Revenge of Skeletor Evil Lord of Destruction! Masters of the Universe Core Action Figure Item No.: Asst. JKH88 No. JLV12 Manufacturer: Mattel Includes: Havoc Staff, Cape Action Feature: n/a Retail: $9.97 Availability: March 2026 Other: Alcala Golden Comic Deco
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I was planning on skipping Revenge of Skeletor and Masters of the Universe movie stuff entirely. It's a new scale, it's a new build, and it lacks ankle joints... but it's pretty great. If you have no Skeletors, and want one Skeletor, this Walmart exclusive isn't bad. He's just shorter than Mattel's other figures since 2020ish. With his legs fully straight, he's a smidge over 5 1/2-inches tall. This puts him at a full head shorter than the Cartoon Collection guys.

Hey customizers: as far as I can tell the arms and waist do not pop apart like the Origins and Cartoon Collection figures.

The figure follows the similar efficiencies set by Mattel's WWE line and recent takes on Masters of the Universe, with lots of shared parts. If you compare this to the (as of my writing this) unreleased He-Man, you can tell the hands, legs, upper arms, and torso are all the same parts. Skeletor's bare forearms and footless boots are unique, as are his armor and loincloth. These figures would be right at home on your old playsets and vehicles, just be aware they are going to look shorter than a lot of those other figures. Mattel could use this figure as another place to reboot its entire "classic" line - I could absolutely see them running the entire 1980s case, again, using this cheaper body as a basis if a) the movie takes off and b) demand for product increases as a result.

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It's important to note that Mattel really tried some stuff to keep this figure interesting. Yes, he's shorter and yeah, he doesn't have any sort of ankle articulation. But he has a fabric cape, and a lot of golden painted rivets and bones, and also he's ten bucks. You still get the bend-and-swivel wrists, and fully-jointed elbows, knees, shoulders, and hips. And a swivel waist, and a ball-jointed neck. And it's ten bucks. It's hard to drive home what a big deal that is, because in 1982 a figure was around $4.25. Adjusted for inflation, $4.25 is $13.94, and these new guys have more paint and aren't held together with rubber bands.

The head alone is massively improved, with a golden plastic skull featuring red eyes in a void of black. And a purple molded hood. It's really impressive, but I admit the Alcala-esque sculpted teeth detailing is lost a little in the gold plastic. His purple armor has painted gold rivets - generally, Mattel leaves these unpainted - plus a golden bat above a golden bone "X." What's more, they painted the rivets on the loincloth as well as the little ram skull on his belt. For a mass-release figure at a relatively low price in this era of fan pricing, this figure has more going for it than most Skeletors of the past 25 years. The only thing I'm missing are black fingernails.

Even though there are no ankle joints, he stands well. The ball-jointed hips and bend-and-swivel knees have enough of a range of movement to get the legs where they need to be, plus or minus the loincloth - which has an older-style loop in the back to remove it.

The cape has a molded plastic chain to keep it in place, but the cape itself feels kind of cheap despite having a gold liner and a purple exterior. It looks pretty good, but I assume fans will fabricate better ones as time goes on. The Havoc Staff is golden, and appears to be uniquely sculpted with more detailing around the grip and especially the pommel. I can't see the new movie figure, but I assume they may share the tooling.

Older collectors are obnoxiously demanding and have a hard time saying "I can trade away a few joints for a much cheaper figure." This one is unusual in that it has far more paint than previous, more expensive collector figures but it's pretty close otherwise. You have no ankles, no removable limbs, only one accessory, and no mini-comic - but they're $10. The first 2020 Origins figures were usually in the $15-$17 range and those were considered "cheap" at the time. In 2026, a slightly shorter figure with roughly the same specifications at a lower price shows that Mattel's true genius might be in its supply chain. Hot Wheels and Matchbox still deliver an industry-leading low price point and relatively consistent quality, and if we see them adapt this to action figures I bet Mattel will start to steal Hasbro's lunch money. WWE is frequently the top-selling brand in the biz, and Mattel has really tried hard to balance kid and collector needs with a consistent scale and varying levels of price (and feature sets) to keep everybody happy. That's also how they treat their car toys. They have done a similar job with Jurassic World. If they can pull it off with their own house brand, I expect they have a brighter future ahead of them.

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