Looking back on MOTU's 30 years pt. 4: Crouching Teela hidden Mekaneck

It's time for the 2002 reboot for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! This would be the final piece on this Looking back on MOTU since Classics is not over yet. So where to begin?
OK the Four Horsemen (The guys who sculpt the MOTUC toys) pitched an Idea to Mattel, an updated HE-MAN toyline that was MEANT to be a sequel to the original Toyline. Storywise Skeletor was meant to have taken over the full power sword and He-Man would have a Mechanical sword to channel the powers of Grayskull. They made the designs with their detailed style... Something something Focus groups and the toyline ended up looking the way it did, but Mattel chose to do a reboot instead of a continuation. Now I must say that this new toyline was being made during the era when toys were shifting towards having more articulation... (The trend started in the mid 90s) but for some Reason Mattel SHIED AWAY from the articulation... (which is funny since the Horsemen apparently were trying to make super articulated MOTU figures for this line)

Now I'm going to go on a small tangent and I don't mean this as an attack on The Four Horsemen, because they had to follow Mattel's orders and world class researched instructions...
The 200X toys SUCKED ASS!! I bought them cause they were He-Man and I love the designs...
I hate the STYLE... Blocky looking bodies, pinheads and he-man looks very PUNY! While he no longer looks like he's taking a dump (like the vintage toy) he looks like he's humping a ghost! (in order to stand without falling) The designs are sound, the detailing is AWESOME!! I did (and still DO) love how there are multiple body types on the line. Whiplash is thick, Beastman is HUGE and Skeletor is lanky, etc.

I only went after the core characters (cause those were pretty much the ones released...) Sadly I never found Adam, Teela or Evil Lyn due to scalpers. One thing that bothered me a lot about the toyline was the Excess of He-Man and Skeletor Variants... or the abuse of repaints (reverse colors two-bad, disco skeletor, etc.)

Now the other side of the 200X coin is the Cartoon, which still is heavily tied to Filmation... even if it was a reboot... (Count Marzo, Evil Seed, the Shadow Beasts, the Diamond Ray of Disappearance were some surviving Filmation elements) Like in Filmation, Mattel had one approach for the Toyline, while the Cartoon People (MYP) were heading into another direction. Mattel was going for a He-Man vs Skeletor approach, while the Cartoon was emphasizing the cast while He-Man was like a Background character at times.

The cartoon had a pretty decent cast of voice actors (I've already talked about He-Man being voiced by Cam Clarke before...) The music wasn't as epic as in Filmation, but the show had a bit more action...
 sadly the show went by almost unnoticed... It was playing the Network slot russian roulette... So it got cancelled... It also didn't help that Mattel was clogging the pegs with unnecessary He-Man and Skeletor variants...
While the Toyline didn't bring much new stuff to the table (aside a gazillion He-Man and Skeletor variants) the Cartoon DID bring some new stuff, like King Grayskull (He-Man's SECOND ancestor and source of Power... The 80s had a different ancestor in He-Ro) The Qadians, Odiphus among others.

Obviously after the demise of the line, Mattel threw He-Man back in the vault and swore to never speak of him until they could figure out a way to get some easy money... Fortunately for them, the Four Horsemen struck back with a Vintage Looking He-Man with Today's Articulation and with some pitching to Management, MOTU: Classics was born...

Luckily for us MOTU Classics has brought some of these guys into the fold as toys for the first time... (Carnivus, King Grayskull, the more Criss Angel Looking Count Marzo, and The Griffins to mention some of the 200X characters that have been classicized)

Now that pretty much covers all the eras before Classics and how they helped Classics be what it is...
Hopefully Mattel will allow Princess of Power AND New Adventures reach their 30th WHILE the  Classics Line is still alive...