Heroic Warriors

Teela: Warrior goddess (1982)

I clearly remember playing with Teela as a child. I don’t know if that means I owned her, or if she belonged to a sibling, but her gold and white costume and mysterious rust-red snake armor were etched into my brain from an early age.

Teela appears early in an animated Masters of the Universe commercial, by Filmation Studios. The full video has been uploaded by James Eatock on Instagram and Facebook.

http:// https://www.instagram.com/p/BpmvudrnPlj/

Design & Development

Teela, released in the later half of 1982, was the first female figure in the Masters of the Universe line, and probably the best. Another Mark Taylor design, Teela was conceived as a powerful heroic warrior armed with a shield and spear:

Teela originally had brown boots with white tops, a golden spear and shield, and blonde hair, as depicted in the first MOTU mini comic, He-Man and the Power Sword.

A close shave for Beast Man

We can see these colors recreated in this recolored version of the B-sheet released in the Mark Taylor Portfolio, from Super7 and The Power and the Honor Foundation:

Another version of the Teela B-sheet, with slightly different colors – gold bracers and brown boots. From the Mark Taylor “Sketches 1” portfolio. Image courtesy of Doug Feague.

It’s probably fairly well known among fans now that two separate Mark Taylor characters, Teela and Sorceress (aka Goddess), were eventually combined into a single character. Mattel’s marketing group didn’t think there was enough demand for two female action figures in one year, although it would be later shown that almost 40% of the kids who collected MOTU figures were girls. Zodac ended up being created to take the eighth spot in the 1982 lineup.

Image source: Grayskull Museum

Sorceress, or Goddess as she is usually called now, was intended to be a changeling and double agent. Her snake head dress had fangs and she had a cold, calculating expression in the concept art. She had brown boots, brown armor and a brown staff, a light green body suit, and a dark green outfit. Her outfit was very similar to Teela’s, but lacked the leaf-like overlay hanging down her front.

Colored version of Mark Taylor’s Sorceress concept art, published by Super7 and the Power and the Honor Foundation. Image courtesy of Axel Giménez.

Although Sorceress/Goddess wasn’t produced as a figure in the vintage line, she did make an appearance in the first MOTU mini comic. By that time she had been re-imagined as a noble and mysterious defender of Castle Grayskull.

It’s worth noting that although Mark Taylor envisioned her as a human woman wearing a green body suit, the comic book (art by Alfredo Alcala) portrayed her with a green face as well. When Teela and Sorceress/Goddess were combined into the same character, Teela inherited the Sorceress’ snake armor and staff, but kept her own human appearance.

It’s also worth noting that Mark Taylor’s original design for the the basic Teela buck lacked the golden collar overlay that was molded into the final figure. That piece was intended to be an additional accessory. Sorceress/Goddess would have had a unique head, and the snake armor would have gone over the basic body design below:

Fun fact: Teela’s spiky tiara was based on a hair accessory owned by Mark Taylor’s wife, Rebecca. In fact, Teela was also based on Rebecca! Image source: Rebecca Salari Taylor

The first known prototype of Teela exists only in fragmentary form. Sculpted by Tony Guerrero, this Teela was quite racy, in the style of Frank Frazetta’s female characters. The straps on her bikini have circular ornaments on them, recalling Mark’s Taylor’s B-sheet.

It’s possible that this version of Teela was the basis for Teela as she appeared in DC Comics’ 1982 story, To Tempt The Gods:

Image source: Vaults of Grayskull

The cross sell art depicts Teela with reddish-brown boots and armor (these could appear more red or more brown, depending on the printing) and Goddess’ snake staff in gold:

Image Source: Axel Giménez

However, Mattel’s prototype for this version of Teela had a more vibrant color scheme. In the model below, Teela is carrying the gold spear and shield from the original concept Teela drawing. In marketing materials she is depicted playing the same role that the Goddess/Sorceress did in the first mini comic.

Ad sheet artwork based on the prototype. Scan by Battle Ram Blog.
This image of a prototype Teela appeared on the side of the Castle Grayskull box
Licensing kit image featuring prototype Teela in a scene reminiscent of the first mini comic

Another view of the prototype from the 1982 Mattel dealer catalog:

At some point along the way, it was decided Teela would come with the snake staff rather than the spear, and it along with the shield would be colored the same red as her armor. This third iteration prototype gives her Barbie-like leg articulation. She also retains the white tops to her boots and the green detail on her snake armor. The shield looks rougher than the final version.

Another view, from an ad in  issue one of the 1983 run of Muppet Magazine. Image source: Battle Grip/Phillip Reed

I believe the image below is the same prototype as the above, only without the snake armor. Frustratingly, it’s very low resolution and hard to make out the details:

Image source: Plaid Stallions

Several test runs were done of Teela’s head, one with her hair in a bun (chosen for the final toy), and one with long, flowing hair:

Source: Grayskullmuseum.com
Source: Grayskullmuseum.com. Note the long-haired version on the right, which resembles the head from a second prototype drawing, shown below.
Another concept Teela drawing. The details on her outfit are accurate to the vintage toy, but the head has the loose, flowing hair of the unused test run head. Image source: Tomart’s AFD

Yet another variation appears in the 1982 JCPenny Christmas Catalog (below). Here again Teela looks like the final toy, except the tops of her boots and her forearm bracers are painted white. She apparently does not have the green snake eyes.

Image source: RM Hart

In the 1983 Mattel Dealer Catalog, Teela appears in her final form, except she retains the green eyes on her snake headdress. This detail appears in earlier prototypes as well. I’m unaware of any production models with this detail, but this does look like a factory example rather than one painted by hand. Perhaps this is like the Battle Cat with the striped tail – an early test model that never went into full production.

Update: collector John Oswald has acquired one of these factory sample Teela figures with the green snake eyes. He was kind enough to share these photos of her, as well as additional photos from the 1983 Mattel catalog showing this particular variant:

Production Toy

The final toy (initially produced in Taiwan) features the ball-in-socket leg articulation used in the male figures. She loses the white detail on her boots and the green detail on her snake armor. The sculpt is noticeably softer than the earliest prototypes.

Notice that the right boot has a larger heel than the left boot. This allows her to stand on the ball of her right foot (as the first prototype depicts) with some measure of stability.

There was a lot of inconsistency in the application of paint on the figure’s face. The look could vary wildly depending on the country of manufacture:

Image source: Mantisaur82

In 1984, some Hong Kong reissues were released with brownish boots and hair, and brighter red accessories (more on Hong Kong Teela variants here):

Packaging

Teela was sold in a number of configurations. She was available as a single carded figure, on “8 back” and reissue cards:

The tag line on Teela’s cardback art seems to present her as a kind of sorceress, which is indicative of her roots in the Goddess/Sorceress character:

Teela the sorceress

She was also sold in a gift set package with Zoar. This one is rare and hard to find now:

Another rare item is the Heroric Warriors gift set, featuring He-Man, Teela, and Ram Man:

Teela was also sold in a JC Penny gift set, with minimal cross sell line art on a brown box:

Source: Grayskull Museum

Appearances in Artwork

Artistic depictions of Teela in card art, box art and other media were all over the map, taking cues from the vintage toy, prototypes, and other sources.

Minicomics

Teela’s first appears as a warrior woman with no real back story in the Alcala mini comics. The first attempt at giving her a backstory occurred in Mark Texeira’s Tale of Teela mini comic, where Skeletor makes a clone of the Goddess (here depicted with without the green skin) in order to take her as his bride. By depicting Teela as a clone of the Goddess, the attempt seems to be to brand Teela as a kind of two-in-one toy. Take off the armor, and she’s Teela, fearsome warrior. Put it on and she can be Goddess, mystical guardian of Grayskull.

Animation

In Filmation, Teela is the natural daughter of the Sorceress. The identity of her mother has been hidden from her, but it is made clear in the series that Teela will someday replace her mother as the guardian of Grayskull.

Design-wise, Teela’s look is a bit different compared to the toy. She has a simplified costume with an enlarged collar. Most of the decorative details were removed from her costume for ease of animation, and her costume top was made entirely gold. She retains her white-topped boots that appeared in early concepts and prototypes:

In Filmation’s animated toy commercial, produced in 1982 (shown at the beginning of this article), Teela’s design is closely modeled on Mark Taylor’s concept art:

Other Depictions

Some of my favorite depictions of Teela come from Errol McCarthy’s licensing kit and style guide artwork. I love how dynamic she is here:

My all time favorite look for Teela comes from a puffy sticker that came with Kellogg’s cereal. I distinctly remember getting Teela and Battle Armor He-Man.  The Teela sticker comes from the cross sell art, but gives the character red armor and boots instead of brown, and retains the gold staff. I don’t know why, but I’ve always thought it was the perfect look for her.

And of course there were many other depictions of the Warrior Goddess:

1987 Movie

Early concept art for the 1987 movie envisioned Teela in a two-piece bikini with her snake armor over top:

The costume actually used for the movie was a radical departure from any prior version of Teela, with only a few visual references to the original toy design.

Want to support the blog? Consider becoming a Patreon supporter. You’ll also gain access to exclusive content and early access to posts on the blog. Alternatively, you can do your toy shopping through my Entertainment Earth affiliate link, below. Thank you!

Heroic Beasts

Battle Cat: Fighting Tiger (1982)

Battle Cat is one of the most iconic characters to come out of the Masters of the Universe line. In fact, when discussing the most famous fantasy steeds to come out of the 1980s, it’s probably a neck and neck race between Battle Cat and Falkor from The Never Ending Story.

One of the first three items released in the original Masters of the Universe toy line (along with He-Man and Skeletor), Battle Cat was a fearsome beast with a bizarre color scheme. Green fur with orange stripes and dark red armor shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. That orange and green theme would show up over and over again in the MOTU line (Man-At-Arms, Wind Raider, Tri-Klops, Filmation’s Palace Guards, etc). My grade school’s colors were also orange and green, so it all made sense to five-year-old me.

There has been much discussion online of Battle Cat’s origins at Mattel. The cat body (an unarticulated statue) originally came from 1976 for the Big Jim on the Tiger Trail set, and was in scale with 10-12” figures. It was first reused for Mattel’s 1978 gift set, Tarzan and the Jungle Cat, before being reused again in 1982 for Battle Cat. Battle Cat’s initial mold and stripe design come from that original 1976 Big Jim Tiger. Update: thanks to NLogan for reaching out to me with some corrected dates.

When Mattel wanted to reuse the mold again for the new MOTU line, something had to be done to explain why it was so huge compared to the relatively small (5.5”) He-Man figure. It was decided that the cat would be used as a steed. Mark Taylor (who designed almost every MOTU product released in 1982) designed a fantasy-themed saddle to allow He-Man to sit on the cat without falling off, and a helmet/mask to further disguise the cat’s origins in the Tarzan and Big Jim lines.

Original Mark Taylor color study, via Grayskull Museum
Finalized Mark Taylor B-Sheet

The first prototype Battle Cat appears in the 1982 Mattel dealer catalog, and features a vivid red saddle. The cat itself is hand-painted, and features stripes around the mouth and down the tail:

The saddle and helmet were revised to a darker red color, which you can see in the promotional image below, featuring a number of early prototypes:

The very first Battle Cats produced were followed the above color scheme, including the orange paint on the tail and around the mouth. Very few were produced, however, and this version is very difficult to find:

The first Battle Cats, including the striped tail variant, were made in Taiwan. Other early release Taiwan Figures have the same color scheme as the example above, minus the extra stripes on the tail and around the mouth:

The helmet is striking. As a kid I thought it looked like a stylized bird. Maybe Mark Taylor was going for a griffin look. But it definitely caught my attention. The fact that Battle Cat had no articulation was a bit of a let down at first, but he looked so cool with that saddle and helmet that he soon became one of my favorite toys of all time.

Beginning in 1984, Battle Cat was released with pale yellow stripes instead of the vibrant orange:

In fact, there were a number of different configurations and color schemes released in the many manufacturing plants around the world that Mattel used over the course of the MOTU line:

Source: Mantisaur82

Battle Cat was sold in stores in three different packaging configurations – on his own, in a gift set that included He-Man, and in an another gift set featuring Battle Armor He-Man. The first two were originally sold in 1982 and featured box art by Rudy Obrero. I distinctly remember seeing both at toy stores as a kid, and being bowled over by the figures and the artwork.

The artwork for the single release Battle Cat featured He-Man riding Battle Cat, with no other characters in the picture (aside from some shadowy barbarian figures in the background). Battle Cat’s helmet is off, and Castle Grayskull stands in the background, partially shrouded by mist.

Rudy’s original painting was somewhat darker than what ended up on the final product:

Color shifted box art print

The 1982 gift set artwork was just as amazing, if a little confusing. He-Man is seen riding into battle on a helmeted Battle Cat, and Skeletor and Beast Man are riding their own fighting tigers. Man-At-Arms and Mer-Man are the odd men out. Apparently no one bought them Battle Cats for Christmas. According to designer Mark Taylor in his 2011 panel appearance at Power-Con, Mattel had initially planned to put out a gift set with Skeletor and Battle Cat, so that makes his appearance as a rider of a Battle Cat more understandable.

When Rudy Obrero was given the models to use as references for the artwork, he was provided with no details as to the story line, which is why he also painted things like Skeletor defending Castle Grayskull and He-Man ripping out the side of Castle Grayskull with the Wind Raider. Really, though, that doesn’t contract early canonical ideas about the castle, which could be held and defended by either the heroes or the villains.

The Battle Armor He-Man and Battle Cat gift set came out in 1984, a year after Rudy had stopped working with Mattel. By this time William George was producing box art for MOTU pretty regularly, and the piece he produced for this set is absolutely fantastic:

He-Man and Battle Cat were practically inseparable in most published media. He-Man was often depicted driving the many vehicles produced for the line, but more often than not, if the most powerful man in the universe wasn’t walking, he was riding his green and orange steed.

The concept of Cringer as Battle Cat’s mild mannered alter ego was introduced in the 1982 DC Comics series, starting with “From Eternia With Death.” This is also the first time that Battle Cat is portrayed as having the power of speech:

Filmation in particular put Battle Cat to frequent use. Every episode began with a transformation sequence that featured the cowardly Cringer transforming into the ferocious fighting tiger. By comparison, Skeletor was rarely depicted with his equivalent steed, Panthor.

Battle Cat also featured prominently in Filmation’s 1982 MOTU commercial, as well as in its style guide and series guide:

If you ask the average person on the street to name any character from the MOTU series, probably one of the top three or four names mentioned would be Battle Cat’s. It’s no wonder then that Battle Cat also turned up in a lot of MOTU-themed merchandise over the years.

Battle Cat was, of course, heavily featured in a number of ads and catalogs as well. He was no doubt a consistent seller throughout the duration of the toy line. Not bad for a character that was created as a means to recycle an old mold and flesh out the fledgling MOTU toy line without much capital risk in the first year. If Masters of the Universe excelled at anything, it was making soup from stones.

Want to support the blog? Consider becoming a Patreon supporter. You’ll also gain access to exclusive content and early access to posts on the blog. Alternatively, you can do your toy shopping through my Entertainment Earth affiliate link, below. Thank you!

Heroic Warriors

Man-E-Faces: Heroic human…robot…monster! (1983)

I distinctly remember when I got Man-E-Faces (along with Ram Man) as a present, probably for my birthday in 1983. There was something endlessly fascinating about his ability to change faces at will. In my mind it was his way of disguising himself. Sure, no one would be fooled given his very distinctive silhouette, but that’s how I thought of it.

Man-E-Faces was something of a sea change for the line as it had existed in 1982. He was given all new parts (legs shared with Trap Jaw, who came out the same year) and a new gimmick – a rotating head drum that allowed you to display three distinct faces: human, robot, and monster. His design had more technology integrated into it than any MOTU figure that had come out before, although it was more steam punk than Star Trek.

Incidentally, his blaster was later reused as a tail gun for a couple of the Voltron lions:

You might notice that his legs are a little too short for his body. That’s probably because his rotating faces action feature gives him a rather tall torso, which may have necessitated smaller legs in order to fit into the standard MOTU packaging.

The single-carded Man-E-Faces was released in a couple of different flavors – standard, featuring his red blaster, and a deluxe version with pink chest tubes (often referred to now as Man-E-Weapons) that came with five bonus weapons from the Castle Grayskull set, but cast in maroon.

Man-E-Faces was also released in a three-pack with Battle Armor He-Man and Man-At-Arms, a J.C. Penny two-pack with Faker, a J.C. Penny two-pack with Battle Armor He-Man, and in a giftset with Skeletor and Panthor:

Image courtesy of Tokyonever

Errol McCarthy did the cardback illustration and style guide art for Man-E-Faces, as he did for most of the figures in the line:

Image source: KMKA
Image via He-Man.org

The figure was designed by Mark Taylor, shortly before he left Mattel:

Notice that while the design details are close to the final toy, the color choices around the helmet are different. On the final toy, parts of the helmet are colored in flesh tone or orange. This image and the image below come from The Art of He-Man. Artwork by Mark Taylor.

All the classic Man-E-Faces elements are present in the B-sheet and design documents above, but the look is slightly different from the final toy, with purple detail on the shoulders and a helmet without any tan/orange accents. The figure was sculpted into a prototype, and some some ridges and sloping were added to the top of the helmet. He seems to have green accents on his shoulders and thighs:

Alfredo Alcala’s take on the character in Danger at Castle Grayskull seems to be based on the above prototype:

Man-E-Problems

The cross sell artwork is mainly based on the prototype sculpt:

Image courtesy of Axel Giménez.

An earlier incarnation of Man-E-Faces (called Multi-face) was also designed by Mark Taylor. While the original artwork hasn’t been published, Emiliano Santalucia has created a mock-up for a potential Masters of the Universe Classics figure based on that artwork, which appears to have been quite different from the finished MEF design:

Source: Emiliano Santalucia

Update: the original version of this artwork by Mark Taylor was recently shared in the documentary, The Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man:

There was another related Mark Taylor concept called Maska-Ra that was explored but never developed. Rather than a spinning face mechanism, Maska-Ra would have come with a variety of masks to imitate other characters, luring the unwary to their doom:

From the “Bring Your Man-E-Faces To Work” Facebook page, via The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog

Update: another Man-E-Faces concept was recently shared by Mark Taylor’s wife, Rebecca (below). This has the removable mask idea from Maska-Ra, although it has a more conventional body. The the arms and legs contain design elements that would be used in the final figure. The chest armor recalls the design later used in Terror Claws Skeletor (1986), and the overall look may have influenced the design of the 1989 figure Flipshot:

Update: yet another quasi-Man-E-Faces concept was shared by Rebecca, with Joe Amato for the podcast Fans of Power. This version has a chitinous, insectoid look and a reversible head. The legs on this character are very similar to the final toy’s design, but otherwise this is a totally different take on the concept:

Image courtesy of Doug Feague

Man-E-Faces was packaged with his own mini comic (drawn by Mark Texeira), called The Ordeal of Man-E-Faces. He was depicted as an Eternian actor who was given a potion by Skeletor that would change him into a monster and bring him under Skeletor’s control. The Sorceress tries to free him from the enchantment, and in a struggle between the two powers, a third face arises – that of a neutral robot.

He is also depicted as a helpless pawn of Skeletor in the Danger at Castle Grayskull comic, drawn by Alfredo Alcala:

Man-E-Faces was given other origin stories in British publications. In issue 3 of the UK Masters of the Universe Magazine, Man-E-Faces is transformed by Skeletor as punishment for mocking him in a play:

Image source: Bustatoons. Brought to my attention by Joe Amato.

In the 1985 UK Masters of the Universe Annual, Man-E-Faces is again transformed by Skeletor, in a somewhat unsettling story about abductions and lab experiments. In his monster form he is evil, and in his robot form he may be controlled by anyone.

Image courtesy of Jukka Issakainen

Man-E-Faces made an appearance in the box art for Battle Bones (by William George) and the previously mentioned Battle For Eternia (by William Garland) three-pack. Man-E-Faces was slated to appear as the prisoner in the Snake Mountain box art (by William George), but at the last minute Man-At-Arms was substituted (for more on that, read this interview with package designer Bob Nall):

Image source: Jukka Issakainen
Image source: Tokyonever

In the Filmation cartoon, MEF was an outcast who had to be gently coaxed away from evil by He-Man:

Early Filmation designs for the character, as shown in the Series Guide below, show a design that seems primarily based on the early prototype version of he character, albeit with a rather unique-looking robot face:

He also appeared in a number of adverts, promotions, catalogs and miscellaneous entertainment:

Later in life, Man-E-Faces struggled with his weight:

Artwork by Alfredo Alcala
Evil Warriors

Mer-Man: Ocean warlord! (1982)

Masters of the Universe probably could not have happened in any decade other than the 80s. In 1982, it came at the heels of two  disparate but very popular movie franchises – Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian. Those influences weighed  heavily on the first wave of He-Man figures, playsets and vehicles. Almost every figure, although generally barbaric in appearance, featured some kind of subtle sci-fi element. Even the grim, Frazetta influenced Castle Grayskull had a laser turret and a computer system.

Frazetta invades kindergartens

Does not compute.
Luke, who’s your daddy? (Image via MOTUC Figures)

As the line grew long in the tooth it tended rely more on gimmicks, but the early figures were mostly about cool designs. Mattel artist Mark Taylor was responsible for the lion’s share of the early figures and for Castle Grayskull. Ted Mayer assisted with the sculpting of Castle Grayskull and created the line’s first two vehicles, Battle Ram and Wind Raider. He also went on to design many of the 1985-1987 figures.

It’s normal for toys to have some inconsistency between first promotional material and finished product. That happened all the time in the Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Series. Filmation would receive early concept art for a figure and create a story based on that art. By the time the toy came out it would sometimes be radically different.

For young kids in the 80s, often the first glimpse of upcoming figures came from the cross sell art on the back of MOTU packaging. When Mattel released the first four figures in 1982, we could see on the back of the package that more were coming.

A lot of us already had our He-Man, Skeletor, Beast Man and Man-At-Arms figures. But who were these other guys? Mer-Man especially caught my eye. These were the first action figures I ever had, and the idea of an aquatic half-man half-fish warrior really fascinated me.

Below: the cross sell art for Mer-Man comes in varying shades of green, generally. Early examples (such as on test market cards) tend to be more bluish. The original art may have had straight blue skin, as show in the first image below, but varying degrees of yellow tint may have been used to shift him into the green spectrum.

Image courtesy of Tokyonever. I believe this image comes from Mattel’s cross sell art used in the recent MOTU Giants line.

Blueish version, from a test market Man-At-Arms card
Greener version, from the back of a Battle Ram box.

Those of us who got in on the very first release of He-Man and Skeletor lived with that cardback image of Mer-Man for months. Imagine our surprise when we got this instead:

The gloves and shin guards were unpainted. The sword bore a closer resemblance to corn than coral (note: I am informed by Mantisaur82 that Mer-Man’s sword is supposed to be a weapon made from a sawfish rostrum, and that actual weapons have been made after this fashion). The furry shorts were orange instead of yellow. The armor’s detail was softened considerably. And most of all, the design of the face seemed markedly different from the cross sell art we had memorized.

A lot of MOTU collectors talk about Mer-Man a little bitterly. Like they were so disillusioned with the way the toy was changed from the artwork that it soured them on the figure. And yes, as a kid I was a little dismayed at the difference at first. But when I really looked at him closely, I realized I was still kind of in love with Mer-Man. And let’s face it, he looks a lot more villainous in his toy form than he did on the card back illustration.

Mer-Man’s initial concept design (by Mark Taylor) was actually quite different from both the action figure and the cross sell art. The original concept (known as “Sea Man”) would have had unique legs, arms and a scaly loin cloth. The cross sell art cut down on the fishy details, and the toy version even more so.

Mark Taylor B-Sheet – black and white copy. Image via The Art of He-Man
Colored version of Mark Taylor’s Mer-Man concept art, published by Super7 and the Power and the Honor Foundation. Note the original colors – blue skin with yellow gloves and boots, and yellow and copper outfit. Image courtesy of Axel Giménez

Below is the early Mer-Man  prototype, sculpted by Tony Guerrero.  Notice the model is very faithful to the concept art, down to the pose.

Image source: The Power & The Honor Foundation, retrieved via Facebook
Prototype Skeletor and Mer-Man. Image source: The Power & The Honor Foundation, retrieved via Facebook
Image courtesy of Andy Youssi
Image courtesy of Andy Youssi

Mer-Man’s revised sword design is laid out in the Mark Taylor B-sheet design below. Note that the teeth of the sword don’t go out as far as the edge of the sword. I’m sure this had to do with limitations of manufacturing technology at the time.


Mark Taylor B-Sheet – Mer-Man’s sword. Image via The Art of He-Man

Mer-Man’s final, hand-painted prototype appears below. The sculpt is identical to the mass produced toy, except the sword is missing the hand guard.

A timeline of Mer-Man events

If you take a close look at the head on the original concept art, it’s actually somewhere between the somewhat goofy cardback and the simplified but more intense vintage toy face. In fact, if you were to color that original concept design just like the vintage toy (as I did below), it would be much clearer that they were really the same basic character, just simplified, recolored and made a bit meaner looking.

But why were the painted gloves and shin guards removed? Almost certainly to cut costs. The second half of the first wave of figures that came out in 1982 (Mer-Man, Stratos, Teela, Zodac) all had reduced paint apps and/or accessories compared to the first four (He-Man, Skeletor, Beast Man, Man-At-Arms). This despite the fact that the line outsold all expectations, even in the first year. Mark Taylor and Ted Mayer have both said that Mattel was very reluctant to invest money in new tooling for the MOTU line, even after its unexpected success.

The first (1982) release of Mer-Man had his belt painted green, as shown previously. Subsequent releases left the belt unpainted. I would assume the idea was to cut costs, and much of the belt was obscured by his armor anyway.

Orange belt re-release

The first edition Mer-Man came packed on the “8-back” cardback (pictured earlier in this post), while reissues starting in 1983 featured a painted scene by artist Errol McCarthy:

Mer-Man was also sold in a giftset with Battle Armor Skeletor and Webstor, and in a JCPenny giftset with the original Skeletor.

Image source: Grayskull Museum

I’ve heard scuttlebutt around the internet that Mer-Man was originally conceived of as a heroic warrior from an oceanic world that was destroyed. However, I’ve never seen any real evidence that Mer-Man was once heroic. Even in the first mini comic, where Stratos’ affiliations seem to be with Skeletor, Mer-Man was portrayed as an evil warrior.

Update: I finally saw some evidence for Mer-Man as a heroic warrior. An early internal Mattel document describes him this way: “Mer-Man – uses his aquatic powers to help He-Man.”

Interestingly, in Mattel’s 1982 dealer catalog, Mer-Man is not explicitly affiliated with either Skeletor or He-Man:

According to designer Mark Taylor, Mer-Man wasn’t the most popular toy when the figures were undergoing child testing:

Tony Guerrero the great sculptor and I chased the negative child test comments until we finally realized the marketeers were just messing with us and then we went with what we had.  Mer-Man was the weakest but people who like him really like him (I based him on Bernie Wrightson’s Swamp Thing).

Perhaps because he didn’t test as well as other early characters, Mer-Man nearly went into the bin of rejected concepts. As Mark Taylor explained:

Well, they almost rejected Mer-Man. They didn’t understand him, and wanted to take him out of the line. I had a hard time convincing them to keep him. I said “Don’t you understand? There has to be someone who lives in the water!” I was envisioning a magnificent line of toys that could be played with in the water. Decades later, George Lucas did a similar thing in The Phantom Menace. I worked for the US Navy for almost ten years in the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, so I really wanted to do undersea stuff. I was a diver, and I felt the mysticism of being under water. That’s such an amazing area to get into.

Mer-Man’s most notable minicomic appearances are probably in the first four, written by Don Glut and illustrated by Alfredo Alcala. In the series, the design of the character is based on Mark Taylor’s early concept art (and in Battle In The Clouds, based on Mer-Man’s cross sell art. In this series, Mer-Man is arguably Skeletor’s most competent and dangerous ally:

Likewise, Mer-Man is a formidable foe in the early Golden Book MOTU stories:

Perhaps Mer-Man’s strangest appearance is in Leech – The Master of Power Suction Unleashed. For whatever reason, Mer-Man is depicted with a beard:

In the Filmation He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, Mer-Man was again one of Skeletor’s most devious and competent allies. As king of his own undersea kingdom, he often undertook plots against the heroic warriors apart from Skeletor.

Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t still tossed around by He-Man at the end of the day:

Image source: Heritage Auctions

Mer-Man’s filmation design seems to be a simplified version of Mark Taylor’s original concept design, complete with the yellow gloves and boots. However when Filmation was producing an early He-Man Television commercial, they came up with a model for Mer-Man that was closely based on the actual toy:

Image source: The Power and the Honor Foundation
Image courtesy of Dušan M.

In Filmation’s Series Guide, Mer-Man looks like a cross between his vintage toy and and Mark Taylor’s concept art. In the description below, it’s mentioned that Mer-Man has command over sea creatures (similar to Beast Man’s command over beasts of the land). In this description, Mer-Man’s powers can be effected by the tides, although that wasn’t really explored in the cartoon:

Image courtesy of Jukka Issakainen

Mer-Man makes various appearances in box art and posters as well, and his design is usually based either on his cross sell artwork or his 1982 toy:

Mer-Man underwent subtle and radical redesigns in different media over the years. He may be the most inconsistently portrayed character in all of MOTU. He’s also my favorite. There’s something about him I’ve always found fascinating and a little bit mysterious.