TEELA

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2002)

One of the common complaints about toylines aimed at the male demographic is the typical lack of any notable female presence. Most have at least one female character to offer, but not much more beyond that. In the ‘80s, this practice of token females was in full swing. Masters of the Universe was no exception, but, to their credit, they had a token female for each side of the battle (as well as the Sorceress, but she wasn’t really a direct participant in the fight). The heroic side’s resident female combatant was Teela, who is the focus of today’s review.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Teela was released in Wave 1 of the 2003 Series of Masters of the Universe. She was the first female figure to make it into the line (though Evil-Lyn would join the line later that year).  The figure is a little under 6 inches tall and she has 12 points of articulation. Her waist joint is only slightly useful, though, since it’s got a spring-loaded feature, allowing her to have a swinging action of some sort. It’s more annoying than anything, but at least the feature doesn’t ruin her aesthetically. Teela’s sculpt isn’t bad at all. She’s leaning even harder into the stylization that He-Man was sporting, preventing her from really fitting in with anything but the 2002 Masters line, but that’s not a bad thing. There’s a lot of great detail work here, especially on the more ornate parts of her armor. The face is one of the more attractive faces that the Four Horsemen have put out, though it’s a little flat (a common issue with their female faces). I do think it’s worth noting that her legs are rather on the long side. It’s partly in keeping with the show’s design for her, but it still feels a bit exaggerated here, and it’s certainly not helped by the bent arms. Teela’s paintwork is solid. The gold and while work well together, and there’s minimal bleedover. There were two variations of Teela’s paint: one with a gold hair tie, and one where the hair tie was left the same brown as the hair. Mine is the latter version, which is a slight letdown, but far from the worst thing ever. Teela originally included a sword, cobra-headed staff, and a shield. My figure was secondhand, so I don’t have those parts.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Teela was a rather difficult to find figure back when these guys were new. I actually saw her once at a Target, but didn’t get her for whatever reason and regretted it for some time. I ended up getting her just a few weeks ago, from a Goodwill of all places. I found her and a large assortment of other figures for a very small amount of money (in fact, I didn’t actually pay anything for Teela, because she was bundled with a Castle Greyskull playset). I’m happy to have finally gotten this figure. She’s far from perfect, and had not aged particularly well, but she’s still pretty cool and was an important missing piece from my collection.