I’ve got a ton of these He-Mans figures to look at over the next month, so you’ll be seeing a little more MOTUC around here in the weeks ahead. November was a big month just for sub figures alone, but then I picked up some more on Early Access and a bunch more as part of the Cyber Monday sale. I’ve already looked at November’s Club Eternia figure, Tung Lasher, so today we’ll check out the Club Etheria figure, New Adventures She-Ra. While I hold only a passing familiarity with the New Adventures version of He-Man, I’ve enjoyed collecting some of the Classics versions of the Space Mutants. In fact, I’ve got a bunch of the ones I’m missing coming in next week. I still don’t have the Classics NA version of He-Man, but thanks to the Club Etheria Sub, I sure do have his sister, She-Ra.

There’s the packaging and I don’t have anything new to say about it, other than it has a “Galactic Protectors” sticker on the bubble. So instead of rambling on about packaging we’ve seen so many times before, let me take this time to point out that the revelation of NA She-Ra seemed to piss off a lot of collectors. As far as I know she’s a totally original figure as I don’t recall She-Ra ever appearing in the New Adventures series, but if you’re a more hardcore Masters fan and care to brand me an ignorant bastard, then by all means, have at me! I guess the point of contention here was that the Club Etheria Sub has a limited number of slots and they didn’t want one of those taken up by a figure no one seemed to be asking for. That really shouldn’t be an issue since Club Eternia is getting its share of Princess of Power figures as well and besides which, I think it was a cool idea to give us a NA re-imagining of She-Ra. It’s also worth pointing out that I’m a really casual fan of the Masters fiction and for me this line is all about the figures themselves, so when Matty embarks on flights of fancy like this one, it just doesn’t bother me. Let’s get her open and check her out.

So, yeah, if you’re one of the haters and looking to hear a sympathetic voice, you won’t find it here, because I freaking love this figure. She-Ra comes sporting New Adventures styled SPAAAAACE armor and it looks totally bitchin on her. The sculpted ornamentation looks fantastic and while I’m not a big fan of asymmetrical designs, even the giant lopsided silver flower on her chest sort of works for me. The ensemble is rounded out by a sporty blue and white cape, along with some silver boots and arm bracers and a pair of blue pants. Oh yeah, you also get a brown gun belt with a functional holster and y’all know how much I love those functional holsters! While I enjoy the white, blue, and silver coloring on this figure, I will say that the silver paintwork could have been a little sharper. There’s some slop here and there. It’s not terrible, but it is notable and as these figures continue to creep up in price, I will continue to keep calling out little flubs that I would have happily given a pass on less expensive retail figures.

The portrait consists of a permanently sculpted helmet that’s giving me a very strong Thor vibe if Thor were a woman. Oh wait… Thor is a woman now! Yeah, an alternate helmet-less head would have been cool, but you can always do some head popping and swapping with another She-Ra if you really want to. At least I’m assuming you can. I haven’t tried it myself yet. I will say I appreciate that the green visor is removable, although I will most likely display the figure with the visor on because it contributes nicely to the spacey aesthetic.

She-Ra features all the usual articulation we’ve come to expect from the female characters in the line. 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 and have hinged knees and ankles. She can rotate at the waist and the neck is ball jointed.

She-Ra comes with an energy sword and shield and both are pretty cool. The sword is your typical light saber style with a silver hilt and a green translucent blade. The shield is an eagle motif also cast in green translucent plastic. There’s a sculpted loop on the back of She-Ra’s cape that allows you to store the sword back there, although I would presume the blade is switched off when not in use so it doesn’t make much sense. Ah, I’m over thinking it and having someplace to store the sword is a nice feature for when she wants to switch to target practice…

…because she also comes with a nice little pistol for blowing away Space Mutant fools. At first I thought it was just going to be a repack of the pistol that came with Battleground Teela, but it is indeed different. I get a warm and fuzzy Buck Rogers-slash-John Carter vibe off the gun and pistol and I love it!

If you’re one of those collectors upset over this figure’s release, I can’t offer you much in the way of sympathy. The truth is I think the Masters Classics line has shone brightly when going off the rails and giving us original designs like this one or even the recent Light Hope. And while Club Etheria does indeed have a limited number of slots, don’t forget that Princess of Power figures will be releasing in the Eternia Sub as well, as evidenced by this month’s Mermista release. I think NA She-Ra is a great looking figure and lots of fun. She also finally gives me a hero to team up with Icarius and Hydron to fight my Space Mutants because I don’t have the Classics New Adventures He-Man. I guess I need to remedy that soon.

Once again, I find Matty Sale Day rapidly approaching while trying to play catch up with last month’s figures. In addition to the previously featured Light Hope an Eldor, October also gave us Sweet Bee, not to be confused with Sweet Dee from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Not that anyone is likely to make that mistake as Sweet Bee is exactly what her name suggests she is… a bee lady, albeit not quite to the extent that Buzz Off is a bee man.

There’s the packaging. Nothing new to see here. Sweet Bee includes the “Princess of Power” sticker on the front and she looks great inside the bubble. And check out that groan-inducing tag line… “Honey of a Guide!” Ugh. Her wings come detached and sealed on the back of the card just like Flutterina’s. Let’s get her open!

Sweet Bee strikes me as a big departure from the last Etherian lady I looked at, Entrapta. Her outfit features a much simpler sculpt and a more focused color pallet. She’s basically just sporting a yellow dress with a black belt and black trim on the skirt. There’s a sculpted pink crest on her chest that’s vaguely insect-like in an abstract sort of way. She has orange-brown wrist bracers and tights and yellow boots with sculpted strapping tied around them. I think the colors on the outfit work pretty well, even if they aren’t all that exciting. I do wish the straps on the boots were painted black as it would have added a little more excitement as well as help to enhance the black and yellow bee motif.

Yes, the head sculpt features a portrait that is still very evocative of the rest of the ladies in this line. It’s a very similar facial structure that we’ve been seeing since Teela and Adora. I know I say this every time, but I think it’s worth repeating. The dudes in this line have far more unique facial features than the ladies. That having been said, there’s something a little off about this one. The lips and eyes seem too big and the eyebrows are mighty beefy looking. There’s also some mold flashing on her jawline, which annoys me. Her orange hair looks like its fashioned out of modeling clay and the pink paint around her headband is slopped all over the hair. Granted, you have to get in pretty close to really notice a lot of this stuff, but it still feels like the QC on Sweet Bee’s noggin has taken a dive.

Speaking of her hair, Sweet Bee’s orange hair is sculpted with two parts in the back to allow for the wings to plug in. It’s the same sort of thing we saw with Flutterina and it has the same limiting effect on the neck articulation. The wings cast in semi-translucent pink plastic and attach via rotating hinges that peg into the sockets on her back. They look great, but the hair really renders the articulation on the connection pointless. Nonetheless, as much as it sounds like I’m griping about the way the wings work, I can’t see any other way they could have done it.

Sweet Bee comes with three accessories: A gun, a shield, and an alternate helmeted head. The shield is the same PoP shield we’ve seen over and over again. It’s sculpted in yellow plastic with a yellow crystal. I do like that Mattel sprung for the gold paint apps for the ornamentation, although I’d rather they spent that money on black paint for the boot straps. Yeah, I’m still dwelling on that! Still, you don’t always get the extra paint hit on these shields so I guess that’s something.

I’m not a big fan of the bee gun. Yeah, it’s a bee-themed gun, I’m OK with that, but the way the stinger droops on the end makes me wonder if it can shoot straight. It just comes off as pretty dopey looking. Yes, I realize that I’m complaining that the bee lady’s weapon is too goofy. I’m not suggesting we give her an AK-47 painted with black and yellow striping. I’m just saying I think there could have been a happier compromise.

And then there’s the helmet head, which is also an odd piece. It’s basically just a bucket with antenna and a huge blue face shield. It’s overly simple and it reminds me of the Morolians from SEGA’s Space Channel 5. Also, where does all the hair go when she’s wearing it? Does she get it all tucked up in there? On the plus side, displaying her with the helmeted head opens up more articulation for the wings.

I’ve made it no secret that I’ve been more excited by the Princess of Power ladies lately than the main Masters line, but it didn’t work out that way this month. That’s not all Sweet Bee’s fault, she just head some really tough competition going up against two excellent figures like Eldor and Light Hope. And I’m not saying I hate this figure. Even with the questionable head sculpt and unappealing gun, I still dig her. She’s colorful and fun and she looks great standing with the other ladies of the Rebellion or just chilling with her fellow winged warrior, Flutterina. So long as I can keep Buzz Off from trying to pollinate with her, she’ll be a solid addition to my Princess of Power shelf.

Once again, I find myself hurrying to get last month’s Matty figures reviewed before the new ones arrive. I just got the ship notice for October’s figures so it’s long past time I wrapped up September’s offerings. I already looked at Club Eternia’s Rio Blast and today I’m going to check out Club Etheria’ Entrapta! My knowledge about the ladies of The Great Rebellion can be hit or miss, but in this case I knew absolutely nothing about Entrapta. I didn’t even know she was a character, so apart from what little I’ve read about the figure, I’m going into this one totally in the dark.

Hey, hey! It’s the MOTUC packaging! Wow, Entrapta is a member of The Horde? I honestly thought she was a good gal. Interesting. Most of the villains in the Masters Universe tend to advertise the fact by either being grotesque monsters or dressing like they’re evil. Sure, Scorpia is hawt, but she’s still got claws and a stinger tail. Scorpions are evil, everybody knows that! But based solely on Entrapta’s looks, I would have definitely pinned her for a goody. Anyway, her tag line on the package, “Tricky Golden Beauty” sounds like a service you might covertly order at one of those less reputable massage parlors. It also doesn’t suggest she’s a villain, nor does it really advertise her gimmick, which is the ability to grab people with her hair. The bio says she has the longest hair in the land, but she might want to get out a yardstick and double check that with Double Mischief, because that figure had some damn long hair.

Here she is out of the package and… Oh… OK. I see it now. She’s got a very understated Horde skull dead center on her bosom. Apart from that, the purple and pink color of her outfit, mixed with all that gold, and I’d be sure this chick would be kicking up her high heeled boots at a tea party and hob-nobbing with the chicks from The Rebellion. In case you can’t tell, I’m really fixating on Entrapta’s allegiance. I’m over it now, though. I’ll try not to bring it up again.

So straightaway I absolutely love this figure. The pink paint is really vibrant and it goes well with the purple. It’s also cool that they used matte paint for the skirt, but a snazzy metallic purple for her top. And the gold… oh, the gold! Hasbro used a nice and vibrant shade of metallic gold paint for her boots, gloves, tiara and her collar and it really makes this figure pop like crazy on the shelf. I also love those boots. They look like something out of a 70’s sci-fi exploitation flick. Hey, Barbarella, come get your boots… Entrapta has them! Seriously, though, this is one bitchin deco!

The portrait here is attractive and now that I look at it, I suppose she does have a tiny hint of an “I’m angry and evil” expression on her mug. I’m pretty sure I mentioned last time about how the female faces in this line are starting to blur together for me. I think it’s something about the structure of the cheeks and a bit of flatness to the face. It doesn’t look bad at all, but there’s just a sense of sameness in the females that has been more or less there since the early days of Teela and Adora. There’s a tiny bit of mold flashing around the jawline of my figure, but the paint on the face is sharp and clean. The lips and teeth look particularly good and I like the slightly cocked eyebrow.

Of course, I’ve already mentioned that Entrapta’s pride and joy is her “ultra long” pink hair. Obviously bubble gum is her kryptonite. Just stick a wad in her hair and it’ll take her forever to find it, let alone get it out. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole hair thing considering how terrible Double Mischief’s hair turned out, but Entrapta’s coif is much better executed. The saving grace here is that it isn’t one giant elephant trunk of hair hanging down the back, but rather two rather unwieldy pigtails that have gotten totally out of control. Each cluster of hair is hinged at the head with a rotating hinge joint and surprisingly enough, you can actually pose the hair up and out and it’ll stay there… at least for a little while. She even has some swivels toward the ends of the hair too! My figure does have a bit of a bobble head, but I guess that’s to be expected when you’re sporting your own weight in hair on the back of your head.

Entrapta comes with two accessories. First off, you get her staff, which continues her whole bling thing. Yes, it is indeed painted in gold and it has a vague Ankh-like configuration which I dig a lot. It’s pretty utilitarian, but who says every magic staff has to have gargoyles and shit carved all over it, eh? Secondly, you get her shield, which is the same old shield we’ve seen the PoP figures come with since the beginning. This one is painted purple and has a purple crystal in it. Yeah, a little variety would be nice, but I honestly like this shield design so I’m cool with it. It also matches her deco nicely, and if there’s one thing the chicks of Etheria know how to do, it’s accessorize! Can’t you just picture Entrapta getting ready to go out and terrorize a village and ask Catra, “Does this shield go with these boots?”

Do I really need to keep running down the articulation on these figures? I do? Alrighty then. Entrapta’s arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels way up in the hips. She can swivel at the waist and has a ball joint in the neck. All in all pretty standard stuff, plus the two hinges and two swivels in the hair.

Before wrapping up, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the little running QC problem that a lot of the Entrapta figures seem to be suffering… the dreaded crushed left hand! It is indeed smushed on my figure as well and I could see it the moment I took the package out of the mailer. In the end, it’s a slight cosmetic blemish, as the hand is soft enough that it can still hold accessories. In fact, if you put her staff in her smushed hand, it looks fine. Sure, any QC problems on a $30 collector figure are unacceptable, but in this case it isn’t enough to ruin the figure for me. I just write it off to an injury caused by a horrible hair combing accident.

For me, the Princess of Power figures have been outshining the regular Masters figures lately and Entrapta here is another example of why. She’s easily one of the most visually interesting and appealing Etherian ladies to land in my collection. The coloring is great and while the hair could have been a disaster, like it was with Double Mischief, they managed to do it quite well here. The fact that she’s a Horde member was quite a surprise for me, but she does indeed look great when displayed with Hordak and her fellow evil doers. This month’s Club Etheria figure should be Sweet Bee and I’m pretty damn excited to be getting her next!

It’s Club Etheria time and today I’m looking at a figure that a lot of collectors were really happy to get into their hands. Me? Eh, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly happy to add her to my shelf, afterall she is a pretty iconic character in the She-Ra series, but I can’t say as I’ve been pining for her release. For those of you who don’t know Madame Razz, she’s basically the Orko of Etheria. That is if Orko was a crazy homeless bag lady. Like Orko, Razz was an absent minded spellcaster who was inexplicably trusted with the secret of our heroine’s secret identity. In other words, she was one of the many comic relief characters for the much lighter toned She-Ra series. She’s also one of those characters I never really expected to ever make it to figure form… and here she is! Oh, Deary-My!!!

Razz comes in the usually awesome Greyskull inspired green stone package with the “Princess of Power” sticker on the bubble. There’s also an expositional explosion on the bubble insert proclaiming that her trusty friend Broom is included. Despite being a slightly smaller figure than most of the line, Razz and Broom still fill up the bubble quite nicely. The back of the card includes a bio, which didn’t really tell me anything new about the character, other than her first name is Regina. The cardback did, however, serve to remind me that I’m still missing a few Princess of Power figures.

And there she is out of the package looking just as sexy as She-Ra and her girlfriends. WAIT… WHAT AM I SAYING???  No, Madame Razz bears the unfortunate burden of being one of the few females on Etheria that isn’t smoking hot. Hell, Scorpia’s got two lobster claws and a scorpion tail and I’d still do her. But not poor Razz. She looks like a cross between Orko and what you picture in your mind when you hear me say “crazy old Aunt Matilda.” DON’T LIE TO ME… I KNOW WHAT YOU SAW!!! She’s also pretty chunky for all those people complaining that She-Ra only fosters women with unrealistic body types. So what’s so damn cool about this figure?

In a line of figures that more or less conforms to regular human (albeit human steroid junkie) proportions, Razz is totally unique. Sure, there are chicks flying around with butterfly wings and scorpion tails, but they still more or less look like regular people. Not Madame Razz… she’s a total cartoon character and she’s not ashamed of it. Considering all that I think Matty did an exceptional job with what is a very unconventional figure and one which obviously required all new tooling. The result is a figure that captures all the nuances and weird proportions of the original character artwork remarkably well. From the haphazard patches on her clothes to the ridiculous upturned boots, Razz looks like she just walked out of the cartoon.

The head sculpt is also excellent. Frankly, I didn’t think that this portrait would translate all that well to a three-dimensional sculpt, but I’ll be damned if Matty didn’t make it happen. I like the way the hair flows down from inside the hat and it even sprouts out the back of the top of the hat. Even the droopy tip with the flower is spot on perfect.

As Madame Razz is an off-the-wall design, her articulation varies a bit from what we’re used to getting in the MOTUC line. But that’s not to say she isn’t well articulated. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders and elbows and there are swivels in the wrists. She has both rotating and lateral hinges in the hips, and both her knees and ankles are ball jointed. She can swivel at the waist and she has a generous ball joint in the neck. Despite the wonky proportions and tiny feet, Razz still stands fairly well. Sure, sometimes you have to work at it, but I honestly didn’t think it would be this easy to keep her upright without a figure stand.

As already mentioned, Razz comes with one accessory and that’s Broom. Rather than be content with delivering just a static PCV piece, Broom actually features ball joints in his shoulders. Ok, two points of articulation may not be all that much to celebrate over, but frankly I’m pleased that he wound up with any poseability at all. Broom can be a little tougher to stand than Razz, but he does have peg holes if you want to support him with a stand.

Whenever I watched She-Ra, I generally hated every moment that Madame Razz was on screen and so it may seem rather odd that I’m happy to own her figure. Then again I was never all that fond of either the He-Man or She-Ra cartoons, so that was never what was fueling this collection for me anyhow. And yet all I can say is that my Princess of Power collection would hardly seem complete without her. I think she’s a fun figure and she certainly adds a bucketload of diversity to the ladies of The Great Rebellion! And if you buy a thousand of her, you can recreate that scene in Fantasia with Broom!

Another Matty Sale Day has come and gone and you know what that means? Subscription figures are landing at my door! Yes, this month it’s figures (plural) because in addition to the Club Eternia release, the Club Etheria Mini Sub kicked off this month and that’s the one that I’m going to look at first. This is the second of these Mini Subs that I subscribed to, the first being the Club Filmation. I can honestly say that I didn’t think there was a bad figure in that entire series. Will that be the case with Club Etheria? Well, let’s take a look at Double Mischief and find out.

While she may hail from a new Club Subscription, Double Mischief features the same great packaging we’ve been seeing all along. The only difference worth noting is a snazzy 30^th Anniversary She-Ra logo printed on the back of the cardboard mailer box. You’ll have to take my word for it, though, as I tossed it before I was able to shoot any pictures. The front of the bubble has the Princess of Power sticker on the front. The back of the card has the usual bio and pictures of other figures in the line. Looks like I’m only missing Bow and Snout Spout. The bio proclaims that Double Mischief’s real name is Rebekkah Kettle. Wait… what? Ok, well for the rest of the feature I’m calling her Becky, because I don’t want to keep typing Double Mischief.

Holy shit, this figure is crazy! I realize that’s usually a compliment for MOTUC figures, but in this case I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way. Becky’s gimmick is that she’s basically a female Man-E-Faces and while I happen to dig the Man-E figure a lot, in this case I’m getting more of a weird and off-putting vibe. I guess I’ll start with her portrait, because that’s where it’s all going on. She has the same bucket-head kind of helmet with a rotating set of faces. In this case, Becky only has two faces, one good and one bad. The idea is that she’s a member of the Great Rebellion posing as a Horde member. She’s a double agent, get it? So why does it work for me with Man-E-Faces and not with this chick?

It’s tough to put my finger on exactly why. I think a big part of it is that Man-E was more of a freakish monster and Rebecca is just a regular lady with a monument sized bucket on her head. And girlfriend, that hair ain’t helping any neither. <insert double-snap here> The hair is not only a ridiculous fountain of plastic spurting out of her top, but the paint on it is terrible making it look dirty and just plain nasty. It looks less like hair and more like what you get when you push play-doh through one of those toy pasta maker machines.

You switch faces simply but turning the knob on the top of her helmet and the main difference between the two is in the eyebrows. One face has a set of eeeevil eyebrows. And god help you if you stop halfway through changing the faces because you’ll be confronted with a featureless lump of flesh that will haunt your dreams forever.

It’s a shame because I think the rest of the figure looks mostly good. I like the green dress and the high collar and those silver Go-Go boots look like they’re right out of a classic Star Trek episode. I had high hopes for the translucent green cape, but in person it looks kind of dingy and not so great. From the neck down, Becky has the same articulation as most of the other females in the line. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows and have swivels in the biceps and wrists. Her legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels at the upper thighs. She also has lateral rockers in the ankles. Naturally, there’s no neck articulation because this chick doesn’t really have a neck. If you want her to look in either direction you can work the knob on the top of her head. She’s not someone you want with you in battle because she’s got zero peripheral vision.

Becky comes with only one accessory and that’s her Horde crossbow. It’s designed so that it can convert to a less evil looking crossbow for when she’s with her Rebellion chums. You convert it simply by twisting the front. It’s because of the crossbow that I’ll probably keep her displayed with my Horde figures.

Unfortunately Club Etheria isn’t off to a great start as far as I’m concerned. I find it odd that Matty put Double Mischief out there as their first offering and one that would land on people’s doorsteps smack dab in the middle of Subbing Season for 2015. I thought she was a dubious offering from the beginning and there are much stronger figures and characters that they could have used as their inaugural release. There are precious few figures in the Masters Classics collection that I don’t enjoy on some level, but I think Becky here is going to be counted as one of those few. Fortunately the rest of this Club’s offering should be a lot better.