Sometime around late-Spring/early-Summer 2021 Mattel announced the Masterverse line. Most of the initial product was focused on the Revelation cartoon, but when showing packaging concepts, they showed and empty She-Ra box with the Princess of Power logo. I was stoked that the Etheria characters would be seeing a retail release. And honestly, the fact that we were shown Catra and Frosta before She-Ra only fueled my excitement. But I'm glad that She-Ra was the first one to be officially released. In many ways, she is the best She-Ra figure in my collection. But in other ways, the articulation and proportions seem rushed. The joints aren't disguised at all. And the elbows, knees, and shoulders remind me of old-school Marvel Legends (i.e. they offer the expected articulation, but have a gangly feel and are very difficult to pose in a natural look. But don't get me wrong, I'm still obsessed with this figure. In fact, I can't wait to get a second one so I can display all the alternate accessories. Let's check her out!
The box art is so good. I'll definitely be salvaging that side panel for a bookmark.
She-Ra's Filmation cape is a little tricky. It constantly wants to ride up her neck and looks like it's choking her. This also adds to the short neck appearance that plagues the women in this line. I noticed that the gold ring is sculpted in way to fit on her neck in a specific position (I had to rotate the ring within the cape loop to get it in the right alignment). But even in the optimum placement, it still rides up. I think I will use rubber cement to anchor it in a low position.
I think this figure has the best face, hair, and headpiece of any She-Ra figure so far.
And her face paint is a vast improvement over all the Masterverse ladies so far.
My only issues are with the general form of the Masterverse female buck.
She-Ra comes with two sets of hands, her Power Sword, her Power Sword in the form of a shield, a standard Filmation-style cape, a cape with armored shoulders, a classic Filmation head, and a head with a lowered tiara/mask like she wore in the vintage Golden Books.
I wanted to check what the Filmation head paired with the armored shoulders would look like. Unfortunately it kind of exaggerates the shrugging vibe these figures tend to exude.
The vintage She-Ra doll had a tiara that could be turned upside-down to form a mask. This gimmick never appeared in the cartoon, but it did show up in the vintage picture books.
Besides the permanent shrug and cape placement issues, I had two other concerns.
The first is a design issue where the "V" of she boot tops expose a gap in the calf swivel. Also, the Right calf swivel is stuck for me (and I tried all the tricks to free it). Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, the same joint was stuck on my Teela and Andra.
Secondly, there is a minor (yet distracting) QC issue on my figure where she has several dark marks on the tip of her white skirt. I was unable to remove them and discovered these are deep impurities in the plastic that got even darker and bigger when I tried to skim it off with an Xacto blade.
I discovered that you can fit her head on pretty snugly without clicking it down the whole way. By not fully attaching the head, it elongates the neck and helps the shrug issue quite a bit. All photos past this point show this elongated neck trick.
Time for some Group and Comparison Pics!
Here is the MasterVerse She-Ra with her MOTUC figure and her Club Grayskull figure.
Cheers!
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