Mattel’s MOTU Masterverse is probably one of the best lines of figures I don’t collect. Well, I sort of don’t collect. I was limiting myself to the Princess of Power and Evil Horde figures, but they didn’t make a lot of those. I’ve also been collecting the figures based on the ’87 live action movie, and they seem to be even more limited. Still, I checked out the movie He-Man and Skeletor here a little while ago, and now I’m happy to add Evil-Lyn to the collection.

The package has changed a lot since those previous two figures. Instead of the bland Masterverse box we got this amazing character art and background mural based on the film. Additionally, the windows shows off the top half of the figure and there’s a compartment running up the left side of the box that houses the accessory and extra set of hands. It’s all collector friendly, and while I really want to keep this box, I probably won’t because it’s just a one-off anomaly. I went over my feelings about the movie when I reviewed He-Man, so I won’t go through it all again. I will say that when considering the highs and lows of the film, Meg Foster as Evil-Lyn was certainly one of the highs. Meg Foster was a strikingly beautiful woman and putting her into an Evil-Lyn costume certainly made teenage me want to hold aloft my magic sword. Her costume was great, her performance was great, and it’s awesome to finally have a figure of her in this role.

Here she is out of the box and there’s some stuff to love here and some stuff that’s not so great. As a figure based loosely off the series, I think it looks pretty good and it hits all the major beats of the movie costume design. The chest plate and grieves are cast in a cool pearlescent plastic, but it feels like they needed a lot more paint to make them work, as they just look kind of bland and unfinished. I like the printed scrollwork on the bodysuit, but the pink is really off putting. I think they based it on the lighting inside Grayskull, but the original costume was closer to flesh tone and the change bugs me. The half-skirt is cast in plastic, while the cape is actual cloth. I like the silver paint on the tops of the boots, and I wish we got some more of that. I don’t hate what we got here, but I wish some different choices were made.

Overall, I think the head sculpt is pretty good. It’s not a superb likeness, but it’s not a terrible one either. Let’s face it, no paint in the world can really capture the ethereal beauty of Meg Foster’s eyes. They are hauntingly gorgeous, and that’s something this figure was never going to be able to reproduce. She could have used more pronounced eye-shadow to match the makeup used on screen. I’d definitely rate the portrait better than the rest of the figure, so that’s something.

Where Evil-Lyn really falls down is in her poseability. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, bicep swivels, and hinged pegs for the wrists, which is all fine. But the elbows are rotating hinges that can barely do 90-degree bends, so that’s disappointing. The legs have everything they need to be great, including double-hinged knees and thigh swivels, but the plastic skirt inhibits them severely, so it’s mostly all wasted. She has no articulation in the chest, just a tight joint in the waist that I can barely get a swivel out of. When it comes to playing and posing, there’s just no fun to be had here. And I think that’s reflected in how few pictures I wound up taking for this review.

Evil-Lyn comes with one accessory and that’s a translucent version of the Cosmic Key that came with Skeletor. I guess it’s supposed to be a hologram? Or maybe the key when it’s active and glowy. I don’t know, but it’s not a great accessory. She also comes with a pair of accessory holding hands, which if it’s supposed to be a hologram, why would she be holding it? Yeah, there’s just nothing exciting here.

In the end, I’m really torn over this figure. The costume deco doesn’t seem really screen accurate and she’s a frustrating figure to try to play around with because of the limitations to the articulation. On the other hand, she sure looks great standing alongside Skeletor, so I’m not sorry I bought her. I just really wanted to like her a lot more than I do.