Masters Of Universe Origins Mantenna Cartoon Collection has rizz.
This Mantenna action figure from Mattel captures the fun and charisma of the Filmation design and pairs it with the Origins line’s easy play and in-hand feel. I’m a sucker for multiple appendages and this figure is no different. A bipedal stature with a four legged figure? Oh my god, it’s so good.
The final Mattel and Filmation designs both deviated from Curtis Cim’s original 1984 concept. In the She-Ra FIlmation cartoon, Mantenna was kind of like Hordak’s version of Orko, but instead of being the goofy and beloved member of the gang, he was Hordak’s punching bag. At the end of any adventure, instead of praise or reassurance after a seeming failure, Mantenna would get dropped down a trap door. There’s a fantastic deep dive into the various designs of Mantenna and how we ended up with the final versions at the Battle Ram Blog post Mantenna: Evil spy with the pop-out eyes (1985).
In the scale from Funny Little Guy to Rude Little Dude, I prefer my Mantenna to be a Funny Little Guy. In the Filmation She-Ra and the Princess of Power cartoon, Mantenna is a loyal soldier of Hordak, has a bunch of rad powers, was obviously a good student at the Horde Academy, and is mercilessly bullied by Hordak. More than anything else, he’s a Funny Little Guy to Hordak’s Rude Little Dude.
By the time we got to the Filmation design, Mantenna changed. Harry Sabin’s character sheet has made its way online at Filmation She-Ra Model Sheet:Mantenna on MOTUCFigures.com. Mantenna loses his bare feet in favor of boots on his fore-legs and bare feet for his hind legs and losing his toes for a boot-shaped foot. He also lost his tail and adopts an upright posture instead of the character sheet’s quadruped posture. He adopts the traditional Masters of the Universe loincloth. In addition, based on the furry back legs, he seems to become mammalian instead of an insectoid.
The Origins Cartoon Collection Mantenna is Mattel’s first Filmation Mantenna action figure and the first Filmation Mantenna figure since 2019’s Super7 Club Grayskull, sculpted by Four Horsemen Studios, and will probably remain the more attainable version. If you want to get your hands on an articulated Mantenna, Origins is your path.
The simple Filmation color scheme works great in figure form. Mattel’s done a pretty good job of matching the colors. A lot of the figures from the Origins Cartoon Collection line share the simplicity of paint applications (or bare plastic), and I think it works very well with these figures.
A quick aside about bare plastic. It doesn’t always work. A good example of action figures with bare plastic that carry some complaints is the Super7 2003 TMNT figures. Cody from Too Much New Toys’ review of these figures shows off how a combination of bare plastic and sculpt can work against each other and can lead to a figure looking “unfinished.” I’ve also noticed this on the Nacelle Biker Mice From Mars figures. Mattel doesn’t really have this issue with the Origins Cartoon Collection with the bare plastic as far as I can tell. The Cartoon Collection Clawful works really well with bare plastic. The Mantenna figure doesn’t rub against itself, meaning the scuffing that happens with some figures at the joints doesn’t plague the Origins figures because of the Origins figures’ limited articulation.
The Mantenna figure sports four articulated legs with each having a hip joint, single joint knee, a shin/boot cut, and ankle join with a hinge and pivot. The boot/shin cut is removable, but the legs are not. It’s true to the cartoon in that only his front feet are wearing boots. If those aren’t boots on his hind legs, what’s going on with those feet? His torso detaches at his hips in addition to his head, arms, and hands.
The figure comes with no accessories, which is an outlier for this wave of Origins Cartoon Collection. Comparing against Clawful, Clawful comes with the Horn of Evil from “Dree Elle’s Return,” so I feel like Mantenna could have come with an accessory from a specific episode. From the “A Loss for Words” episode, there’s not a specific accessory I’d have picked (egg-Hordak is fun though), but Manhtenna was in plenty of episodes. Could I argue that his additional legs or eyeball-popping action are the accessories? I could, but it would be an excuse not to include an accessory.
Mantenna is fun to play with. You get all the articulation of the Origins line along with the extra legs and the combination of everything together gives him a very tactile fun feel. Despite having a more svelte frame than your traditional MOTU figure, he can still balance and pose well. The colors mostly match the cartoon, there are some small bits here and there like his neck is purple instead of red.
I’ve seen complaints about the placement of his pupils, but I kinda like the crazed look for him. I do wonder if his pupils were accidentally reversed in the paint tooling in terms of horizontal placement. I did my best to approximate where they’d be if they were as distant from the center of his face instead of the edges and it looks about right. I’m not about to re-paint him, but it might explain what happened.
What would Mantenna be without some eye-popping action? Mattel pops his eyes the same way Super7’s Reaction figure does without swapping parts like the Super7 Club Grayskull and the Mattel MOTU Classics did, or putting the mechanism in his chest like the vintage figure. As a result, they might not pop out as far, but they get the job done!
Masters Of Universe Origins Mantenna Cartoon Collection is rad, fun, and a good pickup. I got mine from Big Bad Toy Store from their rolling set of year-end holiday sales. I’ve been eyeing the Masterverse Mantenna after how much I’ve been enjoying this figure and I won’t lie in that I’m thinking about that Super7 Club Grayskull Mantenna despite the current prices out there.
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