Review: Masters of the Universe Origins Mer-Man

Enter Mer-Man, the ocean warlord who lurks in the darkest depths of the sea awaiting Skeletor's orders. The Mer-Man figure in this Origins collection stands 5 1/2-inches tall and has 16 moveable joints, so he's highly poseable for imaginative and action-oriented fun.

Mer-Man was part of the first series of Masters of the Universe action figures released by Mattel in 1981-1982. The character was conceived as Skeletor's most prominent henchman after Beast Man.

Hailing from the Crystal Sea, Mer-Man is the ruler of all beneigth the seas of Eternia and the king of the Mer-Folk of Eternia! While a king in his own right, Mer-Man has allied himself with Skeletor in his own selfish hopes of gaining more power.

Mer-Man's service to Skeletor means he is constantly at odds with He-Man and the heroic champions of Eternia. When engaging the Heroic Warriors, Mer-Man is most frequently teamed up with Beast Man.

• MOTU is back for a whole new generation of fans!


• Collection of 5.5-in action figures includes He-Man, Skeletor, Beast Man, Teela and lots more fan favorites for storytelling fun.


• Figures are highly posable with 16 working joints.


• Longtime fans will appreciate the retro-style packaging and the mini comic book that comes with each figure!


• A great gift for adult collectors and kids age 6 and older.

The Masters of the Universe Origins, now free from being a Wal-Mart exclisive line, should be available from all distributors now. Although now supposedly widely available, the figures of subsequent waves, especially wave 2, have proven to be elusive to most collectors in the United States. While the figures are being scalped on eBay at a premium price, Mer-Man was purchased from Amazon at retail price.

Mer-Man comes on a retro designed blister card resembling the original red lava burst packaging from the original ’80s line.

The Masters of the Universe logo is at the top with Man-Man named below. The Mer-Man action figure is displayed at the bottom in the blister.

The back of the card, at the top features some artwork of Mer-Man, below that are some pictures which show off the action features of the figure along with the cross sell art of the other figures in this wave.

Freeing Mer-Man from his prison, we see that he is green like the vintage figure, however his colors are brighter. The body, arms, and legs are same villian sculps as Skeletor.

Mer-Man comes with his armor and his iconic "corn cob" sword. The colors are bright yellow on the accessories as opposed to more golden color of the vintage figure's. Also of note, the belt buckle is not a sperate piece this time.

Articulation, like on all the other figures of this line, includes a ball jointed head, ball hinged shoulders, swivel-hinged elbows, swivel-hinged wrists, waist rotation, ball jointed hips, swivel-hinged knees, swivel calves, hinged and rocker ankles.

Another thing that I have noticed about the figures with the Skeletor feet and boots... The boots (not the feet) are on the wrong sides. To fix this you swap the two boots then you have to do the boil and pop method to swap the feet on the boots.

One thing that I wish they had done was include the head from the original cross sell... I remember how disappointed I was when I finally got Mer-Man as a kid and the head didn't match the artwork! The Power-Con exclusive Lords of Power set included a Man-Man figure based on the original prototype figure and I hold out hope that this figure will eventually be released in the Origins line in a future wave.

The color on the facial details and the loin cloth is a very very light tan/orange. I wasn't pleased by this as I felt it needed to be bolder. The bright yellow of the armor and sword was off-putting as well. I chose to repaint the details of the face and the loin cloth with international orange with a muted yellow dry brush to bring out the details. Also I prefer the golden color of the vintage armor and sword so I put a set of vintage armor on my figure as you will see below.

Now lets have a good look at Mer-Man, first the figure as it appears out of the package:

Now let's take a look at my figure:

	The figure also comes packaged with same mini-comic as other figures in the line. And for a little treat, here is the whole mini-comic for you to download and read as a CBR file, just follow the link on the left. CBR files hold comic book pages as images in a compressed archive format enabling them to be viewed, sequentially, from within a comic book reader program or app such as CDisplayEx.
DOWNLOAD CBR FILE

What do you think of the new Masters of the Universe Origins line? What about Mer-Man? Are you collecting the new Origins figures? Are you having trouble fiding the figures? Where are you finding your figures? Please take a moment to comment below!

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