Toyzinger
Masters of the Universe, known in Spain as Masters del Universo and in Latin America as Los Amos del Universo, was undoubtedly the most famous and successful figure collection of the 80’s. It was born in 1982 and for several years was the best-selling toy line around the world.
Today, this line of toys is known as the “Vintage” collection of the Masters del Universo and is undoubtedly one of the most collected and loved lines by collectors today.
All the figures include in the blister a mini comic book that explained a story of the character in question, it should be noted that the FILMATION animated series did not follow the line of the comics and there were variations in the story that caused some confusion at that time.
Today MATTEL, and after more series and comics also with their own history, has fixed this with the concept of the “Multi-verse” or also known in this case as: “Masterverse”.
Next, we list all the figures, vehicles, beasts, playsets and other objects included in this collection:
These are the first pieces that went on sale of MOTU and with them came the great success of the franchise, being these, possibly, the best known and most important characters in the course of the series/comics:
The first figures of this year came out in a blister pack with the image of the 8 characters on the back, these blister packs are known as the 8-pack, and are undoubtedly the most sought after among collectors, as they were the first edition of these figures. In later years there were reissues of these characters, but the back of the blister was different.
After the great success of the first year Mattel released a second wave of new figures, beasts and vehicles. Here he started to add new mechanisms or “action-features” to some of his figures.
The success of the Masters of the universe continued, and many emblematic characters for the franchise came out in 1984, it was also the year in which we could enjoy other figures of He-man and Skeletor with their Battle Armor versions.
In this new wave of Masters of the Universe we are introduced to a new faction of evil characters, “The Horde” and their leader Hordak, this character was the main villain of the She-ra spin-off series and also had appearances in the He-man FILMATION series.
In 1986 another new faction of enemies comes to light, this time it is the turn of the Snake Men, a group of half-snake humanoids who will try to put He-man and his companions in trouble.
After many years of great success with the Masters of the Universe, came 1987 in which Mattel’s business expectations were not met.
This year the sales of the figures dropped a lot, it could be due to the saturation of the market, to the fact that the competition had already had time to release similar lines or simply that the fad was over.
This year was also the year of the release of the film Masters of the Universe, a pretty bad movie that didn’t do well at all.
Of course, some of this year’s figures are characters that appeared in the movie.
Over the years, this year’s figures have become the most valued by collectors due to the fact that because of the failure in sales in 1987 there are supposed to be fewer units.
And we come to the final year of the Masters of the Universe, by this point the line had been completely cancelled practically worldwide, but in Europe they had the luxury of releasing a few more pieces.
In this way, the European toymakers closed the line in style, these figures are quite complicated to obtain and are among the most expensive of the entire collection.
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