Toy Review: The Strengths And Weaknesses Of ‘Masters Of The Universe’ Origins In Battle Cat-Man

Over the holiday break, I promised that I would be taking a look at two underappreciated action figure lines. Well, today I’m here to deliver on that promise, with a look at Masters of the Universe Origins. And to kick it off, it’s one of my favorite recent releases from the line!

Almost two years ago, the Masters of the Universe crossover sub-line started with the greatest crossover any ’80s kid could think of — Turtles of Grayskull, mixing He-Man and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the Masters of the Universe Origins scale. Since then, Mattel has continued the crossovers, with two currently running: the Transformers, and this line, Masters of the Universe and ThunderCats.

I’ve made it known how much I love the idea of He-Man and his party meeting Lion-O and crew. It honestly surprises me that it’s taken this long to get the two to meet in action figure form (probably a licensing deal to work through). However, it was worth it as the Thunderans get Eternia-inspired redesigns and vice versa. But no one gets a glow-up more than Battle Cat finally getting a humanoid form Battle Cat-Man.

I’m going to come right out and say it — this is a damn near perfect action figure. The two (maybe three) quibbles I have aren’t even with the figure itself. They’re just side things that would have been nice.

I’m going to start with the design. This is Battle Cat as an anthropomorphic character, for the second time ever in the character’s existence (the first being a brief moment in the linked crossover miniseries DC published in 2017ish). His humanoid tiger form embodies the character, taking the classic elements of Cringer and turning him into a muscular warrior. Also, he’s a big figure — MOTU Origins is a 5.5 inch (14 cm) scale line, but Battle Cat-Man is about six inches tall, which adds to the overall presence of the character (pictured are both He-Man and Marvel Legends Sunspot for scale).

The armor isn’t a one-to-one of his “mighty steed” form, but it’s so heavily inspired by it, I can forgive the deviations. It would be nice if the helmet was a little bit closer to the traditional Battle Cat helmet but I don’t dislike what they did. I think my only quibble with the design is that it would have been nice to have a swappable chestplate for any collector not otherwise interested in the Thundercats crossover, replacing the Thunderan crest with something Eternian.

As far as a posable figure, Battle Cat-Man is very good. He does need a stand (which I was able to quickly 3D print — pink’s just the filament I had on the spool), but with it, I was able to do most anything I wanted with him. Origins aren’t nearly as posable as a Hasbro figure or even Mattel’s Masterverse, but that’s just the nature of the body buck its on. In retrospect, I could have tried a few poses with a flight stands, but overall he’s very fun to play with. 

I really dig the accessories, but that’s also where my biggest issue comes in. The armor is fantastic, top to bottom giving us a look at what Cringer/Battle Cat would be as a Thunderan, rather than an Eternian lion. The only accessories besides the armor though are a pair of clawed gauntlets. They’re great, don’t get me wrong, but it would have been nice to give him another set of weapons- maybe an axe, war hammer or spear and shield (I posed him with the spear and war hammer that came with Turtles of Grayskull Casey Jones just to see how it looked). This is generally a problem with the entire line, as very few figures have more than a couple accessories (Casey Jones is the only non-deluxe figure I can think of with more than two, armor excluded).

And then the other downside is in the mini comic. I love MOTU Origins mini-comics, but this one was a bit of a confusing mess. It’s set in an alternate timeline that’s a straight up mash-up of the He-Man/Thundercats universes. It causes some confusion that takes away from “hey, my beloved ’80s fantasy warriors are back together!” of the concept.

Overall though, man this figure is a win, and I’m excited to have him in my collection.