some money which I turned right back into more toys at the time anyways – many of which I do still own.
Yet somehow something that my 7 to 9 year old mind mused over daily, be it during playtime or afternoon toon time or during school with erasers-not-toys; somehow those two years of direct almost daily contact have turned into a lifetime of fandom even though all those original toys left for new adventures years ago.
A psychologist would have a field day culling the reasons that period in my life cut such a deep groove in my psyche. But I don’t have time to self-analyze. All I know is that the toys and themes present in the Masters of the Universe left a mark on me in ways not even Star Wars (a pre and post MOTU obsession) or Transformers (post MOTU) or even Batman (still to this day obsession) can truly contend with.
Of course I have since gathered together more original MOTU toys in my adulthood than I originally owned as a kid (in retrospect I realize I did not actually own that many – it just seemed that way at the time,) and I have a handful of Masters of the Universe Classics (mostly favorite childhood characters, plus one or two oddballs.) I also have hundreds (maybe thousands… ok, millions) of toys of different genres and from different eras, and something shiny and new or retro will invariably pop-up tomorrow or the next day to catch my wandering attention.
But all others will forever pale in comparison to the Sci-Barbarian He-Man and his Future cum Medieval ilk and the lasting effect they had on my impressionable young mind.
