16 He-Man Action Figures of the ’80s and What Made Them Genius

With the new Masters of the Universe movie hitting theaters June 5th, ’80s kids are about to fall face-first into an awesome pile of plastic nostalgia.

He-Man action figures lived up to the marketing language invented to avoid boys owning dolls, because they really did things. The engineers at Mattel brilliantly built mechanical, genuinely ingenious features into many of the figures.

He-Man Toys Were Called Action Figures for a Reason

Unlike G.I. Joe before them, He-Man figures didn’t just stand there — they punched, sprayed, extended, clamped, rotated, launched, rappelled, and in at least one legendary case, smelled.

MORE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: Read a Masters of the Universe Movie Review | Hear The Darkness’ New Masters of the Universe Theme Song

Each also came equipped with a punny name that complemented their abilities or accessories, which I’m convinced is the reason I love puns so much to this day. These were smart (Trap Jaw, Fisto, Stinkor — genuinely, deeply committed to the bit), and this was the ’80s, so of course each toy package came with a mini-comic tucked inside an impossible-to-open plastic clamshell.

The gold standard of He-Man figures — the one that fully demonstrated the art put into each one — was Kobra Khan (pictured above). He (it?) was a cobra-like warrior who could, of course, spray a venomous mist. It was a brilliant concept, but the execution of how to build that into a toy was genius: fill his hollow chest cavity with water, press his head down, and the mechanism turns his skull into a tiny atomizer — a fine, deeply satisfying mist. When I bought my first bottle of cologne, I recall thinking, “This is like Kobra Khan!”