There’s a lot to be upset about in the world today, but at least for the moment ridiculous dorks like me who buy too many action figures still have a lot to smile about. This summer we’ll be in the FOURTH year of having at least two entirely separate retail lines of figures based on He-Man and his friends, something that seemed unthinkable in the late 2000s and the 2010s, when He-Man seemed doomed to be relegated to an overpriced boutique line for adult collectors that I always thought had an air of being both a little stodgy and slightly embarrassed about itself. I did feel a little bad back in the late ’00s and early 2010s about not being able to really buy into the Masters of the Universe Classics line, but there did always seem something drab, and dare I say it, anti-fun about the line — like the objects of worship of the world’s most boring cult and also a line of commemorative plates, if that makes any sense. But it also at the time looked like the only way we’d ever get new figures for all these wild and woolly characters across the vast scope of the classic He-Man line and its spin-offs and sequels, so I did want at least some of them. I daresay, though, the old line feels a bit surplus to requirements here in 2025, where I now have two action figures manufactured within this decade of Evil Horde member Leech and a third on pre-order.
