Over the weekend there was a piece of disappointing news reported on a couple of popular Masters of the Universe fan sites: Mattel is planning on slowing down or even cancelling the Masterverse line!
He-Mania.com posted a direct quote from Mattel in this news piece while He-Man.org reported similar on their website.
While He-Mania.com’s article was cautiously optimistic, He-Man.org’s initially reported that the whole Masterverse line was to be cancelled. They’ve since pulled back from that and edited the article a bit. So perhaps they were reading a little too much into Mattel’s press release.
The Art of Non-Speak
To be fair, the press release does read like corporate non-speak to me. I’m not at all surprised that there is quite a bit of online confusion at the moment.
It’s also not exactly a surprise that Mattel is wanting to re-focus on the upcoming live action film and any tie-in toy lines. I’d really hoped that Mattel would pivot the Masterverse line to focus on the new film. Instead they have opted to start afresh with a totally new collectors line called “Chronicles”.
Early Details Are Already Out There
The first waves of figures have already been announced and He-Mania.com has done a great job of covering them: He-Mania.com’s Chronicles category.
(Amazingly, in the UK The Whole SheBang have the first few Chronicles figures up for pre-order already. Ironically, they’re currently listed under the Masterverse category!)
From the details released so far, the new Chronicles line will be slightly shorter than Masterverse at about 6 inches in height. It will also feature increased articulation, even over the Masterverse figures.
Before the news broke about the possible cancellation, I was imagining how great it would be if the extra articulation was ported over to Masterverse but alas it doesn’t sound as if that’s going to happen.
Cautious Optimisation… Maybe?
At the moment I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that the Vintage Collection sub-line at least will continue. Not so much about New Eternia, New Etheria, etc. It would be a crying shame if the latter two sub-lines are cancelled. Some of the character re-designs like Mer Man, Kobra Khan and Ninjor are amazing.
Finally, this all feels like a repeat of the cancellation (or hiatus) of Marvel’s Masterworks line. All vague reasons why and even vaguer maybes about the line perhaps continuing with a bit of re-jig.
I do seem to be having a bit of a curse with lines that I’ve gotten deep into. If you have a line that you want to end, let me know and I’ll start collecting it.
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