Eternian Palace Guard Masters of the Universe Origins Hands On Review

Summary

The Masters of the Universe Origins Eternian Palace Guard exclusive introduces a never before produced figure to the Origins line along with Man-At-Arms classics vintage look sans mustache. You have to buy two of these sets in order to make a Man-At-Arms but if you are army building the Palace Guards you should have no problem but you might have to sacrifice one guard for the greater good! I know…life is rough! On to the review…

Box and Art

Front

Like all other box art in the MOTU Origins line, the Eternian Palace Guard set has a fantastic window display box (the same style used for the Rise of Evil Two Pack) where you can see the Palace Guard in all of this Glory and the pieces to make Man-at-Arms. The front of the card art features an amazing illustration from Axel Gimenez where you see a very cool scene with the Palace Guards and the classic toy version of Man-At-Arms engaging the Skeleton Warriors in a fierce battle.

Back

On the back of the box art you see the Palace Guards defending Queen Marlena and King Randor (mini comic versions) as you see Man-At-Arms frozen in the background and some mystery character on the right side of the art who is charged up and holding a necklace.

Eternian Palace Guard Review

You will notice right off the bat is the Palace Guard reuses a bunch of parts from Man-At-Arms. For example, Man-at-Arms (MAA) gave us the green buck plus armor pieces on the left arm and left leg and with the Eternian Palace guard, we get new pieces for the right arm and right leg that are mirrored from the left. The belt has a nice red accent in the middle, which helps differentiate from the original MAA release.

Helmet and Armor

The armor pieces on the left and right arms are separated to facilitate the bending of the elbows and the articulation. One issue with the armor on the arms is that it is very loose and easy to knock off, which was the same issue that Man at Arms suffered from. The forearm prices are more susceptible to falling down when posing so be careful. The bird emblem is raised and sculpted and reminiscent of the MOTU Classics Palace Guards set. It’s a brand new armor piece and it’s great to have this armor in the vintage Origins style.The head has a face-shield covering the face to make the figure a non description look so you can army build

Face Sculpt

The more interesting aspect of this figure is that if you lower the face shield of the Palace Guard, you see that they reused the vintage MAA head sculpt and just hid it behind the face shield.

Man-at-Arms Review

It’s amazing to have a proper MAA figure in the Origins as this is how he was in the 1982. He comes with his vintage style chest armor and the forearm, shoulder armor, and shin armor that we remember from the 80’s.

The one nit pick I have with the Eternian Palace Guard version of Man-At-Arms is that it uses the less detailed helmet versus the one that originally come with MAA.

Weapons and Accessories

The pack comes with a gray halberd and shield for the Palace Guard and the standard vintage style yellow mace for MAA.

Ratings

This is a fantastic two pack that introduces a new character into the Origins line and it gives us the proper MAA we know from the 80’s so it’s a win win! I did knock off 1/2 point for the less detailed helmet for the vintage MAA head but other than that, it’s great to have a new character and the 1982 look of MAA!