This week, I had what could be described as a bittersweet moment, a moment when I capped off my collection with something big and amazing that I had been waiting long and hard for to possess, but at the same time, it was a big, hulking reminder that the collection I’d been amassing for years was now coming to an end.

It was a way of reliving my childhood and giving myself something to fiddle with in the middle of bouts of writer’s block, create new scenes and remind myself of a time when I wasn’t worrying about surviving a pandemic, paying bills or dealing with unpleasant people.

This week, I completed my Masters of the Universe collection.

When I was a kid in the 1980s, the Masters of the Universe toyline debuted, with the mighty He-Man and his friends defending the mystical Castle Grayskull from the villainous Skeletor and his evil minions. There was a cartoon series to help fuel my imagination as a young boy sent his characters flying off on incredible adventures—and by flying, I don’t mean that I just tossed them around the room. After all, that’s how you break things.

While we weren’t a rich family when I was growing up, the need for children to play with toys was still fed, with my birthday and Christmas—two days that take place fairly close together—serving as days when I would get more heroes, villains, vehicles and even a playset on occasion to expand my make-believe world.

I was lucky enough to have a neighbor living behind me, Jacob, who also played with Masters of the Universe action figures, and he had a few that I didn’t have. It was fun to, on occasion, merge our two collections and make the world of machines and magic grow even more.

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Of course, as what happens with most children is that I grew up, and the figures of yesteryear wound up being discarded, never to be seen again. The cartoon series was but a memory, and reality became my world, for the most part.

Fast forward about 20 years, and I came across something on the internet that intrigued me. Mattel, the toy company that had manufactured the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was coming out with a new “Classics” line of figures for all the adults who had loved the original toyline and wanted to relive their childhood.

These figures had more articulation, more ways to create or even recreate amazing battles. Heck, some of them had even more heads that you could swap out. Mattel was offering subscriptions for the figures, meaning you paid X amount of dollars and would receive figures once a month, sometimes more, for the entire year. There were also certain figures offered as incentives, extras if you will, that you couldn’t simply buy.

Like the child who grew up in the 1980s, I wanted those figures bad, even though I was in my 30s. Also like the child from back then, my cash flow wasn’t the greatest, and so I had to acknowledge that I’d likely not be able to go back to that more innocent time and pit He-Man and his friends against Skeletor and all the other villains from way back when.

Of course, I eventually moved to Wisconsin, and as I settled into my new job, I noticed that there was more money in my bank account than there was before. The temptation soon got to be too much, and I found myself buying a subscription for figures. However, at that point, the Classics line of the Masters of the Universe had been in existence for several years, and many of the debut figures had already been distributed and unlikely to be recreated.

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That meant having to go on the internet to pay inflated prices on some figures, as many collectors had multiple subscriptions that gave them extras of the same figure that they would then resell to the poor suckers—like me—for higher prices and make a profit. However, I was making good money, and reliving my childhood tended to spark my creativity for my writing, so I eagerly sought out figures being sold on Amazon and eBay.

These figures were somewhat larger than the ones from my childhood. The 1980s toy figures came in at about 5.5 inches, while the modern line created figures about 7 inches in height. The new figures could be articulated at the elbows, the wrists, the knees. The heads could point up and down and not just left and right. The waists could turn and stay put instead of serving as an action feature where you would turn the figure and it would pop back like a power punch.

I not only recollected characters I played with in my youth, I also gathered figures that I wanted to have but couldn’t because my parents weren’t made of money. One character in particular that I wanted but didn’t get was a variation of the main hero, He-Man, who had a thunder punch feature and a different look with a red power harness with a bat symbol instead of the standard gray one with a red cross. I didn’t get him back then, but I had him now.

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What was really neat about the Classics line was that it didn’t just simply recreate the original characters. It also added characters from other cartoons reimagined in the late 1980s and the early 2000s, some of them that had never experienced toy form before. I collected characters like the reimagined Count Marzo, Despara, Evil Seed, Geldor, Hawke—I should probably stop that list, as there were so many.

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The line also created variations of some of the characters. In the 1980s toyline, the only ones that received several different incarnations were He-Man and Skeletor, first with battle armor and then with individualized features. This line created “battleground” versions of the two main women in the series, Teela and Evil-Lyn, along with variations of Man-at-Arms, the Sorceress and others. It was like I could set up several different scenes at home.

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The vehicles in the new line were not as plentiful as the old line, but the recreations were definitely better. The Wind Raider featured stickers in the 1980s to indicate consoles and more, but on the new version of the heroes’ plane, those consoles were molded on. The same applied to the Talon Fighter, a vehicle that didn’t receive much attention in the cartoon series but was touted in the comic books as a mystical vehicle created in ancient times that yielded covetable power.

There was also the Battle Ram, a land vehicle that now could carry two warriors instead of one. That vehicle also could separate to have the heroes fly around on a Sky Sled. The new line created a variation of the Sky Sled that the villains could utilize, called a War Sled and having the distinction of a snake’s head instead of the standard griffin’s head on the heroic version.

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While the vehicles were fewer, the structures were even more rare. In the 1980s line, we had the mighty Castle Grayskull, fortress of power for He-Man and his friends; Snake Mountain, the stronghold for Skeletor and his villains; the Fright Zone, home to a new band of monsters known as the Evil Horde; and in the end, the massive Eternia playset that featured three towers—one for the heroes, one for the villains and a central tower fought over by the two opposing sides.

With the Classics line, for years, the only building that could be added to the collection was Castle Grayskull. After all, you couldn’t have the Masters of the Universe without Castle Grayskull. Because those buildings were expensive to produce, most of the toy collectors were hesitant to invest in others, although they certainly wanted them in their possession.

Mattel’s involvement in the Classics line ended in 2016, and Castle Grayskull remained the only fortress in the line, but the rights to make the figures passed on to an outfit called Super7, and that company decided that collectors could stand to have one more stronghold in their collection—the venomous Snake Mountain.

It only seemed fair. After all, the heroes had their base of operations, so why should the villains be homeless? Granted, they much rather wanted Castle Grayskull and the amazing power and secrets that lie within, but considering they were having zero luck getting past the jawbridge, why not give them somewhere to live?

However, some collectors balked in 2019 when Super7 announced the price: $600. Also, there needed to be a certain number of pre-orders committing to Snake Mountain in order for the company to even commit to the project. Castle Grayskull had only cost $250, so having Snake Mountain cost more than double seemed ludicrous to some. Folks soon learned, though, that the mountain was double the size of the castle—not to mention three times the size of the 1980s Snake Mountain.

There were also some other bells and whistles that differed the new Snake Mountain from the original. The original cartoon series featured red water shooting off the falls on the mountain, but the original playset did not feature that, instead having a demon head. The new mountain incorporated all the original playset components plus the waterfall, and it also came with Skeletor’s bone throne and scrying table. It was well worth every penny.

I double-checked my finances, and since I was getting a fair amount of overtime, I felt as though the $600 investment would not leave me destitute. That was in May 2019, and 18 months later, I finally received my Snake Mountain in a large box, weighing close to 50 pounds. It was quite a ride getting it up the stairs, but once I started putting it all together on a table in my bedroom, it felt like my collection was finally complete.

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I now have close to 200 figures from the Masters of the Universe Classics line. Many recreated from the original series, many from the companion series She-Ra, some characters ripped from the comics, a few captured from the film made in 1987 and even a few made up through a fan contest, I’ve got an amazing collection that has reconnecting with my childhood and reminding me that there’s a better world out there.

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Sadly, Super7 is no longer making Masters of the Universe items, with the rights returning to Mattel. Mattel has decided to recreate the smaller figures and making them toys for a new generation again. So far, they look pretty good, but I have my collection of figures, and I’m eager to display them in an even bigger area with two iconic locations, multiple vehicles and countless scenarios where good and evil can fight for domination.

I have the power.

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