Toy Review: Masters of the Universe Classics The Goddess

The December bonus figure for the Masters of the Universe Classics toyline was The Goddess, a long-anticipated figure based on one of MOTU’s initial character concepts from the days of the earliest minicomics. Originally known by fans as The Green Goddess, she is the prototypical sorceress/warrior/mentor character in MOTU which later split off into Teela, The Sorceress and, to a lesser extent, Evil-Lyn. As of this writing, this Teela repaint is still on sale at mattycollector.com, but if the previous bonus figure, Zodak, is any indication, The Goddess shouldn’t be available much longer. So how did this first-time-in-action-figure-form character turn out? Read on…

I rarely pay attention to packaging on my action figures as I like to open them and put them up on my display shelf, but in the case of The Goddess, I have to note the really cool way that this figure is packaged. You can see that she is posed in a way that is nearly identical to a panel from the first Masters of the Universe minicomic (her sole media appearance to date) in which she gives the barbarian He-Man his weapons. She also includes the harness, battle axe, and shield that were originally included with He-Man and I am guessing that they are included only to recreate this iconic scene in the packaging. I’m impressed that Mattel would spend the extra money to include these items only for the sake of creating a cool packaging display.

As usual, a short bio is included for this character that for years has been known as The Green Goddess but now she is officially called The Goddess of Eternia, which I suppose is somewhat of a promotion. These bios always involve a delicate dance to preserve as much of the popular continuity as possible while incorporating other narratives as well. As The Goddess is a character from the early minicomics, she doesn’t fit into the main story established by the later comics and the 200X media from which most of the MOTUC bios are drawn. With The Goddess, Mattel has introduced both a new historical era, a

kind of Eternian Dark Ages that take place in the centuries after King Grayskull and before the time of Randor and Keldor and the concept of other warriors that have taken the name “He-Man” during that time. The Goddess has the role of trainer of these He-Men, much as she was in here minicomic appearance. Recently, Wundar has been revealed to be one of these He-Men in his own bio.

While this has been controversial with some Masters of the Universe fundamentalists, I think it is a clever way to incorporate some He-Man variants and give us some characters that fans have been wanting for a while. I also like that it ties together the Ancient Eternia Era (He-Ro, Hordak, Grayskull) to the Modern Era. Masters of the Universe is really starting to have a big expansive fantasy world feel to it. Eternia is becoming a world with tons of history.

The bio still leaves me a little confused about the relationship between The Goddess, The Sorceress and Teela. In terms of story and design, The Sorceress has been an evolution of The Goddess. Teela is the cloned daughter of The Sorceress yet her action figure is a “clone” of The Goddess. Perhaps, in this new continuity, The Goddess later becomes the Sorceress, or is somehow related to her. Maybe there is more magical cloning to come. Needless to say, the bio for The Sorceress is the one to to which I am most

looking forward.

The Goddess is a straight repaint of Teela and is cast in a green translucent plastic for a ghostly look. The effect is pretty cool, although I would have probably preferred the original non-translucent, more matte finish of the prototype. Especially since the plastic used is fairly brittle. My Goddess' wrist broke off since the joint was too tight for the weak plastic.

Her molded outfit is painted in a not-particularly-nice green and gold. The “bobblehead” effect is in full force on my Goddess. This is much more noticeable since she will be likely wearing her armor most of

the time.

The figure includes some of the original Teela accessories, such as the shield and cobra armor and he head is exactly the same as the alternate Teela head. Oddly, the eyes in The Goddess’ cobra armor are painted metallic blue instead of the green used on Teela’s armor. You would think it would be the other way around. I’m finding myself wanting to switch around accessories on the figures a lot lately and I will probably give her Teela’s armor and Staff of Ka. The Goddess also comes with her own golden staff that is topped with a kind of fleur-de-lis spearhead.

In addition to all this, she comes with the He-Man accessories mentioned above, which is fine because you can never have too many battle axes, in my opinion. The harness was slightly warped due to the way it was packaged to appear as though hanging as in the minicomic. It would have been nice if there had been a little more synergy between the figure releases so that you could actually do something with this armor. For example if Battle Armor He-Man had been given an unpainted stomach, you could have slapped this extra armor on him and had yourself a He-Man. I suppose you can use put this extra armor on your Wun-Dar if you like.

Overall, The Goddess is a great character to have but I wish she would have been released a little farther down the line from Teela, as the only difference between the two is the paint and the plastic used. Personally, I display my Teela without the cobra armor so that helps differentiate them a little more. The Goddess is a pivotal character from the long and expansive history of Masters of the Universe Classics. If you don’t get her before she sells out you may not see here again for a very long time, if at all according the Matty’s official statements on re-releases.

Patrick Garone

Staff Reviewer