Masters of the Universe Eternia’s Choice Next Crowdfund

Mattel in a very intriguing instagram post, put up an image of “Eternia’s Choice” which is giving fans the power to shape the next MOTU Crowdfund project! What could the next MOTU Crowdfund project be? Well, there are several trending dream projects that we are speculating might be included as the contenders! Our guesses include some very cool projects. Could it be the Eternos Palace Playset, or perhaps Lady Slither’s Lair or perhaps something Powers of Grayskull related, perhaps Dinos or Giants? We do not think the Fright Zone or the Slime Pit would be candidates for this crowd fund as those are smaller format playsets and could easily be retail releases. Plus, this crowdfund was meant for a large format project but we included the Fright Zone because it also had a MOTU Classics concept that looked like the Filmation Fright Zone from the Cartoon. We know that the MOTU Origins line is light on Princess of Power figures but we included the Crystal Castle as that playset had a MOTU Classics concept and the Masterverse line is building out the PoP side of the house. Whatever is included in the list, this is a very exciting prospect that Mattel is giving the fans the power to shape the next project! More details will be announced this coming Tuesday, September 5th, where you can learn more about it, and how to cast your vote! As you know, we at Toy Habits love to speculate, so let’s have some fun and take a look at some of the possibilities for the next Masters of the Universe Eternia’s Choice Crowdfund project! Will it be MOTU Origins or Masterverse?

Be sure to also Tune in tonight at 8pm PST when we go LIVE in a Simulcast broadcast with Mega Jay Retro to discuss! Masters of the Universe Eternia’s Choice Next Crowdfund Simulcast Stream with Mega Jay Retro – YouTube

According to Masters Of The Universe (@masters) • Instagram photos and videos

Fans of Eternia, YOU have the power to shape the next Masters of the Universe crowdfund project! Tune in Tuesday, September 5th to learn how to cast your vote for our next made-to-order, large-scale #MOTU item.

Masters Of The Universe (@masters) • Instagram photos and videos

Speculation

As you know, we at Toy Habits love to dream and speculate, so let’s have some fun at the possibilities! What could the next MOTU Crowdfund project be? Our guesses include some very cool projects that might include the Eternos Palace Playset, or perhaps Lady Slither’s Lair or perhaps something Powers of Grayskull related, perhaps Dinos or Giants? What ever is included in the list, this is a very exciting prospect that Mattel is giving the fans the power to shape the next project!

Eternos Palace Playset

One of the most famous settings of all Eternia during the 1980’s Filmation cartoon was the Eternian Royal Palace. This is where King Randor and Queen Marlena lived to rule over the kingdom, and Orko wreaked havoc with his always disastrous magic tricks.

This setting however was one of the main locations in all of He-Man lore to never get produced into a playset. There was a concept however by the MOTU classics team, that never came to fruition. Pictured below, you can see the elaborate playset with its multiple platforms with different areas of the exterior of the palace. A landing pad for the Wind Raider, grand staircase for Princess Adora to come down, multiple platforms to place your Royal Guards, a cave to park the Road Ripper and even a working elevator. Yes, this would have been so grand, had Mattel produced it.

This is not the first time we got the Eternos Palace teased to us in the MOTU Origins line, we first say it teased on the Royal Guard Rear package Card back Artwork. Not all hope is lost, because the MOTU Origins line did give us an army builder set with the Royal Eternian Guard deluxe figure package. And you need somewhere for your guard to watch over, so with that we get a hint at what looks like the Eternos Palace on the package artwork. If you looked quickly, you would have missed it, but there it is, in all its glory! The palace stands as a backdrop to the battle scene going on in the foreground. Let’s hope this is a sign that we might get a Palace some day!

Lady Slither’s Lair

Lady Slither’s Lair was teases recently on Fang-Or’s card back art. Along with the announcement of the Fang-Or, Mattel provide some very juicy details for us to chew and stew on. As Mattel (we think this might be Roy Juarez speaking) was describing the packaging and art direction for for Fang-Or, and said “When it’s revealed, you will see a direct connection to Preternia. We’ll focus on a lush swamp background, and in the middle of it you’ll be able to see Lady Slither’s Snake Lair…The artwork teases potential upcoming figure reveals and a very cool easter-egg I had to include in the card back artwork.” Fans will notice that the Snake Lair is surrounded by a moat and a creature. The moat pays homage to The Castle Moat playmate that Mark Taylor originally envisioned, and the sea creature is one of the creatures illustrated in The Castle Moat. This concept was held over from the MOTU Classics line but would make an amazing MOTU Origins playset!

So of course when we did get Fang-Or’s card art, the back of the card featured an amazing scene with Fang-Or pouncing on an unsuspecting He-Ro with Lady Slither (and her Lair) in the background! It’s amazing to think we could get a He-Ro figure for MOTU Origins and a scaled down Lady Slither’s Lair, which are teased quite prominently by the card art.

Looking at the art close up, Roy brings out so much emotion and action in this illustration! The fiery oranges and greens play nicely off each to create an epic scene.

Below is a close up of Lady Slither’s Lair on the card back and a concept that was done for the MOTU Classics line.

Lady Slither’s Lair Custom

m.t.dioart from Germany is actually making a version version Lady Slither’s Lair, an un-produced concept from from the MOTU Classics era and is bringing it to life! While he features MOTU Classicis figures in his design, this playset would scale nicely for MOTU Origins and Masterverse (if we get any Snake Men created for that line). Taking the blueprint from the MOTU Classics Lady Slither’s Lair, which was just an image, m.t.dioart uses a combination of MDF, wood, and foam Styrodur to achieve his intended result. He was posted several work in progress images so be sure to check back here for updates as I am sure you are as eager to see the end result as we are!

Lady Slither’s Custom Dungeon Interior

Continuing his amazing work on Lady Slither’s Lair, m.t.dioart has designed the interior of the Snake Men fortress as he’s developed the dungeon! It’s amazing to get a glimpse inside Lady Slither’s Lair and he created this dungeon that is very reminiscent of Castle Grayskull and it fits right in with the MOTU universe. Using LED’s to light up the grate, you can see a hand and a skull with a hand peaking out it! The poor unfortunate soul just could not escape the wrath of Lady Slither!

Lady Slither’s Custom Behind the Scenes

m.t.dioart takes you behind the scenes as he creates the dungeon grate! He has taken a black wooden grate and applied a rust paint app and added a handle. The paint app looks so realistic as it has a worn out and overused look and feel to it.

Applying foam on the underside, he creates a raised look to the dungeon grate and applies similar fine details like the facade of Lady Slither’s Lair! Up close, you can get a good look at the beastly hand that trying to get out!

We also see a close up the skull and hand and it looks amazing! Applying a green ooze look and feel, you get a sense that this dungeon is not where you want to end up. You can also see the stone detail that he sculpted into the foam that goes along with the rest of the castle.

As you can see by the two images of the drawbridge door, m.t.dioart takes a lot of pride in his work and tries to bring out every detail, even replicating the forked tongue design for the door. While he did not have an image of the door, he reimagined what it could look like and result is stellar! He has a Snake Men symbol centered on the door with snakes crawling up and down it. The paint app on the door pieces really resemble the look of wood!

Here, m.t.dioart shares how he designed the large Cobra head that is above the door to the Lair. Using foam, he has sculpted a true to life version of a snake head.

Getting a peak inside the mouth, you can see that no detail was left unfinished. From the actual forked tongue in the mouth to the yellow beady eyes, m.t.dioart has done a phenomenal job!

Lady Slither’s Lair Concept and Tease

With the announcement of Fang-Or and Lady Slither coming to the Masters of the Universe Origins line, the devil is in the details and Mattel might be hinting at more deep cut Snake Men figures coming to the line. Both Lady Slither and Fang-Or are original designs created by Axel Gimenez back in the MOTU Classics era! Fang-Or was produced by the Super7/Mattel collaboration while Lady Slither was just a concept that never saw the light of day. We take a deeper look at the characters and a possible playset that could be coming to the Masters of the Universe Origins line.

History of Lady Slither

Lady Slither, Slytheena of the Serpent House is a lady Snake Men in female form, from the Masters of the Universe Classics canon. She said to be the leader of the Snake Men, and has the ability to transform the lower half of her body into a snake tail, which is very unusual. This will be very interesting to see how they treat this in Origins form! She also had a raid on Eternia, then led a Revenge Squad on Trolla, and finally returned to Eternia again to wreak havoc throughout the land.

Thanks to Allison Troy for her insight on Lady Slither. According to Allison: There aren’t many ladies (none) so far in the Snake Men faction. And Lady Slither is one that a lot of fans have responded to. While she’s a lot of new tooling – at this point the only re-use for her is the Origins She-Ra arms. Her torso could facilitate a more generic female torso buck which would lead to many more figures. In her human form she wears fur shorts and the typical furry boots. So that piece would give us Battleground Teela’s waist piece – and if they designed the torso generic enough it would also give us Battleground Teela’s torso. Plus again– a more generic female torso that allowed for clip-on and snap-on armor would lead to more opportunities for female figures in Origins. Plus her crown could be re-used for Zilora from the Filmation cartoon.

According to Lady Slither | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom:

Lady Slither is a vicious leader of the Snake Men, filling a similar role to the one held by King Hiss. She seemed to have attacked Eternia during He-Man’s time on Primus, but was later sent by the Unnamed One to form a villainous Revenge Squad which laid siege to Trolla in an attempt to take the Trollan Temple of Power. Upon her defeat, she returned to Eternia where she and the remaining Snake Men became a dangerous threat to the planet. Later, she joined forces with the resurrected King Hiss and his own revived Snake Men.

Lady Slither | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom

Powers of Grayskull Dinos or Giants

This Moss Man package is full of Powers of Grayskull art work teases. The Camo Khan Card Back, also teased a whole host of characters from the Powers of Grayskull, we now get more on Moss Man’s package! This would make sense in the time line for the MOTU lore because the Rise of the Snake Men in happening now in 2023, but where did the snake men originate from, none other than Preternia! And where is Preternia the central location of ? Well you guessed it folks, the Powers of Grayskull subline! And so we come full circle! The Powers of Grayskull line that only had a few characters produced back in 1988, was never fully developed by Mattel because the line’s popularity was dying out by then. It included fantastic new characters, giants and the world of Preternia filled with robotic dinosaurs! It would be a dream come true if Mattel were to build out the Powers of Grayskull line! You can read more about the previous figure teases and the Powers of Grayskull in this epic MOTU-origins-camo-khan-card-art-teases article!

Moss Man Package Dino Teases

The front of the box features a stunning prehistoric forest scene with several figure and creature teases. The art wraps around the top flap, front and sides of the packaging. Here we can see the entire panel of images. On the side panel there is a figure tease of Gigantisaur, an unreleased creature from the cancelled 1988 Powers of Grayskull line. You can see Thunder Punch He-Man coming out of the dinosaur’s belly. We will discuss him further below. We also get another tease on the center panel which occurs on the top flap of the package. Flying toward that large Sequoia is none other than Turbodactyl, who was also originally released in 1987 also under the Powers of Grayskull subline! Also that is no ordinary Seqouia tree, if you look closely there is a face on that tree, and it is Sky Tree! Sky tree is a character from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and is the oldest tree on Eternia! In the left panel below, we can see Moss Man front and center, but who is the blue creature standing behind him? That is of course is Red Shadow, yes which I know he is blue, but that is his name. We discuss Red Shadow further below as well. Of course off in the distance is Eternia as this scene is taking place in no other than Preternia!!

Camo Khan card art teases

With absolutely stunning artwork by Axel Gimenez, the front of the Camo Khan card back features all sorts of exciting MOTU characters. We can see a host of Powers of Grayskull characters. We have Megator, King Hiss riding the Tyrantisaurus Rex. We can also see Tung Lashor, Rattlor, Squeeze and Snake Face, who were also teased to be coming to the Origins line! King Grayskull is riding Bionatops, and as we saw on the Eternia display, there was an Origins version of King Grayskull as well! We already saw Rattlor and King Hiss revealed at SDCC just last month, so we know those Snake Men are coming! Then we see teases of Moss Man and Sharella, as we covered in Wun-Dar Card Art Teases New MOTU Origins Characters. Also pictured is Eldor, Turbodactyl and Tytus as well! Also illustrated is Castle Grayskull and the recently revealed Eternia playset! There are so many characters here that we have either predicted thru previous card art teases or haven gotten leaks on, so it is very exciting to see these characters on this artwork!

On the back of the card back, we get a mini comic story. Unfortunately, the resolution isn’t great, so it’s hard to make out the text. but we can definitely see the amazing illustrations! Again, more stunning artwork by Axel Gimenez, the back of the Camo Khan card back features more exciting MOTU characters. We can see Lazer Light Skeletor in the along with the yet to be announced Snake Mountain in the background. We see the host of Powers of Grayskull characters from the front card art as well. Here we see King Hiss illustrated again sitting on a throne with a host of other henchmen. Also Camo Khan is shown coming thru a magical portal with Terroar and Lord Gr’asp, approaching Laser Power He-Man and Moss-Man.

Prominently featured on the Camo Khan card back artwork are a ton of Powers of Grayskull characters. We are now several years into the line, and maybe it’s about time we dive deeper into this exciting subline. A line that only had a few characters produced back in 1988, was never fully developed by Mattel because the line’s popularity was dying out by then. It included fantastic new characters, giants and the world of Preternia filled with robotic dinosaurs! It would be a dream come true if Mattel were to build out the Powers of Grayskull line!

According to Wiki Grayskull:

The Powers of Grayskull was a spinoff from the Masters of the Universe brand. Beginning in 1987, it was intended to show the prehistory of Eternia. However, the line was aborted early, and very few products were ever released.

The Powers of Grayskull | Wiki Grayskull | Fandom

Gigantisaur

Gigantisaur was an unreleased creature from the cancelled Powers of Grayskull line from 1988 that was modeled after a Brontosaurus. This creature is huge and you can see the canon door and how it can fit a MOTU figure in it.

Turbodactyl

Tyrantisaurus Rex

According to: Battle Ram Blog:

The earliest design artwork for a MOTU T-Rex comes from Alan Tyler. His take on the concept is quite different from what followed. The design below doesn’t have any external cybernetic parts. Aside from the pop out opening in the back, it looks like a fairly realistic tyrannosaurus. The “drone” is actually an organic creature instead of a mechanical one.

A hatch on the back of the figure opens up to allow an action figure to sit. A hatch on the stomach stores the “Dyna-Drone” (a wind-up spinning toy), which can be launched from the figure’s belly. There is a removable blue gun that attaches to the dinosaur’s right shoulder, and the mouth is articulated.

Tyrantisaurus Rex: Most Terrifying Dinosaur in the land of Preternia (1987) – Battle Ram (battleramblog.com)

Here we can see what the cross sell art work looked like for Tyrantisaurus-Rex. It demonstrated his action feature springing into action! On the left we can see what the actual production image looked like.

Bionatops

Below is pictured the vintage Bionatops package both front and back. You can see the Powers of Grayskull vintage packaging and beautiful illustration of He-Man riding atop Bionatop on the back of the package.

Also pictured below is a concept sketch for Bionatops and then what the actual 1987 production version of the creature looks like.

Tytus

Megator

Megator, was the second of the two giants last produced for the Vintage Masters of the Universe Line, and is prominently featured on the front of the card back art spinning his giant spiked mace! Tytus and Megator are both illustrated here, so could Mattel be planning to release their two Powers of Grayskull giants? Only time will tell, but it is so exciting to see them here.

Megator, evil Giant Destroyer was one of the last vintage Masters of the Universe characters to be released in 1988. One of two giants, Megator and Titus, the two rarest of the MOTU vintage figures, was released only in Europe, primarily in Italy. Originally designed to be part of the spin off “Powers of Grayskull” line, Megator and Titus were still released with the Masters of the Universe logos on their packaging. Megator, the green giant evil warrior stands 15″ tall and came with real rooted hair. He included a spring-loaded right leg for a kicking action feature, and he came with a spiked ball and chain.

Fright Zone Vintage or MOTU Classics Concept

The Fright Zone, although one of the smaller playsets in the MOTU vintage line, is a great contender for a crowd funding project! There was also an unproduced Fright Zone concept that never made it tot he MOTU Classics line! What is cool about the MOTU Classics concept is that it is large and it looks like the Fright Zone from the Filmation cartoon!

Known for being the main headquarters for the Evil Horde, the Fright Zone was the prominent location featured for Hordak and his evil minions on the Filmation She-Ra Princess of Power Cartoon. Ah, the Fright Zone, where Hordak sat in his throne room, many a time sending poor Grizzlor thru the famous trap door, ruling over the Evil Horde!

The Fright Zone playset was released by Mattel in 1985. More of a diorama piece, the Fright Zone was a simple looking playset that consisted of that famous green colored craggily stone, a rustic dungeon door, a tunnel for a puppet snake to come thru and a scary looking tree complete with scarecrows. This playset was a huge departure for the vast environments that Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain brought, but I think it holds a special place in the hearts of Evil Horde fans. It didn’t resemble the techno-future location depicted in the Filmation cartoon at all, but it was still cool!

First illustrated on the 2020 Power Con exclusive She-Ra figure card back artwork, the Fright zone was featured on both the front and rear of the card back art. Shown below, you can see Hordak attacking Adora at the fright zone. It is also pictured on the front of the fold out artwork in stunning color showing Hordak’s minions Mantenna, Grizzlor and Catra atop Clawdeen her evil pink lion at the steps of the Fright Zone near the evil tree.

The Fright Zone shown for a second time on the Origins Hordak card back artwork. Again with a bevy of his minions by his side. This time a pair of Horde Trooper, Grizzlor, Leech, Mantenna and Modulock join him.

We see the Fright Zone for the third time featured center stage in all its 1980’s style glory on the 2021 Masters of the Universe Origins Power Con Exclusive Horde 4 Pack – lamp shade box, as I like to call it. This time depicted in stunning wrap around artwork by the great Axel Gimenez. In all 3 cases, your will notice that the Fright Zone is depicted as it was in 1985 Mattel playset release and not what the Filmation cartoon location looked like. Again, giving us a hint that perhaps Mattel in classic Origins style has its sights set for a Fright Zone Origins release?! Only time will tell…..

Crystal Castle Vintage or MOTU Classics Concept

Like the MOTU Classics concept for the Fright Zone, the Crytal Castle also had a concept developed that never made it to fruition! Princess Adora, defender of the Crystal Castle, whereby uttering the magical words ” For the Honor of Grayskull” transformed into She-ra, the Princess of Power! The Crystal Castle was always in the background, just like Castle Grayskull was for He-man and was center stage to She-Ra’s magical powers. Shown below as seen in the 1980’s Filmation cartoon.

Crystal Castle MOTU Classics Concept

The Crystal Castle playset was the Princess of Power equivalent to what Castle Grayskull was for Masters of the Universe. A place for She-Ra and all her Princess of Power friends to carry out their adventures. First released in 1985, the Crystal Castle was the first playset for the Princess of Power line. Although it didn’t resemble the one in the cartoon, this playset came equipped with 4 main rooms for your Princess of Power dolls to play in. Made of a similar clamshell design as Castle Grayskull, it came filled with furniture and accessories to provided young kids with hours of fun!

Although Mattel has yet to build out the Princess of Power sub-line in Origins, they sure did get a great start with the 2020 Power Con Exclusive She-Ra action figure that was later followed by a standard release. As covered in our part 1 of this 3-part series article, the art for the 2020 Power Con exclusive She-Ra provided some great teases for some PoP characters, including Bow, Glimmer, Kowl, and Loo-Kee. But more importantly than that, they were all posed in front of the Crystal Castle, illustrated in the 1985 Mattel product release style!! We will see what Mattel has up its sleeve!