He-Ro MOTU Origins Mattel Creations Club Grayskull Exclusive In Hand Review
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“I need a He-Ro! I’m holding out for a He-Ro until the end of the night! He’s gotta be strong and he’s gotta be fast and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight!” You know I was singing that song from the rooftops when He-Ro was unveiled during the Mattel Creations REVEALED event last week! Yes, we have finally got He-Ro in the MOTU Origins line, and he is stunning and glorious, shiny gold vac metal and all! The Mattel Team has really paid a stunning tribute to the most powerful Wizard in the Universe He-Ro and we now have him in hand! He-Ro was the first recipient of the Powers of Grayskull and the sword of He. He comes in a stunning VUM vac metal like finish and is everything I ever wanted him to be! So let’s take a trip back to Preternia and take a look at this MOTU Origins Mattel Creations Club Grayskull Exclusive He-Ro in hand review by yours truly, The Toy Sorceress!.
He lookin’ so amazing with his shiny chest armor, red cape and magical wizard staff!
He we have He-Ro holding his magical wizard staff with both hands.
Packaging
He-Ro comes in new window box packaging covered in stunning artwork lead by Roy Juarez, Axel Giménez, and the rest of incredible team of artists! The front of the box features an incredible adaptation of the Powers of Grayskull logo and design with a window box display featuring He-Ro. The side of the box also feature beautiful illustrations of He-Ro. But where the magic happens is on the rear of the packaging. There we can see the most power wizard in the universe battling what looks like Minox or a related Minotaur character and Sharella with her bow and arrow in the background.
A close up of the gorgeous window display that is the mouth of Grayskull that holds He-Ro inside!
The sides of the box feature a close up and full portrait of He-Ro
The collector friendly packaging lifts up to reveal He-Ro safely packed inside the plastic inner bubble and a special box that has incredible deco on it which houses his magical wizard staff!
You can pose He-Ro in a multitude of ways with his powerful wizard staff and that beautiful green gem! Yes the green gem that brought together the dynamic Toy Habits duo of Michael and the Toy Sorceress!
He also comes with the exclusive mini comic “He-Ro’s Journey”. We will drop images of the entire comic further below for your reading pleasure.
Figure Details
Let’s start out by looking at him from front to back, head to toe. Here we can see this beautiful design of the most powerful wizard in the universe! His chest armor and boots have a beautiful shiny gold finish and just the right amount of shine! A stunning homage to his vintage counterpart, the team at Mattel did an excellent job with He-Ro’s design!
He-Ro from left and right shown below.
He-Ro has a charming smile on his face that captures that same look he had on the unreleased protype figure Mattel made many years ago. Some people might say he looks dopy, but I think he is adorable and I love that the Masters team gave him that vintage charm!
His torso is a stunning shiny gold made of VUM. That is today’s modern equivalent to vac metal of the 1980’s. Mattel could have cheeped out on us and made his torso of gold colored plastic like they did with the Masterverse He-Ro, but they didn’t! They went all out and gave us that shiny VUM (vac metal) gold we have all been longing for! His chest includes the red “H” on blue background that has long been the He-Ro logo, and it looks incredible! The chest logo is molded into the chest and painted in red and blue.
He has a plastic red cape which has some nice texture detail included on it and sits around his neck with a plastic loop. Some might say, perhaps there could have been a more creative way to attach it, but if you take a look at the vintage unproduced prototype, the cape had the same look to it with a loop around his neck.
His arms look to be the standard MOTU Origins arms, but he is wearing grey colored wrist gauntlets.
He-Ro’s waist is also paying homage to his vintage unproduced counterpart with his blue shorts with the red accents.
Moving down to his legs and boots, you can see that they used the standard MOTU Origins legs, but his boots come up higher that the usual MOTU Origins figures. They too are a stunning homage to the vintage and are made of the same shiny gold VUM plastic as his torso.
Taking a look at He-Ro’s wizard staff, you can see how it folds open to reveal his powerful green gem. The Official product description reads: “He’s prepared to fight the monsters and dinosaurs of Preternia with a magical staff that can spin and open, allowing him to harness the good magic of the Ancient Wizards.”
Figure Comparisons
We would like to see how this new Mattel Creations MOTU Origins version of He-Ro compares to the Super7 5.5 Vintage style. You can see that the Super7 version is a 5 POA figure and a direct translation of the unproduced vintage figure including his soft goods cape. Where the MOTU Origins one includes all the modern articulation and a plastic cape.
When the He-Ro packaging was unveiled some loved it and some wished he came on a blister bubble. So who did it best? Super7 on a blister card or Mattel in this gorgeous new box packaging?
Taking a look at the unproduced version of He-Ro below, we can see how closely both the Super7 version and the MOTU Origins version resemble him. He-Ro was a character that Mattel came up with that was supposed to be the new lead heroic leader in the late 1980’s Powers of Grayskull Line to take the place of He-Man. By that time in the line, interest in Masters of the Universes was waning and kids’ attention was now going elsewhere. Well, the Powers of Grayskull line was very short-lived with only a couple of Dinosaurs and Giants being produced in the oversees markets. Only a prototype was made of He-Ro, with gorgeous gold colored vac-metal armor, but sadly, the He-Ro figure was never produced.
According to He-Ro | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom:
He-Ro is the name of two fictional characters in the Masters of the Universe franchise, both linked to the main character He-Man and both achieving only a “prototype stage”, until 2009, when the initial version was finally released as part of the Masters of the Universe Classics line.
He-Ro was planned to be a new character introduction, the centerpiece of The Powers of Grayskull, a spin-off line of Mattel‘s Masters of the Universe toy line in 1987. The Powers of Grayskull was to be set in Eternia’s prehistoric past, called “Preternia” to differentiate, and promised to reveal secrets about the source of He-Man’s power, through the adventures of He-Ro, a young but powerful wizard who lived in that time.
In Mattel’s license guide it stated that Gray (the original alter ego for He-Ro) could, “by placing one hand over his heart & flexing the other into a muscle & saying, Magic & strength tempered by heart… I stand for peace!”, he would become He-Ro of Grayskull, the most powerful wizard in the Universe.
However, the line was cancelled in early 1987, and none of this came to fruition. The 1987 Mattel Toy Catalog published pictures of the proposed toys from the line, including an action figure of He-Ro. Three of the dinosaur toys from the line actually made it to stores, and the two “giant” action figures saw release as exclusives in Italy, but He-Ro was never released as a toy.
He-Ro | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom
Taking a look at the history of He-Ro, we cam see that the first version we got was back in 2009 for the MOTU Classics line. It was not until 10 years later that it was followed by the Super7 5.5″ vintage style version in 2019. Then in 2022, we finally got He-Ro in the Masterverse line!
Exclusive Mini Comic
He-Ro comes packed with the exclusive mini comic “He-Ro’s Journey”. We have included the entire comic below for your reading pleasure.
Pages 1-2: This scene begins in Preternia, and look Dinos!!!! Here comes the magical wizard staff and enter Eldor!
Pages 3-4: The choice is clear for Ro. The intersection of Science and Sorcery. These scenes are a mix of Mr. Myagi meets Yoda! Hence He-Ro is born!
Pages 5-6: The Great Black Wizard and Snake Men emerge! But they are fended off by none other than Moss Man! Our Heroic Warriors prevail!
Box Art Teases
According to the Mattel reps at the Revealed event, there will be two more MOTU Origins Club Grayskull Exclusives coming in 2025. Could they be from the Powers of Grayskull line and teased on He-Ro’s box art? If so, we could see Eldor and Sharella making it to the line this year! During the live stream, their exact words were, “He-Ro along with 2 additional releases throughout the year will debut the most iconic characters in the Powers of Grayskull for the first time in the Origins line.” Could we see even bigger names like Laser Power He-Man and Laser Light Skeletor? Or even BIGGER figures like Megator and Titus, the giants of the Powers of Grayskull.
Sharella Tease
We can clearly see Sharella illustrated on the rear of the He-Ro’s Packaging. But this is not the first time we have seen her teased on Cardback art. We also have a custom figure shown below to illustrate what she might look like.
Sharella has appeared several times on packages, card backs and mini comics. Here on Terroar’s card back she is riding on Turbodactyl ready to go to battle with Terroar! This is yet another tease for her figure!
We previously just saw Sharella spotted on the top of central tower on the Eternia Playset box. She can be seen with her bow and arrow pointed at poor Grizzlor who is climbing the ladder up the Central Tower.
Sharella is actually the Goddess. According to MOTU Lore and as written on the character bio for MOTU Classics, the Goddess’s real name is Sharella. But who really is Sharella and where did she come from?
According to the MOTU Classics Goddess Bio:
After the death of King Grayskull, the Power of the Universe was transferred from the Sword of He to the Council of Elders who hid it deep within his castle. Knowing the full sword was the key to channeling the power, they split it in two to prevent it from falling into the hands of evil. For five centuries they waited for a worthy heir to be born. During this time their spirit guide, the creature known as “The Goddess” of Etheria, trained secret heroic guardian to keep the two halves of the sword separated. Many of these brave warriors took the name “He-Man” in honor of the sword they protected giving birth to many different legends of the protector of Eternia.
According WikiGrayskull:
The Masters of the Universe Classics toy line has combined elements from all previous continuities, and as such has restored the Goddess to a position of importance in Eternian history. According to the biographies printed on the toys, the Goddess is Sharella, a spirit guide who consulted the Council of Elders between the death of King Grayskull and the lifetime of Prince Adam some 500 years later. During this time the Goddess trained “secret heroic guardians” such as Vikor, Wun-Dar, and Oo-Larr to protect the two halves of Grayskull’s “Sword of He” until a worthy heir emerged. The Classics storyline has yet to present any information about her activities during the present day, or her relationship (if any) with the Sorceress, Teela, and Prince Adam.
Goddess | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom
Sharella was originally conceived to part a heroic character in the mostly unproduced Powers of Grayskull line of 1987. She was seen on the box art for the Megator package running in the background. She was thought to have come with a Sword, bow, and quiver with arrows. Unfortunately for all of us, she was never produced as a figure in the 1987 Powers of Grayskull line.
Unfortunately, Sharella has never been an officially produced action figure, but if the Origins line makes a figure of her, they are going way deep into MOTU lore, and that is super exciting! Here we can see a custom by Hunter Knight. Created by using a Battleground Teela figure with a sculpted top and also re-sculpted lower arms. Her quiver was donated from a Young Justice Artemis action figure with new sculpted details and her bow is a cast from a Legolas figure with additional details, HKC did a magnificent job! So, this give you a little bit of an idea of what Sharella might look like in action figure form! So you could imagine Mattel using a Teela Origins buck as a basis for this figure.
Starring on the Wun-Dar comic card back art and in the packed in mini comic “Lost Legend”. In the mini comic, Wun-Dar also refers to Sharella as “The Goddess”. Sharella seems to be a pivitol character in the story. On the Comic Cardback art, we can see Sharella whelding a bow and arrow coming to Wun-Dar’s rescue, as he battles a storm of evil glowing skeleton warriors.
Minox
Featured very prominently on the back of He-Ro’s package art is a Minotaur character, Minox. We tried to do some research to see where this figure came from, and with the help of @durendalstrike on Instagram. We tried to ask Axel Gimenez and he tried to give me a hint but I don’t know how a cow emoji and lightening bolt help, but I thought it was pretty funny! How cool would this figure be? He could be based on a chonky buck and Ram Man like armor.
Minox first appeared in the story Il Labirinto di Minox (The Maze of Minox) in a 1987 issue of the Italian Magic Boy comics magazine, where he fought He-Man inside his labyrinth. The robotic minotaur introduced himself as a “creation of Skeletor” and had the ability to shoot lightning bolts from his metal horns. He-Man ultimately defeated Minox by dousing him with water, which short-circuited the creature’s electronic components. In the Masters of the Universe Classics line, Minox was mentioned in Karg’s bio. There, he was described as a Mintoran cyborg who would drag unfortunate victims into Snake Mountain’s Doom Room for interrogation by Karg.
Eldor
Eldor is prominently featured not on the He-Ra package art, but on the cover of the included mini-comic! We can see him illustrated below with his book of spells! And he is featured throughout the mini comic story as well. We have seen Eldor teases several times, which we will recap below, but again is this a hint that Eldor is one of the two “Iconic” characters coming to the Powers of Grayskull in MOTU Origins this year?
Several months back, Axel Gimenez posted a photo on his Instagram page of the Super7 vintage Masters of the Universe Eldor figure that is on card and unopened. He simply put “✨Working…✨” in his post and the last time he did this, he featured an image of the Super7 vintage Masters of the Universe He-Ro, which can only mean one thing. Based on a recent post made by Mattel, they spilled the beans and made it publicly known that the MOTU Origins Eternia box art featured a ton of easter eggs as the Origins line is known for those teases turning into figures. Eldor was conspicuously missing from the teases on the Eternia box art so we are taking this a very good sign that (1) Eldor is coming to the Masters of the Universe and (2) that the Powers of Grayskull are headed to the Masters of the Universe Origins line. Well (2) has been proven, so now we need to get Eldor in the Origins line!
Eldor is a fun one, as he was one of the unproduced prototype characters of the “Powers of Grayskull” spin off line that never came to fruition in the 1980’s Masters of the Universe Line. He can be seen in the card art standing next to Moss Man and Tytus. Now that Mattel has launched the Powers of Grayskull line under, could we perhaps see him following the release of He-Ro? That would be amazing! The entire scene on the back of Vypor’s card it is spectacular! We see Eldor kneeling in front of Vypor with the new Snake Men Cham-Or surrounding them with Lady Slither looking on
Here we can see Eldor illustrated on the back of the Mattel Creations exclusive Camo Khan card art!
Prototype images of Eldor and He-Ro had been around for many years, but we never got these figures as kids. But in 2019, thanks to bay area based Super7, we finally got Eldor & He-Ro figures as part of the Masters of the Universe Vintage Style 5.5″ collection. Eldor known as the Heroic Guardian of the Book of Living spells, looks just like his prototype images! The giant tri-fold book works like a magic trick and changes images by alternating the way the book is opened. You can read all about Eldor’s creation and back story on the Eldor: (1987/2019) battleramblog.com.
Source: Eldor battleramblog.com
Source: Eldor battleramblog.com
Eldor Trademark Renewal
Eldor is a fun one, as he was one of the unproduced prototype characters of the “Powers of Grayskull” spin off line that never came to fruition in the 1980’s Masters of the Universe Line. Prototype images of Eldor and He-Ro had been around for many years, but we never got these figures as kids. But in 2019, thanks to bay area based Super7, we finally got Eldor & He-Ro figures as part of the Masters of the Universe Vintage Style 5.5″ collection. Eldor known as the Heroic Guardian of the Book of Living spells, looks just like his prototype images! The giant tri-fold book works like a magic trick and changes images by alternating the way the book is opened.
He-Ro Preorder and Official Reveal
The Team at Mattel Creations take a deep dive into preteretnia! Reveals He-Ro in an incredible box that pays homage to the Los Amos style packaging in a beautiful box with the Powers of Grayskull box with He-Ro in MOTU Origins form. Yes it is the most powerful Wizard in the Universe! The first recipient of the Powers of Grayskull. All new window box packaging with a minicomic, staff and postcard! His magical staff that opens and spins reveal his magical crystal. They hint at 2 more reveals this year of the Powers of Grayskull.
Here is the official description:
“The Most Powerful Wizard in the Universe arrives in the Origins line for the first time with his iconic golden armor and red cape. He’s prepared to fight the monsters and dinosaurs of Preternia with a magical staff that can spin and open, allowing him to harness the good magic of the Ancient Wizards. Our Club Grayskull membership figure is ready to defend your collection.”
Comes with premium VUM golden armor, cape, gauntlets, and staff weapon
He also comes with a mini comic called He-Ro’s Journey
He-Ro looks stunning holding his staff with a green gem. From the official image, it looks like his armor and boots are vac metal.
His portrait on his head sculpt has a gentle look to, very similar to the unreleased prototype version from the 1980’s.
Here are some screenshots from the event that show off what the actual figure looks like “in person” and he comes with his iconic cape!
Up close you can see the VUM details on the chest armor and boots!
Complete Your MOTU Collection
Be sure to check out our Masters of the Universe shop pages where we’ve curated figures from MOTU Origins, Masterverse, Classics, Vintage and more so you can find the figures you need easier!
