As part of their recent “Revealed” event, Mattel Creations have announced a ton of new toys for this coming Fall, with their fan-favourite Masters of the Universe line getting a huge slice of the love.

Not only that, but it looks like the popular Turtles of Grayskull sub-line is getting a brand new “wave”, with no less than twelve new action figures continuing the crossover between Masters of the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles later this year

Let’s take a look at what’s in store…

MICHELANGELO

Perhaps the biggest omission of the original wave of releases, Mikey finally gets his Turtles of Grayskull time to shine. Your individual mileage on the (removeable) He-Man hair will likely vary, but for my money it actually looks pretty cool, particularly with the figure’s excited grin. The colour scheme is solid, and the orange and yellow ‘Battle Armor’-style chestplate really pops.  Definitely a figure that’s going to make a lot of collectors very happy.

SPLINTER-SKULL

Splinter gets the King Grayskull treatment here, with a great looking cape and shoulderpads.  I’m loving the small details on this one such as the braids and the Grayskull insignia on the harness, and again, I think this is one that a lot of collectors are really going to dig.

APRIL O’NEIL

An interesting approach here, mashing up April O’Neil with The Sorceress, and while it arguably ends up looking like neither in the process, the wings admittedly do look rather cool.  I’m not sure what the weapon is meant to be – maybe like a warhammer with a built-in camera? – but it’s certainly interesting.  A solid enough inclusion, although perhaps a bit of a niche purchase for fans of either franchise.

HORDAK

As something of a Horde connoisseur, I’m obviously going to be all over this. Yes, the face sculpt looks perhaps a little wonky around the mouth area, but I’m loving the Technovirus-style wings and what I’m guessing is an ooze-launching arm cannon.  A great, eye-catching version of a fan-favourite character.

2-BOPSTEADY (TARGET EXCLUSIVE)

Possibly my favourite figure of this entire release, whoever came up with the idea of mashing up Bebop and Rocksteady with Two-Bad most definitely deserves a raise.  The execution of this winning idea is absolutely top-notch too, blending the colour schemes and costume details of everyone’s favourite mutant Warthog/Rhinoceros double-act beautifully. An absolutely essential purchase for fans of TMNT, He-Man, or just cool-looking figures in general. In fact, the only downside here is that the fig is a Target exclusive, and Mattel’s distribution record for exclusives hasn’t exactly been stellar in recent years.

LEATHERHEAD (WALMART EXCLUSIVE)

Another exclusive, this time for Walmart, Leatherhead is a fantastic looking figure, despite not leaning as heavily as some others into the “mash-up” theme of the line. There’s a little Whiplash in here, but the figure very much stands alone, with some fantastic details including the teeth on the waistcoat, the jaunty hat and what looks like some sort of souped-up knuckle duster? Not quite as MOTU as some of the other releases, but a pretty sick figure nonetheless.

CASEY JONES

Goongala! I love the approach with Casey here – namely, just throwing in as many weapons as possible into what is already a pretty cool figure design, giving some of them the mutagen glow that has typified a lot of the line’s releases, and topping it off with a pretty sick Jitsu-style hand. As I say, there’s a lot going on here with a bit of Man-at-Arms, a bit of Ram Man, and some familiar-looking weaponry, but it all comes together in what is a fairly awesome, if perhaps a little busy, figure.

MER-MAN (WALMART EXCLUSIVE)

Okay, so while your individual affection for this particular redesign may vary, there’s no faulting the creativity on display by Mattel here, giving the “Evil Ocean Warlord” a mutated colour scheme, the ability to go full Merman with a swappable fish leg attachment, and a fairly cool translucent design.  I actually kinda dig the face sculpt here too, making him look a little on the terrifying side with those rows of jagged teeth and slightly demented expression.  Bonus points for creativity, but again, this one’s a Walmart exclusive so may end up being fairly tricky to track down.

STEALTH NINJA LEONARDO

I’m not sure we necessarily need another Leo quite so soon, but while I wasn’t much of a fan of the initial wave’s release, this one looks pretty sick, with a slightly more incognito aesthetic with a hood and some ragged peasant pants. Again, this is a figure that doesn’t really lean into the whole Masters of the Universe vibe as much as some others, but it’s a solid enough version of the de facto Turtle leader if you fancy adding one to your shelf.

STEALTH NINJA HE-MAN

Ehhhh. Well, this is an interesting one. It’s basically just your bog standard Origins He-Man with some slightly tweaked accessories and, for some reason, a hole in one of his boots where his toes are sticking through. While I do acknowledge and (to a point) understand Mattel’s track record for reissuing the main characters in almost every wave, I could have done with something a little more creative here.  I guess he’ll look kinda cool with the cape and cowl on, but yeah, this feels like one for completists only.

TEELA

Yeah, I definitely like this one. While feeling a little more like a normal-eared version of Tauriel from the Hobbit movies than everyone’s favourite MOTU redhead, the design and accessories, with shell-based helmet, wristguards and shield, make this a pretty slick looking figure. The sword is maybe a little on the oversized side, but it’s great to see this version of Teela fully embracing her “Heroic Warrior Goddess” roots.

SKELETOR

Rounding out the line we have ol’ boneface, and I’m absolutely loving the creative choices behind made here, with Skeletor going full evil Samurai with another mutagen-themed colour scheme and some wicked Havok Staff-style nunchuks. Everything about this one looks the business, from the helmet and face sculpt to the wristguards, and while some may find the colours to be a little too bright, this kind of bold, cartoony aesthetic is basically what this line is all about, right? A great addition to the line for sure.

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So there you have it.  A little bad, a LOT of good, and a couple of absolutely glorious new figures. With the sheer volume of figures being released this year (we haven’t even started on the MOTU Origins or Masterverse announcements!), it’s going to be a tough time for die-hard collectors, but at least the bulk of these new announcements will be getting retail releases as opposed to the increasingly controversial over-reliance Mattel seem to be encouraging on their timed online “Mattel Creations” releases.  There’s only so many £9 per figure shipping costs we can stomach, to be fair.

The latest Wave of TMNT x Masters of the Universe: Turtles of Grayskull figures are (mostly) available to pre-order now from your online toy retailer of choice ahead of the Fall 2024 release.  

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The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson-Adams (aka Ceej)
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