Toy Review: Masters of the Universe Classics Beast Man

The Masters of the Universe Classics Beast Man action figure debuted with He-Man back in December of 2008 and sold out after six weeks. If all goes according to plan, and the reissues of He-Man and Skeletor go well, Beast Man would be a logical candidate to be re-released by Mattel early in 2010. Beast Man is a stand out among the early figures and you should definitely get him if he slipped under the radar the first time.





Beast Man’s bio is pulled straight from the Icons of Evil comics that accompanied the 2002 Masters of the Universe Series. It presents him as one of Skeletor’s earliest allies and “chief henchman to Skeletor, the Overlord of Evil,” which is I guess what it says on his resume. The most remarkable part of the bio is that it gives him a name, Raqquill Rqazz. This is the first in a series of odd and unwieldy “real” names provided by Mattel for these characters, although, it did originate in the above comic.

The added articulation of these figures serves Beast Man extremely well. The abdominal "crunch" joint in particular seems made for Skeletor’s beastly henchman, as you can pose him hunched over as he was often depicted. Hunching him over also has the added benefit of causing his armor to bunch up, making him look much bigger and huskier than the other figures. It’s a great way of disguising the fact that all of these figures are pretty much the same size. This is a figure that works really well and whose parts are beautifully integrated. The head sculpt on this one is fantastic and ferocious-looking. This figure introduced a new “hairy” torso, different from that of He-Man or Skeletor, in the same way that the original line endlessly combined a dozen or so different parts.

He only comes with one weapon, a whip, but much of Beast Man is covered in removable armor, such as the sculpted furry mane-like piece mentioned above. Growing out of this piece are six bony spikes that surround his head. The figure also has two removable upper arm guards, each of which has a pair of spikes growing out of it. This is, of course, straight from the original figure, only realized with infinitely more detail. All of these spikes are sculpted with natural ridges and wear marks. The total effect here is of rough and primitive armor that has been cobbled together out of pieces of bone and teeth.

Beast Man keeps his basic color scheme, which means he has the improbably Orange Crush colored fur which always made him such an eye-catching and appealing character in his 1980’s figure. He also has the blue highlights on his face. Now, if I had never seen this figure and you were to tell me he was bright orange with blue lipstick and eye shadow, I would think that it would look pretty silly. But it doesn’t, it looks really good and really makes the otherwise white face really pop. The one complaint that I have with this figure is in the medallion that is sculpted onto the front of Beast Man’s chest. Both the medallion and the chains that disappear into his fur are painted a uniform light blue. It feels a bit tacked on, which is a pity because it is right there in the middle of everything. Maybe with a little more color detail it could look a little better. Hopefully this is something they will address in a prospective re-release.

Beast Man is definitely one of the better figures of the Masters of the Universe Classics line. This is in part thanks to the strength of the design of the original figure, which has here been given a pretty thorough update without a lot of new elements. With a little luck and successful reissues of He-Man and Skeletor, we should see Beast Man re-released on mattycollector.com early in 2010.

Patrick Garone
Staff Reviewer