About the Rulers of the Sun and Mattel

[Secret]

Maybe next year for Black History Month, we could get a special Wave - Plasmar, Netossa, Dekker, and Zodak.

I think cherry-picking characters like that would make "wokeness" too blatant. Imagine we're getting Dakon and Garn, in main Waves, not even as MC. People will be like "Great, they're doing new characters! I want Catra, Shadow Weaver, Optikk, Draego-Man, Darkdream, Kittrina" But no. They just keep picking black guys no matter how low they have to dig. I don't think everyone will be pleased.

This is exactly like when people say "don't racebend characters, make new ones or use existing ones" Oh, ok. How about in CGI He-Man, Teela stays white but Duncan is replaced by Clamp Champ? Or in She-Ra, Glimmer is removed and Netossa is somehow the most important of Adora's friends? Maybe Chemistro, Scorcher and Doctor Spectrum should be main villains of next MCU movies? It's not that simple.

I'm actually really curious to see how certain She-Ra characters would be handled in Origins.

I assume, for example, that Bow's costume would be primarily based on the vintage toy with the vintage mini-comic as a secondary source of reference and not a lot from Filmation directly.

I'm curious if you'd make him a black guy with a fade though.

The costumes in a line like Origins are going to be retro by default.

But I kind of think maybe Bow and Mermista might stay black across media now and Double Trouble might stay non-binary and half the She-Ra characters are at least bisexual if not lesbians. I don't think you want to be seen as walking stuff like that back. (Netflix She-Ra is definitely a lesbian, not bi, but I think it would follow that while further takes on She-Ra could be attracted to men again, nobody would want the backlash of ruling out her being attracted to Catra, even in a retro line.)

Although CGI King Grayskull isn't black (or blond) so maybe nobody cares,

Granted DC Comics managed to half-walk back Wally West becoming black by differentiating between Wally West and Wallace West as separate characters. And there's a ready-made out in Netflix She-Ra because they have a separate character named "Kyle" who looks like vintage Bow and vintage Bow's real name was "Kyle".

But, frankly, I'm not sure anybody liked vintage Bow and some people did like new Bow so I don't see why you wouldn't give him the race and haircut of the more popular version with the adult body and costume of the retro version.

[kentNelson]

Tug O War is more obscure than Digitino.

Not among MOTU fans. Digitino was only known by USA fans who maybe had him as a kid. International fans never knew Rulers but Tug appeared time to.time.in social.media due to his mysterious cameo in vintage comics and he even had an appearance in Classics minicomics.

Both are obscure , but at least Tug has been part of MOTU talking for years.

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I'm actually really curious to see how certain She-Ra characters would be handled in Origins.

I assume, for example, that Bow's costume would be primarily based on the vintage toy with the vintage mini-comic as a secondary source of reference and not a lot from Filmation directly.

I'm curious if you'd make him a black guy with a fade though.

The costumes in a line like Origins are going to be retro by default.

But I kind of think maybe Bow and Mermista might stay black across media now and Double Trouble might stay non-binary and half the She-Ra characters are at least bisexual if not lesbians. I don't think you want to be seen as walking stuff like that back. (Netflix She-Ra is definitely a lesbian, not bi, but I think it would follow that while further takes on She-Ra could be attracted to men again, nobody would want the backlash of ruling out her being attracted to Catra, even in a retro line.)

Although CGI King Grayskull isn't black (or blond) so maybe nobody cares,

Granted DC Comics managed to half-walk back Wally West becoming black by differentiating between Wally West and Wallace West as separate characters. And there's a ready-made out in Netflix She-Ra because they have a separate character named "Kyle" who looks like vintage Bow and vintage Bow's real name was "Kyle".

But, frankly, I'm not sure anybody liked vintage Bow and some people did like new Bow so I don't see why you wouldn't give him the race and haircut of the more popular version with the adult body and costume of the retro version.

In my case Bow was the only PoP figure I had as a kid and I would.be very disappointed if the Origins wasn't like the vintage toy.

[Adam_Prince of Eternia]

That could work! And it would create a Filmation "random children" buck... you could utilize it for Starchild or any number of the secondary kid characters (whose names I forget, because frankly I found all of them annoying, especially as a child ) that popped up in the show. I don't want them, per se... but I know other folks would!

I do not care for child characters either, but Stanlan is the protagonist of the episode. And because of him, we get the best dialogue in the series:



And an adolescent figure could also open the door for characters like Miguel and Alisha from the Christmas Special. I do not necessarily need a plethora of child charactres, but those two would make a nice Christmas Special gift set with Adam dressed as Santa; and perhaps a separate set with the Manchines and the Monstroids.

[DC_WARLORD]

I do think it's interesting that Teela and She-Ra sell in Origins and Sorceress and Evil-Lyn don't seem to sell as well. I have a theory that part of the appeal of MOTU is that the characters are melee/brawlers/paladins/wrestlers and that "caster" classes and ranged damage dealers don't do as well.

That is a very interesting observation. You could be correct. The Warrior types look much more action oriented.

The "caster bias" may be relevant to RotS, taking it back around to the topic of the thread. These guys are mostly wizard types. Even the ninja Space Sumo is heavy on telekinesis and that seemed to be an element of his minicomic that got pushback online as people were hoping for more melee combat.

Great point. With me, any ROTS figures I buy are automatically 'gifted' a spare sword, axe, or spear for my own personal canon. If I had the customizing skills, I'd make a bow and quiver of arrows.

The only melee brawler in RotS is Kikto. I wonder if he'll do better because of that?

That's entirely possible.

! Want Marlena to sell? Remember I talked about a female He-Man base body? Put her on that. No dress. No swooping half robe. Make her the counterpart to toy Randor. Have her wear Randor's EXACT outfit with a female Jitsu chestplate in green with green furry trunks, blue leggings, and brown boots/cape. Gender swapped Randor. With the Grayskull Weapons rack gun. Barbarian/Knight Marlena to go with toy Randor.

I love your Marlena idea. While I do like Wizard / Witch type characters too, my preference will always be Warriors.

[grenadaspice]

What I like about ROTS is two things. First, It introduces a new world to the MOTU mythos, so now Trefixa is now has a relationship to Eternia like Etheria, and the planets from the Tri-Solar system. Also, since we don't have no POP representation in Origins besides She-Ra, it gives He-Man and the Heroic Masters to have some friends from another to go up against Skeletor's warriors, the Evil Horde, and the Snake Men. The good guys were pretty outnumbered when you think about it.

[Cosmic]

(I would also love a Warrior type Marlena).

Those are some really great thoughts about warrior type vs wizard etc !

The action features lend themselves also to the warriors– starting with the vintage waist twist punch.
Plus, it’s fun to knock the figures together as a kid, “battling” it out.
The characters are all hyper muscular – to me as a kid they were all warriors to a certain degree.

[SuperMario]

Here is my issue with the Rulers of the Sun. In my opinion, they suffer from "good guy boringness". What I mean is, when you look at lines like G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Silverhawks, a good bit of MOTU, the good guys always looked like some regular person just wearing a different uniform. Those lines always seemed to have more creative aspects to the bad guys. That's why I think I was more drawn to the bad guys as a kid. Obviously there are exceptions like Mekaneck, Stonedar, Rockon, etc. but all of the RotS good guys literally just look like a regular dude who changed clothes.

[VaultsofGrayskull]

If this is accurate, there's a very important point about ROTS and its creator that isn't being discussed: http://figure-archive.net/manuf.aspx?manufID=92

[hadley]

On the run? She’s a college professor and does interviews and appearances regularly.

[Smitty.81]

If this is accurate, there's a very important point about ROTS and its creator that isn't being discussed: http://figure-archive.net/manuf.aspx?manufID=92

How old is that?

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[Adam_Prince of Eternia]

On the run? She’s a college professor and does interviews and appearances regularly.

That aside, how is it even relevant, and something that needs to be discussed?

[depp76]

That aside, how is it even relevant, and something that needs to be discussed?

It's not.

[Dice]

If this is accurate, there's a very important point about ROTS and its creator that isn't being discussed: http://figure-archive.net/manuf.aspx?manufID=92

It took less than 5 minutes to Google and find the ONLY source this information came from. Big surprise everyone, it's a right wing political reporter that says in the same article he attempted to contact Eason to accuse her of being one of former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown's secret lovers. He claims after his attempt she fled Virginia.

Basically a trash article from a nut job written in 2004 someone dug out of the dirt for no real purpose at all.

[SunDevil]

Basically a trash article from a nut job written in 2004 someone dug out of the dirt for no real purpose at all.

Oh there was a purpose - a repugnant, un-American, cancerous purpose.

Guess I never have to take any post from the digger seriously so thanks for that!

[hadley]

That aside, how is it even relevant, and something that needs to be discussed?

Certainly not, I just wanted to highlight the comical absurdity of the claim rather than explore the dark, ugly place that someone would have to come from to post something like that, possibly to slake their own envy and/or validate their hatred.

[binkibonsai]

This is exactly like when people say "don't racebend characters, make new ones or use existing ones" Oh, ok. How about in CGI He-Man, Teela stays white but Duncan is replaced by Clamp Champ? Or in She-Ra, Glimmer is removed and Netossa is somehow the most important of Adora's friends?

I dunno, that sounds fine to me.
Iirc two bad was skeletor's mechanic, but in 200X this role was given to tri-klops and then CGI it was trapjaw.

Raceswapping characters suggests to me that a writer or designer couldn't make a character of a specific ethnicity stand on their own and had to repurpose an existing character and ride on the nostalgia that the original characters name carries.

If anything it's insulting. Explore the characters or make new ones.
Personally I couldn't care less about diverse representation; the two main Asians in MotU are both villains and I'm okay with that.

Sun Man is a good move in that it introduces new characters; not great characters imo but it's a step in the right direction.

[Bear]

Eh, no one remembers Two-Bad as the brains of the operation that much.

What I'm talking is closer to if Trap Jaw and Tri-Klops didn't appear at all (or at least had minor roles) because Jitsu and Ninjor are getting major roles.