Yup, it’s Masters time again. Second time this week! Oh, don’t give me that… you’ve all been warned. My pile of unopened Matty figures has now grown to two beasts and four figures and the next Sale Day is just two weeks away so I’ve really got to try to get through all this. Today I’m checking out another Princess of Power figure, although she’s actually from the Club Eternia Sub and not the Club Etheria Sub. It’s confusing, I know. My plan was to pick a random figure from my pile for today, but then I picked Gwildor and swapped him out for Mermista, because I really wanted to open Mermista and I’m good at lying to myself. Hey, did you hear the packaging is now totally redesigned?

Nah. It’s really not. Now, I’m lying to you! It’s the same old Greyskull deco, but hey there’s nothing wrong with that because it looks great. Mermista features a “Princess of Power” sticker on the bubble and I’m rather impressed that they got all of her into a regular sized package. I’ll bet she’s packed in there like tuna. Heh… tuna… she’s half fish. Moving on… Her tagline reads, “Mermaid Friend of She-Ra” which sounds kind of racist to me. Is that how She-Ra introduces her to people? This is Mermista, she’s my mermaid friend. Hmm… Mermista’s biography reads kind of like a magical fairy story until it gets to the point about her taking Mer-Man’s trident away from him and sawing off his head with it. I’m not even kidding… HOLY SHIT!

Mermista is packaged with her fish tail on, so let’s start with her aquatic form. The tail is an absolutely beautiful piece with an intricately sculpted scale pattern, a really pretty shade of teal and a generous splash of glitter. I was afraid the glitter was going to come off, and while I did notice a few specks on my hands when I first opened her, it seems to have stopped so I’m hoping it was just some stragglers that didn’t get a full dose of glue. The tail is articulated with a hinge at what would be her hips and rotating hinges at what would be her knees and ankles. It’s actually sculpted to resemble a woman’s legs in a mermaid sleeve, but just a little too skinny to look like a mermaid costume. Overall, it’s a very impressive piece. You also get a little plastic stand that snaps into the base of the tail so you can stand Mermista in her mermaid form. It’s a cheap little piece of plastic, but I still found that to be a pretty cool bonus.

But Mermista’s got legs and she knows how to use them! That’s a little ZZ Top for you younger folk! To swap the tail you just pull her apart, the break is at the waist, in a fashion similar to King Hsss and then pop on the set of legs. In humanoid form, Mermista sports a pair of green boots and arm bracers, and a rather short blue skirt with an ornately sculpted silver belt. She has a green top with a pair of stereotypical clamshells for her booberz and the magical necklace spoken about in her bio is sculpted right onto her neck. All in all, her humanoid costume is rather simple and understated but I like it a lot.

The portrait here is possibly one of my favorites in the Princess of Power line. It doesn’t really fall into the sameness that I’m always griping about between all the ladies’ faces. There’s just something about the facial structure that stands on its own and makes her especially attractive. The paint on her eys and lips is nice and clean and she has a great sculpted head of hair that sweeps down past her shoulders in curls.

Despite her swappable nether regions, in humanoid mode Mermista features all the articulation we’ve come to expect from the ladies of The Great Rebellion. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have hinges in the knees and anles, and swivels in the hips. There’s a little bit of a rocker to the ankles, but no swivel in the lower legs. She can swivel at the waist and has a ball jointed neck. Thanks to her extra short skirt, Mermista has great range of motion in her hips, much better than most of the other laides, which is kind of ironic because she has a tail most of the time.

If there’s any area where Mermista flounders it’s in the accessories department. She comes with a horn and a shield. The horn is cool enough, but it’s tough to get her to pose in a position so she looks like she’s blowing it (giggity). The green jeweled shield on the other hand is the same old PoP shield we’ve seen all along only curved at the bottom. Is that intentional or was it just damaged in the package? I’m really not sure, but it looks neat and at least it’s a little different from all the others. I would have liked to see something more substantial in the accessories, but considering we got the tail and the legs, I can see where the money went so I’m willing to forgive. Besides, she can always keep Mer-Man’s trident after she decapitates him.

Mermista was one of my more anticipated figures in the 2014 lineup and I’m very pleased to say that she lived up to all my expectations. It’s really cool that Mattel was able to give us both human and mermaid versions of the figure in one package and she’s certainly one of the most striking ladies of the Rebellion so far. This kind of figure is exactly the reason I’m enjoying the Princess of Power figures so much. Next week’s regular scheduled programming will be interrupted by insufferable End of Year Lists, but when I return the following Monday I’ll come back to MOTUC and check out Gwildor… Moooooo!