Written by Adam McCombs

Pretty much every action figure line will have some amount of production variants. I’ll define that term this way: a variation in the paint or mold of a figure release, either based on a running change to the same figure at the same factory, or differences due to the same figure being produced at different factories. Because the original Masters of the Universe line was so huge, it was produced in many factories all over the world, leading to many hundreds of production variants that fans are still cataloging to this day.

MOTU Classics had far fewer production variants than the 1980s line. For one thing, the production numbers on the Classics line were far fewer than the vintage line, and for the most part Classics figures seem to have been made at the same factory (as far as I can tell) until Super7 took over towards the end of the line and switched to a different factory.

Still, there were some running changes to a single figure’s paint and/or mold in the Classics line. Some of those changes were publicized as improvements and even used in the marketing of the line, while others were subtle and done pretty quietly.

For the purposes of this article, I’m not going to count the Super7 “Ultimates” re-releases of Skeletor, He-Man, Teela, Faker and Ram Man as production variants. There was a huge time gap between the original release and these Ultimates release, they were made by a different company, with different packaging, different accessories, etc. There are other redecorated re-released that I’m not counting either, such as the Toys “R” Us DCU two packs.

There may be other production variants I am not aware of – these are the ones I have cataloged over the years.

He-Man (Dec. 2008)

He-Man was the first figure sculpted for the MOTU Classics line, before it was actually a line. As the 200x NECA Staction line was petering out, Eric Treadaway of the Four Horsemen decided to try a new approach to He-Man. The concept was to take the bulky, muscular proportions of the vintage MOTU figures and augment them with more sculpted detail, painted detail, and articulation. The legs were lengthened to make them look a bit more realistic, and the size was increased to make them feel as big in the hand of a grownup as the original He-Man felt in the hands of a child.

Prototype

The first image below is the first He-Man prototype, which Mattel quietly put on display at a booth at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. Fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive, leading Mattel to greenlight a limited run of figures in this style. The second and third images represent a revised prototype, with a lowered belly button, smoothed over boots, more vivid colors and a few other changes. The final figure would get orange bracers rather than gray. One aspect that stands out is the reddish color around the eyes, which was a feature of the first release MOTU Classics He-Man figure.

Version 1

The Version 1 first release He-Man featured some reddish-brown spray around the eyes, like like the resin prototypes above. Depending on the version you got, this could have been done subtly or sometimes quite dramatically.

The first version had a couple of other idiosyncrasies. Like King Grayskull before him, his shoulders were assembled backwards. I remember back when I first started collecting this line, I had a hard time picking out backwards shoulders, but over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Sadly they were a recurring issue in the MOTU Classics line. This particular figure could also be a bit glossy.

Another idiosyncrasy was in the pelvis – the first release He-Man figure had a wide pelvis piece, giving him a slightly bow-legged appearance. I don’t have a loose version of V1 He-Man to photograph in that way, but I’ll show a close up picture of the difference in the section on Skeletor. The V1 He-Man also had a fairly stiff loincloth.

As I understand it, there were also some early He-Man figures that also had a flesh tone crotch piece, which gave him an unfortunately naked appearance under the loincloth. I don’t have a photo of that, but I heard about it from an old interview with Terry Higuchi, a Mattel designer who worked on the line. I’m not sure if any of these made it into the hands of fans, however.

Version 2

With the Version 2 He-Man, Mattel set about to fix the various issues with Version 1. They discontinued the red airbrushing around the eyes, which many fans didn’t like. They corrected the backwards shoulders, and they also made the pelvis piece narrower. The loincloth was also made more flexible, and he was less glossy. This version came packaged with a “The Original” burst on the packaging.

I should mention that even though there are only two discrete variants of this figure, there are all kinds of random variations on the figure’s face from. Sometimes the hair piece got glued on too high over the head, showing too much forehead (as in the carded example above). Sometimes the eyebrows were painted on too high as well.

Skeletor (Jan. 2009)

Skeletor had quite a few changes from his first release until he was discontinued. I’ll go over each step in his evolution.

Prototype

On the original resin prototype by the Four Horsemen, there was very little green on the face, just a bit on the lower surfaces of the jaw, teeth and cheekbones, as if it were a green light glowing from beneath his face. There was also a wash in the teeth to bring out the detail, and of course you can see paint deco in the eyes and nose. The prototype was shown in an issue of ToyFare Magazine, and in a Matty Collector ad:

Version 1a

The very first Skeletor figures appeared on the standard MOTU Classics card, with no “The Original” burst. The earliest figures had very unique paint on the face, with some light green airbrushing on the forehead and cheekbones, and a bit of very subtle blackwash on the teeth to bring out the details. It’s a very clean look, but this was quickly changed.

In addition to the face paint, other distinguishing features include the open left hand, and a much wider pelvis piece than was on most figures in the line. As mentioned earlier, this wide pelvis was found on the original He-Man release. It was also on the SDCC King Grayskull exclusive, and on some early versions of Faker as well. Early in 2009 this wide pelvis was modified by Mattel to a narrower design, allowing the legs to be a bit closer together.

Version 1b

The next version is much more common than Version 1a. Really the only difference between this and Version 1a is the face paint, which now has a pale green wash on the forehead and low relief areas of the sculpt. This would be the general way of painting the vast majority of the original Skeletor figures in this line. In my opinion this is the best looking paint job for Skeletor. It brings out the highly detailed sculpt (which is mostly lost in Version 1a) without being too green. You can also see the wash on the teeth that was present in the prototype version.

It’s also possible to find kind of an intermediate version of this figure, with a more airbrushed look like V1a, but with paint coverage more like V1b. This one looks good too:

Version 2a

After the original run of Skeletor figures had sold through, Mattel reissued him again. This time the package had a burst on the front saying “The Original.” The idea was to implement a running change and give Skeletor a closed left hand, which would help him dual wield both his Havoc Staff and his sword. They also wanted to improve the face paint on the figure. However, many figures came out in the burst packaging and still had the open left hand. They did, however, have the updated, narrower pelvis. The greenwash on the face was often slightly more irregular, with a slightly darker green paint used. Some of the paint jobs on these reissues are quite messy, but it’s also possible to find some with clean paint or minimalist green paint as well. There is a ton of variation because this paint application was done by hand at the factory.

Version 2b

This final version of Skeletor is the same as Version 2a, but with a closed left hand. The closed left hand was also used with the “toothless” Skeletor that came with the Mo-Larr set, and in the Toys “R” Us set with Lex Luthor, but I would consider those both to be different releases altogether, rather than production variants.

In any case, the closed hand version of Skeletor often had a slightly messy application of the green on his face paint, but it is possible to find more subtle versions. It can vary a lot from figure to figure. I’ve even located a closed hand version with face paint resembling the original prototype figure (images below). Note the very minimal amount of green paint on the forehead.

One of the first figures I bought as an adult collector, back in 2012 or 2013, was a Version 2b:

Stratos (Feb. 2009)

Below is the resin prototype Stratos figure. Note the forward facing “wings,” red belt, and medium gray color:

The actual production figure was made with a darker gray body. Also unfortunately the wings were glued down and facing the back of the arms. This was a factory error, as the wings were supposed to rotate freely. You can see the problem in the Matty Collector ad below, where the forearms are posed at an extreme angle to get the wings facing forward. This was possible to fix with some hot water and determination, however.

An early factory version of Stratos got the color scheme of Beast Man’s belt by mistake. While both characters had blue trunks, Beast Man had a gold belt, while Stratos was supposed to have a red belt. A few gold belt Stratos figures slipped out before the mistake was caught. The gold belt version appears on some cardbacks too (V1 Ram Man and V1 Granamyr, for instance). The picture below seems to show an early sample, since the factory version had the wings glued in place, rotated toward the back of the arms.

Here is a comparison picture of the red and gold belt variants, from the excellent MOTUC Figures site:

For comparison, here is a picture of the standard Stratos figure, with the wing problem fixed by me:

Moss Man (March 2010)

The Four Horsemen played with many different options when it came to Moss Man’s flocking. The picture below shows a subtle, short flocking used on a resin prototype.

The actual figure got longer flocking, with bare areas around the joints. There were two well-known variants of Moss Man. Early versions of the figure had flocked ears on both of the included heads. This was a mistake, and it was quickly fixed. But of course anything that is produced in low numbers becomes more collectible, so the flocked ears version is worth a bit more on the secondary market.

Battle Armor Skeletor (March 2011)

The prototype Battle Armor Skeletor was sculpted by Djordje Djokovic, who also shared the images below. The figure was going to have a cleaner, more vintage toy-like face paint, and also bare feet. Fans requested that the figure get purple feet to represent boots, and Mattel made the change.

Pre-Production Sample

There was a pre-production factory sample of the figure that had some differences compared to the version fans got. It had much messier green paint on the face, reminiscent of some of the previous Skeletor faces. It also had black paint on the battle damage lines on the chest armor. That would be changed to silver paint on the production figure.

Version 1

The production Battle Armor Skeletor figure got a toy-ish interpretation of the paint around the teeth, reminiscent of 1980s Skeletor figures. Early versions had a subtle, airbrushed green around the forehead (sometimes very subtle, as shown in the first image) and the sides of the face.

Version 2

Later versions of the figure had hard lines dividing the yellow face from the green painted areas, indicating the use of a paint mask.

He-Ro (July 2009)

He-Ro’s production variants were very much pre-planned and done for the purpose of marketing. He-Ro came with one of three random gem colors: green, red, or purple. Green was the color he was supposed get in the vintage 1980s line.

Also, the version for Sale at San Diego Comic-Con came with an SDCC logo printed on the chest, under He-Ro’s armor:

Faker (Feb. 2009)

The early versions of Faker had the wide pelvis piece found on the first King Grayskull, He-Man and Skeletor figures. Later versions released on the burst packaging had the narrower pelvis piece.

King Grayskull (July 2008)

King Grayskull was the first figure released in the line (although He-Man was the first to be sculpted). Released as a con exclusive, he came with a deluxe Castle Grayskull themed box with opening jawbridge and sound effects. The figure itself had the wide pelvis mentioned several times in this article. He also had backwards shoulders. These issues weren’t fixed in the original release. However he was reissued in a new deco and in the standard packaging in 2010, and that version had the fixes. I wouldn’t really call the second version a production variant, given the gap in time and the total revamp to packaging and deco.

However the 2008 King Grayskull did come in a couple of rare variants. Some random boxes came instead with a bronze colored version of the figure, which was meant to represent the statue of the character that appeared in the Mike Young Productions cartoon. There was also a raffle for a very rare transparent blue version of the character, the Spirit of King Grayskull. The “Spirit” version was eventually reissued years later, but with a glow-in-the-dark green deco.

Demo-Man (Dec. 2011)

Demo-Man’s prototype was done in a fairly muted green color. He had a great deal of sculpted and painted detail, and he came with a much loved “Alcala” version of Skeletor’s head as a bonus.

The production figure was done in a much brighter color. However on the old He-Man.org boards it was pointed out that some versions had a bright red tunic, and the others had a dark red tunic.

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