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Series: Masters of the Universe Masterverse
Year: 2026
Prelude: Quickly, we need a new bad guy for the next He-Man audio adventure. No, not Skeletor again, we’ve done him to death. Same with Hordak and King Hssss. We need something new! Like… oh, let’s give him an evil twin. No, not the Faker thing again, a real evil twin from an evil universe. Like Star Trek’s Mirror thing, remember? Cool, now we need a name. Let’s name him... okay, we need to start recording, let’s just call him Anti-He-Man! All good? Fine, let’s say go!
Review: Now at its most basic, this figure here is the He-Man we know and love, just with different colors. His skin is black, his boots, tights, chest harness, and hair are red, and he’s got pupilless red eyes, too. Like most Masterverse figures, he is very nicely articulated with double knee and elbow joints, ankle joints, the whole nine yards. So really, just another He-Man figure in different colors (not Faker-blue this time).
The real kicker of this figure is, of course, the accessories. In the original audio play (see below) not much was said about Anti-He-Man’s appearance except for the black skin and a brief mention was made of Anti-Grayskull being a white castle with the face of an angel for a front. The designers of this figure used this sparse information and really ran with it.
Anti-He-Man comes with a helmet resembling the face of Anti-Grayskull, as well as superbly detailed shield with the same face on it. This thing could easily pass as the logo of some Finnish Death Metal band, I think. The level of details on the shield is staggering and it also has slides to hold no less than three different versions of the Power Sword. This is a nod to the comic book series Anti-He-Man appeared in, where he travelled the multiverse to steal the Power Swords of other He-Men in order to corrupt them. Here he comes with his own sword, as well as “corrupted” versions of the swords carried by New Adventures He-Man and 1987 Movie He-Man. Very nicely done.
One other thing I’d like to mention. He-Man can switch out his red hair for an angel-faced helmet as mentioned above. If he wars neither of those, though, you have a completely bald He-Man with a scar running up his head. At first I though this was some kind of production error, but I’ve seen it on other versions of this figure, too, across the net, so apparently it was intentional. Nicely done.
So bottom line: they could have used an existing He-Man figure and repainted it and his equipment black and red and be done with it. They went the extra mile, though, giving him customized clothing and equipment that looks more like something you’d expect in a Mondo figure. Very nicely done. He-Man has never looked this evil… and seldom looked this good.
Remarks: It was the year 1985 and the Masters of the Universe hype in Germany was at its height. German company Europa released a series of original audio adventures starring He-Man and friends. It was during one such audio adventure (episode 11, if you’re curious) that the writers went to a familiar trope, confronting the hero with a twisted, evil version of himself (no, not Faker). The He-Man of Anti-Eternia was conjured up by Skeletor to be used against He-Man. Naturally Skeletor was in over his head, Anti-He-Man threatened him, too, but in the end the bad guys were defeated and everything went back to normal. Anti-He-Man didn’t appear again for decades. It was only much, much later that he was discovered outside of Germany and became part of the larger MotU franchise, starring in his own comic book and getting both a Classics and later on an Origins and a Masterverse figure made (and Mondo did one, too).
Now as a German MotU fan it was kind of my patriotic duty to get this figure, seeing as this is my country’s most popular contribution to the MotU mythology. Even without that, though, this figure here is awesome. A great He-Man figure with staggeringly well-made accessories that really give it that little something extra. Recommended to all He-Man fans as well as those that simply enjoy a good “evil twin” figure for its own sake.
Rating: A
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