Ah geeze; one of the things that got all of us to start OAFE in the first place was the 2002 Masters of the Universe toyline, and now here's Mattel doing modern versions of those designs. We are so old!
Dim-witted but dangerous, the loyal henchman of Skeletor maintains the bestiary deep within the caverns of Snake Mountain
using his mind-control powers over animals and beasts.
Oh, animals and beasts? Well, how exotic! Why isn't his name Animal-and-Beast Man, then, as long as we're specifying the great array of creatures over which he has dominion? Or are we assuming too much when we expect he controls more than just animals and beasts? No creatures, no critters, no varmints, just 1) animals and 2) beasts. Things that are so vastly different. Though one thing we do know for certain he can't control is dragons - it's a plot point in the series that he doesn't have that ability.
While the 2002 He-Man characters were all designed by the Four Horsemen to be more detailed and interesting than their 1980s counterparts, those details had to be smoothed back out for animation, meaning
we were just left with costume elements (which were based on the '80s anyway) and general silhouettes: the mountainous Ram-Man, the asymmetrical armor of Trap-Jaw and Man-At-Arms, etc. In the case of Beast Man, that ohysical identifier was his squatting slouching posture, something this toy duplicated perfectly. The head is pretty poseable, but even at its highest point, it still sits lower than the shoulders even when he's not wearing his big fur-and-bone mantle.
The 2002 figure was fully covered by finely sculpted fur, in a way the '80s figure wanted to do but could never have actually achieved with the technology at the time. And yet the '80s figure still had more fur than this one, because again this one is aping the animation style. Even the expression on his face - one eye squinting, one wide, and his mouth open to show off his tiny fangs - is taken straight from the cartoon's model sheet.
Decades, in the memory of popular culture, tend to have set colorschemes: browns and oranges for the '70s, bright neons for the '80s, teals and purples for the '90s, etc. Well, we're far enough out now to recognize that the enduring color palette for the '00s might as well be
something called "piss filter brown." The Gears of War series is remembered for its chainsaw bayonet, its chest-high walls, and its vibrant gray, brown, and grey colorscheme. Well, similarly, the MYP MotU cartoon seemed to be allergic to using actual colors, favoring a weird palette that made everything look constantly dusty; there never seemed to be anything pure white or pure black, with all the shadows done in brown, and everything generally looking like an American movie set in Mexico. It never looked good, and it infected action cartoons for several years after, but it's also what this toy aims to duplicate, whether that's a good idea or not. So insted of having red fur, he's dirty orange, and instead of armor that's nearly black, it's just brown. Plus, the cartoon didn't give Beast Man the mandrill coloration on his face, so it's just skintone pink.
Modern MotU figures have way more articulation than the previous attempts. The 2002 release that this is ultimately homaging, for instance, had a swivel head, swivel/hinge shoulders with an action feature,
swivel wrists, swivel waist, and swivel/hinge hips, and the '80s figure had even less than that. This one has swivel/hinge ankles, swivel shins, swivel/hinge knees, balljointed hips, a swivel waist, swivel/hinge wrists, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell head. The shoulders, inexplicably, go into the torso at an angle instead of perfectly horizontally, so the arms don't move straight up and down, but rather in a cone shape. To really capture the cartoon look you need to have him squatting as deeply as he can, and even then the legs are slightly too long.
Beast Man's only accessory is his whip, the one trademark weapon he's used since the 1980s. It's flexible PVC, but still stiffer than you'd expect it to be, so it will nicely hold its pre-defined shape even if he's holding it in the air. Yes, it'll droop over time,
but it's not awful. The armor on his uper arms and his shins is done as separate PVC, too, which was very surprising! Why do it this way? Why not just sculpt it on? The shin-straps in particular tend to twist out oh place too easily, especially for something that's concealing the joint in that part of the leg. If you pop the head off, you can remove his big mane of fur, too, which has been made with teh spikes sticking through it as separate pieces, so they can all be molded in color instead of needing to worry about paint.
The "Mo2K" figures were always a little disappointing.
As the millennium's first swing at a retro modernization, they didn't quite know what they were doing yet. Four Horsemen designs? Yes! Four Horsemen sculpts? Oh yes! Action features? Oh no. Bare minimum articulation? Oh, no! That thing where no villains were allowed to be bigger than the hero? Bad Ape Dot Mov! Beast Man was one of the ones who ran afoul of that last edict, despite being one of the biggest characters on the show. This one is about the same size as the 2002 Beast Man (when he's squatting down, at least), but it's intended to be in scale with the other Origins figures,
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which means it's extra-big by their standards. Cartoon Collection Beast Man may not fit in stylistically with the other toys, but he's a good size and does a superb job at what the toy set out to do.
-- 03/16/26
Why did the cartoon ever think those colors looked good? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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