Masters Of The Universe Origins

[xTIMMYxCOREx]

Q1: What is the origin (print media?) of that seemingly lava-shaded Skeletor that comes with Screech?
Q2: Is there a cartoon or comic book origin for those Snake Men army builders? I like the look of the blue one.

Bonus Question: There has been a purple Cyclops featured on some of the card art, and in Wun-Dar's mini-comic. Does this guy have an origin in any vintage sources, and/or undeveloped prototypes or designs?

For Q1 I learned today that it’s from the original package artwork for screetch. I had no idea.

[mattmurdog]

Did anyone pre-order the Skeletor 2 pack at EE for $24 when they had the price wrong this morning?

[KnightDamien]

Very surprised they are going all in on snake men. As a kid I lost interest by the time they were released. In 200X they seem to kill the line. They were by far my least favorite faction in MOTU. Are they that much in demand? Over more Horde characters and a Slime Pit?

Snake Men never killed any line. Not even sure where you're getting that idea. It's very well documented that over-saturation of repaints of the main characters, usually in ridiculous colors, combined with spotty distribution, is what killed the 200x toyline. And what killed the cartoon itself was being shuffled around time slots all the time so no one knew when to watch new episodes.

Snake Men are actually a pretty well-loved part of MOTU.


As for being more in demand than the Horde -- that's literally just not how any of this works. Toy companies don't make giant tier lists going from most to least popular and just make action figures in descending order.




Disappointingly, Toy Snowman opted not to put up any MOTU pre-orders today so... !@#$ 'em, I guess. I went to BBTS and just grabbed the ones I absolutely don't want to be without; Sssqueeze for me and Slamurai for my son. Everything else I'll either track down or miss out on and that's okay.

[PantherCult]

Well, they aren't going to make it easy to complete my Warriors of the Sun collection - the 3-pack of the final characters revealed yesterday is a Target exclusive and Duplico is a Wal Mart exlcusive... so I'll have to have my fingers crossed that they are easy enough to track down. But I will be excited to have all the characters shown on that old Sun Man advertisement.

[Super Camel]

Man, I pre ordered all this stuff today. So much product.

But it turned out Man E Faces (mini comic version) was a release on Amazon, not Wal-Mart. It also might be a timed exclusive. Which makes me wonder if Duplico is a Wal-Mart exclusive if it will be timed as well. I have no idea.

Like PantherCult just said, it feels like they aren't going to make it easy to finish Rulers of the Sun. But maybe that won't be the case. The Target 3 Pack should be easy to pre order. Even right now you can get the previous 3 pack with Sun Man on their site.

Duplico is more the worry, but I hope it's not an issue either. As of now he's hard to get, just because the figure hasn't really had wide release. And that makes him costly on the secondhand market. Hopefully in a few weeks Duplico is just no big deal either.

So excited for all this merch though. I really hope after Snake Men, the next theme is Powers of Grayskull! Then we can get He-Ro, Eldor, and hopefully some more characters from the vintage collection like Sy-Klone, Extendar, etc.

[Tenement Funster]

EE canceled my case of thunder punch/ Hisss. I hope they don't cancel any of these. I re-ordered them individually, but after seeing multiple people saying they had theirs canceled I'm cnocerned.

[DisneyBoy]

I can't blame anyone for being confused about what killed various He-Man toylines. It's not like Mattel is ever forthcoming about information. Heck, for years people whined "She-Ra killed He-Man!" when the POP brand actually came out as MOTU was winding down already, and She-Ra brought back He-Man characters on her show. If anything she extended his brand.

...which is why I'm so dang frustrated with the refusal to put any POP characters in Origins still. No Scorpia? No Octavia? They're still "too girly" for this MOTU line, which now includes Sun-Man and all his friends? Seriously??

Mattel why are you like this?

[canprime]

Very surprised they are going all in on snake men. As a kid I lost interest by the time they were released. In 200X they seem to kill the line. They were by far my least favorite faction in MOTU. Are they that much in demand? Over more Horde characters and a Slime Pit?

Snake Men never killed any line. Not even sure where you're getting that idea. It's very well documented that over-saturation of repaints of the main characters, usually in ridiculous colors, combined with spotty distribution, is what killed the 200x toyline. And what killed the cartoon itself was being shuffled around time slots all the time so no one knew when to watch new episodes.

Snake Men are actually a pretty well-loved part of MOTU.


As for being more in demand than the Horde -- that's literally just not how any of this works. Toy companies don't make giant tier lists going from most to least popular and just make action figures in descending order.




Disappointingly, Toy Snowman opted not to put up any MOTU pre-orders today so... !@#$ 'em, I guess. I went to BBTS and just grabbed the ones I absolutely don't want to be without; Sssqueeze for me and Slamurai for my son. Everything else I'll either track down or miss out on and that's okay.

DJC Collectibles (Ottawa) has pretty much everything general release up for preorder. Nothing is sold out as of right now. Saves you on exchange and shipping. Downside is that you have to pay upfront for the preorder.

As to the line itself. I think we all need to remember than nothing is evergreen consistently. Things ebb and flow and every line eventually hits the wall for sales and requires either a break, or a significant change to freshen it up. Transformers seems to have found a flow that works for them with the 3 year cycle of refresh. New packaging, new name, new designs, new shows. Ever since the first live action movie in 2007 they have maintained a presence at retail.

Now that could be a one off for action figures, but MOTU could probably benefit from that type of thinking. Also they are into year 4 now(?) so it isn't like they haven't had a good run, AND, they aren't disappearing. Especially after that massive reveal. So while I don't think we will see too much more from the Origins side of things for much longer, I don't imagine MOTU in general will be gone from retail, especially with more media to come.

So long story short I agree with you that changing themes isn't what did the line in per se, but rather I think it just ran it's course.

[xTIMMYxCOREx]

I can't blame anyone for being confused about what killed various He-Man toylines. It's not like Mattel is ever forthcoming about information. Heck, for years people whined "She-Ra killed He-Man!" when the POP brand actually came out as MOTU was winding down already, and She-Ra brought back He-Man characters on her show. If anything she extended his brand.

...which is why I'm so dang frustrated with the refusal to put any POP characters in Origins still. No Scorpia? No Octavia? They're still "too girly" for this MOTU line, which now includes Sun-Man and all his friends? Seriously??

Mattel why are you like this?

That’s what I was implying. Wouldn’t POP sell better than the snake men? I personally would have preferred a shadow weaver figure!

[mikeysee]

My Frog Mongers from MC finally shipped. Hopefully everyone will be receiving theirs soon.

[ODBJBG]

I can't blame anyone for being confused about what killed various He-Man toylines. It's not like Mattel is ever forthcoming about information. Heck, for years people whined "She-Ra killed He-Man!" when the POP brand actually came out as MOTU was winding down already, and She-Ra brought back He-Man characters on her show. If anything she extended his brand.

...which is why I'm so dang frustrated with the refusal to put any POP characters in Origins still. No Scorpia? No Octavia? They're still "too girly" for this MOTU line, which now includes Sun-Man and all his friends? Seriously??

Mattel why are you like this?

That’s what I was implying. Wouldn’t POP sell better than the snake men? I personally would have preferred a shadow weaver figure!

I doubt POP would sell better than the random snake men.

Shadow Weaver would probably sell, but Perfuma? Flutterina? SweetBee? Not so much. most of the POP characters are not particularly popular. Not saying there aren't some that would sell, because there are, but POP stuff really bogged down MOTUC and most of that stuff is still lingering on the secondary market. I can see why Mattel might have cold feet on doing more of that.

[PantherCult]

Wouldn’t POP sell better than the snake men? I personally would have preferred a shadow weaver figure!

I mean... there's no reason to assume they would, really. Despite our likes and wants here - Origins is still ostensibly being marketed as a retail line not aimed exclusively at collectors (though obviously trying to drag us all in) and is sold in the "boys toys" aisles at places like Target and Wal Mart. Snake soldiers are always going to be an easier sell to the retail buyers for a line populating their "boys" aisle than a line up of female protagonists.

And like I said earlier - a lot of the snakes they are selling us can exploit existing tooling and thus be made cheaper. Just because you want POP characters doesn't mean it would sell better than Snake Men.

[Super Camel]

I wonder why BBTS took down the Talon Fighter/Point Dreadd playset? I had pre ordered it early yesterday. But now it says page not found when I click my pre order. The Talon Fighter/Point Dreadd is still in my pre orders though. usually when that happens, it does at least mean BBTS plans to put the item back up.

But it's weird they took it down.

Thanks for posting about Frog Monger shipping mikeysee. I hope my Frog Mongers ship soon too. I had forgot about pre ordering that figure lol. I was thinking Grizzlor and my Eternia Playset was all I was waiting on from Mattel Creations.

[vicious7171]

Netflix She-Ra killed the line of amazing 1/6 She-Ra dolls from Mattel and I'll never be OK!

[Super Camel]

Now Talon Fighter and Point Dreadd are back up on BBTS. Also, I checked on Mattel creations, and it says my frog monger order has been fulfilled. So, hopefully it arrives in a couple days.