Man-at-Arms Heroic Master of Weapons! - '80s Adventures! He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Cartoon Collection Basic Figure Item No.: Asst. HYD16 No. HYD25 Manufacturer: Mattel Includes: Stasis Ray, Club, Wizard's Vizard mini-comic Action Feature: n/a Retail: $19.99 Availability: January 2024 Other: Das Reboot
PREVIOUS	RSS	NEXT

One of my favorite remake of remake of remake lines is He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Cartoon Collection. They've supplanted the Origins guys on display. Man-at-Arms has been hanging around for a while, and I photographed him in 2024 when he came out, but never wrote the review. As I write this now it feels the line might be just about over, unless it sees a revival with the forthcoming movie. We'll see, I guess. Duncan was one of the first figures in the line and I feel things got better as they went along. It's still good, though.

You can practically hear Alan Oppenheimer's voice come out of the head sculpt and the colors, while bright, are pretty much what I remember from TV. I think I might have gone with other accessories, but I'm sure everybody has an opinion on such things. Super7 also did a figure of this character, in this style, at this scale - it's also very good, but I don't have one.

Click here to check availability at Amazon.

Click here to check availability at eBay.

Click here to check availability at Walmart.

The base body is back, with armor on the arms and chest. I think the orange bits gets in the way of the added articulation, but tooling new limbs (and painting them) would probably be cost prohibitive. The face is painted nicely, and the helmet is a little bluer than I'd pick but it looks great. His face is pretty much perfect, and the detail is good enough for a modern figure. Things tended to be sharper on a lot of older 1980s figures, but also glossier. The aesthetics aren't quite the same, but the figure still fits in with the old vehicles and playsets fairly well. He's just a hair taller than the Origins versions.

They gave him a cartoon version of the club that we got with the action figure. On the cartoon, he was mostly a tinkerer and was shown shooting lasers out of his wrists during the theme song. This made the club extraneous to my requirements, it's nice to have but I wouldn't have missed it were it left out. He also has a habit of dropping it once in a while.

The other accessory is a nifty Stasis Ray. It's a little big, and you lose a little detail going from the animation cel to a physical object, but it more or less has all the landmarks. You could paint it or add panel lines, but I'm lazy and untalented - I'll leave it as it is. I find this a lot more exciting as it's new, and because it fits more in with the occasional mad scientist vibes we see on the cartoon.

Mattel has been pretty shrewd about reissuing older figures as they ascend on the secondary market. This guy's about double what he cost in 2024. As an essential character I would hope he comes back or gets a do-over. If you want to collect this particular sub-line, he's essential. But if Mattel put out one with less bulky armor and a wrist laser in the 5.5" size, I'd probably give that one the nod.

If I had to collect Origins over again, I'd probably just stick to the cartoon guys with a few special guest stars for missing faces and anybody who came with a vehicle. It's a satisfying figure, and I'd recommend grabbing yourself a Castle Grayskull and whatever figures fit your budget.

Additional Images

Click here to see more Mattel figures in Figure of the Day.

Click here to see more Masters of the Universe figures in Figure of the Day.