Toy Review: Masters of the Universe Classics Faker

Our look back at Mattel's Masters of the Universe Classics line continues with Faker, The Evil Robot of Skeletor. Faker was first available at the 2009 New York Comic Con and then later on mattycollector.com where he sold out in a matter of hours. Thanks to a truly spectacular paint job, Faker is one of the stand out figures from the MOTUC line. As one of the earlier figures in the series, it is likely we will see him reissued at some point in 2010, assuming the sales of the reissued He-Man and Skeletor go well.




Despite his intriguing appearance, as a character, Faker has always been a bit underdeveloped. In his sole appearance in the Filmation series, he was showed as being a virtual duplicate of He-Man, without the weird blue skin and red hair sported by his action figure. Faker was very briefly introduced in the 2002 series as a robot built by Man-At-Arms when Prince Adam was captured by Skeletor. He was to have played a major part in the third season of show before it was canceled. His package bio borrows heavily from what we can suppose is the 2002 series bible and, yet, the mystery of his bizarre appearance is not addressed.

I’ll admit, this was not a character for which I was excited. To me, issuing such a blatant repaint so early in the line was a big disappointment. On top of that, Faker was never a character I liked due to his inexplicably silly appearance (How exactly was he supposed to fool anyone into thinking that he was He-Man?) So it was to my complete surprise that Faker has become one of my favorite figures in the line.

Being a repaint, he shares the same body with the earlier He-Man figure and he has armor that is from Skeletor. He differs from He-Man in the “tape-deck” application stamped on to his chest, much like his earlier figure. Where Faker shines is in his amazing paint job on both the figure and his accessories. While he is blue, he is a different shade from Skeletor. Faker is painted a funky, eye-popping electric blue. His boots are painted a deep purple with black bands. His gauntlets and belt weathered silver that really pops against the blue skin and the purple loincloth. The head sculpt that I disliked so much on He-Man here works a lot better. The angry beady-eyed stare is far better suited to a pissed-off robotic clone of He-Man than to the most powerful man in the universe, himself.

For a repaint, Faker actually comes with less accessories than He-Man. He comes with Skeletor’s armor, an orange power sword and a half-sword that connects with that of He-Man. Fortunately, the excellent painting is not limited to the figure itself. The Skeletor armor is mostly painted orange with a dark wash to give it a nice weathered appearance. My favorite part of this figure is the cross-bones at the front of the armor, which are painted a bronzy shade of orange. The same metallic color is used for the sword blades.

Masters of the Universe Classics Faker is a great example of how a new paint job can take an already good figure to the level of a great figure. Faker is much more than a simple repaint. While he is not going to be fooling anyone into thinking he is the real He-Man, Faker is certainly one of the best figures released in the line so far.

Patrick Garone
Staff Reviewer