Evil-Lyn Evil Warrior Goddess Masters of the Universe Classics Action Figure Item No.: No. R6253 Manufacturer: Mattel Includes: Short staff, long staff, staff orb, knife, Screeech bird with stand and armor Action Feature: n/a Retail: $20.00 Availability: April 2010 Other: One of two Evil-Lyn figures in this line (so far)
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Right after Skeletor, Evil-Lyn may be one of the most important villains in Masters of the Universe. She's a powerful sorceress and it's obvious she's not necessarily interested in being an employee forever. So naturally, it makes sense that she'd get a figure or two, but the problem comes in with how the figures are done, because the Masters franchise is so split. Barring the movie and comics, just the cartoon and toys have had plenty of unique looks. Should her skin be yellow? Ashy grey? A pale, gothic flesh color? Depending on what you like, MOTU could be perceived as a cartoon requiring toon-accurate toys, while others see it as a toy line where the cartoon needs to be accurate to the plastic figures. With Classics, the priority was given to the toy look first with few exceptions.

Modeled after the original Evil-Lyn toy from 1983, this release is also basically Teela with new paint and a new head. It's the right thing to do, toy-wise, but it doesn't quite perfectly capture the look of the character from the TV. Heck, none of them do, but she's still quite an amazing figure. Check out the crazy yellow skin, the blue armor, and the green eye shadow. This is an odd, colorful, and eye-poppingly neat design in its own right and a near-perfect update of the original toy. However, if you grew up watching the cartoon, you'd probably want the purple-and-blue outfit, which featured a cape, and was colored like the bulk of other human characters on the show. You can't win 'em all, but she's still neat.

With swell rocking ankles, swivel biceps, and just under 20 joints, this is an impressive piece. She has no waist joint, but that was the price of doing the outfit this way-- sculpt trumped movement. She can hop on top of Panthor and assume a number of cool combat posses, though, so I can't complain too much.

The figure itself is nice, but for $20 you're going to want some good accessories. And you get them. Mattel threw in the 200X knife in classic colors, two wands so you can have "short" like the original toy, or a more visually appealing "long" wand, plus a removable translucent dark blue orb to cap it. What's more, Screeech is included (a Zoar repaint) with a pair of new accessories-- armor, and a perch. Zoar has articulated wings and swivel bird feet, which makes this entire package a pretty good buy overall. Don't get me wrong, $20 is still a lot of money for a single figure, but you get enough in the box where you're likely to feel pretty happy about it.

If you don't already own all these figures, you might say "Hey, didn't they make two Evil-Lyn figures? So which one should I get?" That's tough to say, but I cracked open the grey-and-purple Battleground Evil-Lyn first and I actually prefer that one. (More articulation, cartoonier colors.) I still do like the yellow one, but I fall into the Cartoon Camp-- as a kid, I watched He-Man on TV but had few (literally 3) toys from the line and they were all Meteorbs. The Battleground version has a cape, an alternate unhelmeted head, a glow-in-the-dark orb for her wand, and a more pleasing coloring. The yellow one has Screech and toy-accurate colors. So which is better? Well, you're probably going to want both but if you can only get one, I'd go with the Battleground version. I can live without Screeech, but I feel like I have to have a not-yellow Evil-Lyn.

If Mattel ever does a Filmation redeco of this mold, that will be my favorite. You may be able to get her on eBay for as little as $22, but I wouldn't insist you go out and get either of the two versions just yet. A Filmation repaint would probably do just fine, and it would tap into the cultural memory of how a lot of people remember her looking... which is not really like any of the toys just yet. She's still nice and I appreciate the option parts for the wand, but is this really how people remember Evil-Lyn? That's the real question.

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