I don't recall liking She-Ra very much as a kid, but I've developed a much greater appreciation for the character as an adult. This is largely because of the more interesting and appealing class dynamic of her show (a band of rebels fighting to overthrow a tyrannical regime versus a bunch of well-to-do heroes battling downtrodden outcasts to maintain the status quo) and the fact that most of my favorite childhood characters were actually members of the Horde, but also because She-Ra is flipping hot. So as a fan of both the media and sexy female action figures -- despite my better judgment -- I once again braved the MattyCollector chaos to secure a She-Ra for my small Masters of the Universe Classics collection. Keep reading for my thoughts on that very figure!

Name: She-Ra
Line: Masters of the Universe Classics
Manufacturer: Mattel
Released: June 2010
Original Price: $20 + $8.70 shipping + state tax on total price (INCLUDING shipping)
Scale: 6 inch (assuming She-Ra stands roughly 7 feet tall)
Accessories: Swappable Filmation-style head, Sword of Protection, Shield (of Protection?), Axe-Comb

Sponsor Listings: Past Generation Toys-$39.95

Even with the number of new pieces on She-Ra, she still looks largely the same as other female figures in the line to me -- which means that, while she looks fairly good and consistent with the style of the line, I find it difficult to get terribly excited about her sculpt. The dress, being what it is, was never going to look amazing, but it does look quite good aside from the somewhat soft sculpt of the design on her torso and the lack of an actual gemstone over She-Ra's belly. I do really like the boots, though; the way they slide up over the calves is very fetching and makes the figure look like it really is wearing boots (as opposed to having a separate, swiveling boot piece connected to the upper calf). Considering that the "new" bracers are clearly painted parts of the forearms (I have a hard time praising things like this as new pieces; they are technically new but are so similar to Adora's bracers as to be unimpressive to me), the boots almost look like they belong on a much better toy.

I'm admittedly not a fan of the upper body. Whereas other female figures have had outfits that extended up to and over the collar bone, the expanse from She-Ra's neck to shoulders is completely bare -- and the look of the shoulders bulging from that comparatively slight area gives the figure something of a butch look. Having the shoulder balls set in closer to the body (or simply reduced in size, particularly in depth) might have helped the appearance. I should note that the arms were also noticeably warped when I first removed She-Ra from the package -- as were the wings on She-Ra's Filmation head -- but heating them a bit with a hairdryer (which I needed anyway to soften up the head for swapping; it wasn't budging out of the package) helped to return them to proper form.

And then there are the two heads, which both appear to utilize the same sculpt (and the faces of which appear to be the same sculpt used for Adora) sans the headgear. While that sculpt is indeed an excellent match for She-Ra's animated appearances -- and also reminds me a bit of Joanna Lumley as she appeared in "Sapphire and Steel" -- the chiseled and bland look just doesn't do it for me. Her mouth is partly open with teeth bared, but, with the emotionless eyebrows and fixed stare, She-Ra looks more like she's allowed it to hang open in the midst of a lazy daydream than having a genuine emotive response. Like many 4H sculpts, the faces are also very flat... and since She-Ra's head often ends up tilted forward, the faces' lack of depth can be highlighted in unflattering fashion unless you're looking at the figure from below. I think I actually prefer the masked head for these reasons, since the look of total apathy is less apparent when She-Ra's going incognito and the flatness of the face is less noticeable due to the raised mask. When worn covering the eyes, the mask also reminds me of something out of a Lady Gaga video, which is generally a plus in my book! (Unfortunately, She-Ra can't go maskless due to the hole where it plugs into her face.) And the hair on each head looks decent enough, though there are several prominent mold lines and I had a good amount of mold flash on the foremost locks of my Filmation-style head. I was able to peel most of it off with minimal damage to the paint, though.

That might sound like a lot of complaints, but on the whole I maintain that this is a pretty good sculpt of She-Ra that's in keeping with the line's style (largely owing to reused parts from previous figures). Aside from the look of the boots, however, I just don't think it's a particularly great or impressive representation of the character. Sure, the 4 Horsemen have nailed the bland face of the Filmation She-Ra, but the figure fails to match the television version's slender hourglass figure and Stacy Keibler-esque legginess... and whereas other MOTUC figures bear amazing resemblances to the vintage toys, there's very little of the old-school She-Ra charm present in this particular figure despite the second toy-based head. It's difficult to see how that might have been achieved with the existing female buck (maybe a more garishly painted Bubble Power She-Ra version would make for a compelling future release?), but an additional head with rooted hair would have helped tremendously in my opinion.

Sculpt Score: 7 / 10

There's not a lot of paint on She-Ra, but what's here is generally well done and the cast plastic parts do their jobs serviceably. I love the flesh color used on the thighs and upper torso, and the subtle airbrushing on those parts really makes them quite fetching. The arms appear to use the same color plastic -- but since the airbrushing on the biceps and forearms was comparatively overdone, She-Ra looks as if she neglected to put sunscreen on her arms before hitting the beaches of Etheria. There were also some heavy black smudges on She-Ra's right arm and bosom when I pulled her from the package, but they came off with a little spit and scraping with a fingernail. The glossy, raised spots of glue in places on She-Ra's chest area weren't so easily removed, though, and remained even after I gently swabbed the area with Goof Off. The spots aren't really noticeable unless you're looking for them... but once you see them, they're difficult to unsee. And I'm torn about the use of the flesh-colored plastic on the face. On the one hand, I like that it matches the color of the thighs and arms (or would if She-Ra had been more liberal with the SPF 30), but somehow the bare plastic makes the face look even more bland compared to the same painted face on Adora.

Besides the airbrushing on the skin -- and the head, which we'll get to next -- the only other painted areas are the bracers and boots and the appropriate areas of She-Ra's cast greyish white dress. Again, the boots are the standout area. The paint on them is impressively clean and smooth, and even the minimal texturing of the paint (or the plastic beneath it) in some areas helps to enhance their metallic appearance. The bracers are decent enough, with sharply painted edges that just barely fail to reach the sculpted edges, though the inner areas have a dirty look -- almost as if someone accidentally grazed them with glue-covered fingers or touched the paint with grimy hands while it was still wet. The belt, central design, and raised wings above the breasts have a similar good-but-not-perfect quality, with paint that closely approaches but doesn't always meet the sculpted edges and missing paint at the inner and outer points where the wings meet the dress. The speck of pearlescent blue on She-Ra's navel gem looks good enough, though I think I would have preferred an actual gem here in order to better match the sword.

Finally, the paint work on the facial details is generally sharp -- even if the eyes and facial expression look kinda dead -- though red of the lips is incomplete at the edges and the white of the left eye on my masked She-Ra head overruns the eyeball. It's not as visible when she's wearing the Gaga mask in disguise form (another reason I prefer that configuration), but it's probably sufficient to annoy MOC collectors and folks who prefer the mask in the other configuration. And the paint on the hair is good but looks clumpy at times, though I'm not sure whether that's because of the paint itself or imperfections in the hair beneath it.

Paint Score: 7 / 10

Given that Adora was my only other experience with a MOTUC female, I was fully expecting to have to break out the clear elastic bands for She-Ra. To my surprise, this Greyskull-empowered Adora's shoulder joints were just as tight as any of the male figures in the line! In fact, aside from some slight weakness in the knees that doesn't really impact the toy's ability to stand, She-Ra's joints are uniformly tight and work as smoothly as one would expect. Well, except for the head. It's certainly tighter on the ball than Adora's was and can hold tilts and turns much better, as the hair doesn't press against the back and shoulders and is far back enough to allow the head to turn left and right without impediment. It even squeaks when the head turns (one might even find this worrisome), so it's obvious that the fit is pretty tight. Nevertheless, the head still feels a bit bobbleheaded -- possibly because the huge mane of hair extends so far behind and below the head that, no matter how you've got it positioned, the combined mass of hair and face doesn't feel like it's distributed properly atop the neck ball. This is a minor quibble, though (unless the ball eventually snaps off; I haven't noticed any stress marks yet when swapping the heads), and I wouldn't dock She-Ra for it at all.

What do keep She-Ra from articulation perfection, however, are the restrictive skirt and new ankle joints. I loved Adora's "external" rocker ankles, as they enabled her to take a bunch of interesting deep and wide stances while keeping her feet flat on the ground, but the ankle joints on She-Ra are the internal "wiggly" rocker joints found on the males. While they do have some range to them (moreso with the right ankle than the left; these kinds of joints can be rather inconsistent in the range they provide), they're decidedly inferior to the joints found on the previous MOTUC ladies. It doesn't particularly matter here, however, as She-Ra's skirt prevents her from spreading her legs wide enough for one to take full advantage of the old style ankles anyway. Her legs are capable of a few compelling poses -- and one might be able to do more if one cut slits in the skirt; I'm hesitant to do that given the high cost of the figure and difficulty of securing another in the event of failure -- but I haven't enjoyed posing her nearly as much as I have Adora (once I fixed her shoulders) and the MOTUC males.

Articulation Score: 8 / 10

Well, she's She-Ra, so she's inherently fun to a point! But a big part of the fun of a new toy is the excitement one feels when looking at and posing her, and admittedly I didn't experience much of that upon liberating Greyskull-empowered Adora from her plastic prison. In fact, she was fairly unfun from the get -- getting her out of that package was decidedly unpleasant, what with the need to cut multiple elastic bands and even the plastic tray behind her, since they threaded her huge mane of hair through the tray (as they typically do with capes) and I feared that roughly shoving it through the diminutive opening would damage the paint. And once free, the somewhat bland look of the figure and limited leg range sapped even more of the fun from my preliminary experiences with She-Ra. The heads are also quite difficult to swap unassisted.

That said, I did have some fun posing her (you might be able to get even more out of her if you can bring yourself to slit the skirt -- if I were a braver man, I'd make two slits in the back aligned with the legs), and the relative difficulty of swapping the heads was reduced a bit with the aid of a hairdryer and by widening the hole in the bottom of the head with a dremel tool (though admittedly I felt like I took out quite a bit of plastic and it didn't make much difference at all). Folks in warmer climates might also have an easier time with the heads; our air conditioning went out for a week and I found it significantly easier to swap the heads in my 90+ degree room than in the much cooler basement. Anyway, if you can manage any of those scenarios, it is fun to be able to change She-Ra's look by swapping heads and removing the cape, and the various accessories also add to the fun and display possibilities. I particularly enjoy posing her as if she's styling her hair with the axe-comb, though I would have preferred the ability to actually comb it via an alternate head with rooted hair.

All in all, She-Ra's about as much fun as your average figure in the line. The restrictive skirt, somewhat bland appearance, and difficult-to-swap heads (and nightmare of removing her from the package) do diminish her fun, but the remaining fun of posing her and enjoyable accessories restore some of the points lost on those fronts.

Fun Score: 7 / 10

First of all, I don't regard these as $20 toys. Unless you can somehow get them without paying shipping -- and I'm incredibly annoyed that, when you order from MattyCollector, the shipping cost is also taxed for some inexplicable reason -- MOTUC offerings sell for closer to $30 than the listed price tag. And while they might be fairly well made toys, their paint and overall quality don't even put them on par with $13.99 NECA products... let alone whatever you could get for twice that amount. So while She-Ra sports a good sculpt, a decent mass-market-style paint job, a great albeit somewhat restricted articulation model, and several nifty accessories including an alternate head and removable cape, she doesn't even come close to being a $30 toy. For this price -- like the $29.99 DCUC vs MOTUC 2-packs I hardly ever saw at Toys "R" Us (though apparently John Harmon's lately encountered them in abundance) -- you should be getting (at least) two action figures.

Value Score: 4 / 10

7 / 10 - About as good a She-Ra as one could make from preexisting parts with a minimum of new tooling, but the effect -- while serviceable -- is less than impressive.

7 / 10 - Although the cast color choices are effective and the minimal paint is applied fairly well, minor missteps, overtanned arms, and stray glue spots bring it down from "great" to just "good."

8 / 10 - A great articulation model hindered by a restrictive skirt and inferior ankles (as compared to previous MOTUC ladies).

7 / 10 - She-Ra is fun, but -- owing to the restricted leg articulation, difficulty of swapping heads, and somewhat bland appearance -- she's not that much fun.

4 / 10 - She-Ra is a decent toy, but she costs about two times what she should.

 67 / 100 - This is an OKAY Toy

I do enjoy having a new She-Ra in my collection and actually think she's a good toy -- but, for me, she's just not good enough to earn that distinction given the high price and my fairly unenthusiastic reaction to her. I suspect that my lack of excitement is largely tied to this figure's failure to effectively recreate and still improve upon the magic of the vintage versions. With the He-Man, Skeletor, and Hordak figures I own, they look almost exactly like the versions I played with as a kid and improve upon that by having pretty great (albeit hardly "specialty market") paint jobs and a wealth of working articulation. She-Ra, on the other hand, has little in common with her vintage counterpart (some would say that's a good thing, but I want more gemstones, garish colors, and ROOTED HAIR!); effectively replicates the blandness of the animation model while failing to match the more attractive qualities; and lacks the range of articulation present on other figures in the line. If the figure had been better in any of those respects (and/or about $10 cheaper), I'd have been a lot happier with it.

-Wes

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