When I was 7, like most kids my age,
Christmas really didn’t mean anything more than a kickass day where everyone
gave me toys! Yes I know my parents
taught me that the real reason we had Christmas was to celebrate the birth of
Jesus, but really, at 7, that basically translated to “I get more toys!”
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Spider Robot, Spider Robot
does whatever a spider can... |
Every year, one gift I would always look
forward to receiving was the gift from my ninang (godmother to all you non
pinoys). First because I was the ONLY
one from my siblings who received a gift from her (well she was MY ninang) so
it made the gift more special (incidentally, I don’t know if it was because my
brother’s godparents were extra generous or I was just extra cute, but I also
would receive gifts from them as well ha ha).
And secondly, my ninang always gave the coolest gifts (most of her gifts
came from Hong Kong which always had the latest & coolest stuff). Case in point…the year before, she got me
this robot, but not just any robot, but a Spider Man robot! Although it didn’t come with an actual little
Spider Man and transformed to some none descript flying thing, and was
basically a die-cast brick, and looked NOTHING like Spider Man, IT WAS STILL
COOL!
So this year as always I was really excited
to see what her gift was. What could she
possibly get me that would TOP my Spider Man Robot? So once in hand it in hand,
I ripped open her gift and pulled out these guys…
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| The original Eternian odd couple |
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| Meet the rest of the gang... |
I’ll admit, it wasn’t love at first
sight. But they DID look pretty
interesting. They were called “Masters
of the Universe” which did sound really cool, but I think what got me interested
in them was their size, definitely a lot bigger than your Star Wars or G.I.Joe
figure but BOY did they look strange. I
mean Zodac looked nice enough and his title as Cosmic Enforcer sounded
cool….but then he had these odd three toed feet AND a hairy chest! And don’t get me started on Stratos! He was a
grey hairy monkey with feathers in his arms! Nevertheless, there was something
about them that back then I couldn’t quite figure out, but somehow I knew that
these guys that I held in my hands were just the tip of the iceberg of
something special. Like any kid back
then who was used to receiving toys packaged inside plastic bubbles glued to
card backs, I instinctively turned over their cards and soaked in every little
detail. And one by one, I was introduced
to the rest of the Masters of the Universe, Skeletor, Beast Man, Mer Man,
Man-at-Arms and of course He-man, who ironically looked the most ordinary of
the bunch.
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What's with the
rainbow backgrounds? |
Oh one more thing that set these Masters
apart from my other toys, although they didn’t come with any filecards like
joes, they came with something even better, a mini-comic! And ultimately I
think this was what sold me most into the Masters of the Universe line. Although they were “mini” I remember their
stories to be quite entertaining and not at all simplistic, and the art was
gorgeous (ok ok I admit I may be remembering all this through rose tinted
glasses) at least for a 7 year old!
These comics immersed me into their world and I couldn’t WAIT to get my
hands on the rest of the line.
Unfortunately, Masters of the Universe
weren’t as easy to come by, although I eventually got my main guys, He-Man,
Skeletor etc….my Masters collection didn’t grow as fast as my Joes did. A couple years later though, I figured out a
brilliant solution to fix my Masters of the Universe shortage. I managed to convince my friend who had a TON
of Masters figures to “share” his collection with me. So everytime he would come over to my house,
I would convince him to leave his stuff with me since we were “sharing” our
toys. Pretty soon, I had almost his
entire collection! Of course little did I know, that as he was leaving his
He-Men figures with me, he was taking home a couple of G.I.Joes from under my
nose…I guess he thought we were “sharing” those too!
