Sunday, July 13, 2014

(Return of) The Yardsale Bin!!! Pt. 3: MotU edition

So... last September I started writing about a bin of toys I picked up at a yard sale (Part One can be found here, and Part Two can be found here). A bunch of other stuff happened fairly soon after that, and then the blog sort of went on a hiatus... and then I sort of started another blog... and then I restarted this one... and then I basically FORGOT about the whole thing... and long-story-short (too late!) I never really got back to writing about it. I just realized this recently. So I'm going to FINALLY get caught up on writing about the contents of this bin I found at a yard sale I found just down the street from my house: 


This time around I am going to focus on one of the properties that made me so excited about this bin in the first place... Masters of the Universe! There was a BUNCH of MotU stuff in here that grabbed my attention, and I'm going to show it ALL in this one post!


Let's start with all of the royalty in the box, shall we? 


My King Randor is missing his crown (his crown people!) and he appears to have a bit of damage to his nose that a dermatologist should probably look at... but he cuts no less of a stunning figure! 


Prince Adam is a figure I never owned as a kid, but he's one I'm thrilled to have now! I always found it bizarre that they put so much effort into dressing Adam in shades of pink and lavender and then gave him a hot pink sword. I feel like there was some effort on the part of the toy designers to make Adam feel like a more feminine He-Man? Am I crazy? Anyway, he's a fun figure to have tracked down. 


Finally here we have King Hiss, who is missing his shell body. But hey, I don't care! I like the snake version better anyway! This guy always makes me think of the Marvel crossover event of 1989, "Atlantis Attacks" with its serpent god and Serpent Society fighting the X-Men, etc. He looks like some sort of mortal in mid-transformation into Set. 


Here's a group of heroes (and one arguably "neutral" character)!


This Ram Man has seen better days, and I already owned one, so he eventually ended up being a part of a trade I set up. Ram Man was one of my favorite heroes as a kid in the MotU group. So cool that he butted things with his head as his power!!!  


I think he's this kid, all grown up. 


Another hero who uses her head (but in a different way), and another I already owned, heeeeere's Teela! I kept my own Childhood Teela longer than almost any other Masters of the Universe toy as a kid. She and April O'Neil and Janine Melnitz were a small handful of the only female action figures I owned as a kid and I treasured them, since I was following the X-Men model of team superheroics and I NEEDED a strong female presence for that to work. My Teela developed Dazzler powers at one point if I recall. 


Buzz-Off is yet another character I already owned, but he is one of my absolute favorite guys from when I was a kid. So really, the first three out of this particular group all turned out to be childhood faves, and not ironically, I already owned all three! (All three have moved on to new homes at this point as well) Buzz-Off was a freaky enough hero that I wanted to play with him all of the time when I was little, unlike most of the other heroes, who I thought were pretty boring.  


I did not own a Zodak (or Zodac... or whatever) at this point... do getting this guy was a coup... and I even had his armor kicking around, although someone else was using it at this point:

Uh... hey, I think you have something of mine.

Awkward...

Agh! So embarrassed!
It almost seemed a shame to cover up all that luscious, Tom Selleck-caliber chest hair though... 


Next up we have a couple of villains. I already owned both of these as well, and these two have ALSO gone on to new homes!


Webstor was a figure I never owned as a kid, and in fact creeped me out to NO END and therefore would never have been my toy as a kid. Hence me not having a ton of nostalgia for him, but I like having him now. 


And Hordak was the supreme ruler of absolutely ALL my villainous toys when I was a kid. He just seemed like such an ultimate badass to me back then. I hadn't seen much of the She-Ra show as a kid at all, so I was never really aware that he was supposed to snort like a pig a lot when he talked.



Now we get into the truly exciting finds! All three of these guys were new finds to me at the time. Two heroes and a villain!


Rio Blast! I never owned this toy as a kid, but as an adult I ADORE him!!! His leg blasters are missing, but he's otherwise in pretty great shape! What a weird concept to add to He-Man! A bionic quick-draw character teaming up with a magical barbarian? Perfect. 


Mantenna's eyes have seen better days, but I'm still delighted to add him to my shelf! He is one of the even weirder concepts (IMO) to have made it to plastic, what his his eyestalks and doubled-up legs. But any member of the Evil Horde is awesome in my book. 




And finally Stratos, whom I was never a huge fan of as a kid or as an adult. This one's in pretty bad shape, facially, but I managed to replace him just a couple of months later with another great MotU find


Honestly though, I think the absolute best MotU find from the bin was this trio of figures from the New Adventures of He-Man line. That line got a pretty bad rap when it was released but as an adult I kind of like them. As a kid I only ever owned Optikk from this line, and he was another one of my absolute favorite action figures of ALL TIME. The other characters didn't really do a whole lot for me, conceptually, and I never saw the show. Optikk was not included in this bin unfortunately, but a handful of his foes and allies were. 


First up is He-Man himself! If I couldn't get Optikk, this would be the only other figure I would have outright wished for. He's just perfectly indicative of what you were in store for when it comes to this action figure line, and as the main hero and "icon" I'd want him. Skeletor? Not as much, but sure, I guess. But He-Man is really the star. 


Depending on the packaging you bought him in, apparently this fellow was either Icarius or Flipshot. I just think of him as Dave Coulier because I feel like that's EXACTLY who he looks like. 



You decide. 


And finally we have the alien badass Flogg, a villain from the series. I'm sort of full-on in love with this guy, from his color scheme, to the robotic-looking armor, to his ridiculously-sculpted alienoid head. I've seen pictures of the helmet he's supposed to have, and I'm glad mine doesn't have his because I WOULD NEVER PUT IT ON HIM. I love him just the way he is. 

There's actually two more installments planned to finish off the contents of this yardsale bin... but don't expect them all back-to-back-to-back. I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies real soon! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

9 comments:

  1. Very cool! These large finds are getting rarer these days with more and more people trying to sell there old stuff on Ebay for outrages prices.

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    1. He was reeeaally reluctant to sell me the whole bin. He was convinced I was just going to dump it all on eBay. His mother talked him into selling it to me after all. I also assured him that most of this was going to end up on my own shelves. And for the most part, that's been true. Very little of this stuff has gone anywhere with the intent of making any money (or even trades). I've gifted a bunch of the stuff I didn't want or need. The rest is, in fact, on my shelves!

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  2. If I had it....My sewing gal would get to work in a heartbeat to restore these gems.

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  3. I love the ware on these actually it gives them character and makes me wonder what adventures and battles they had before they came into your collection. Great job saving these from the Toy Abyss Derek. : )

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    1. I like old toys for my collection to be in good shape... but I'll rescue any toy in almost any condition with only a few exceptions.

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