My boys got me this He-Man action figure for my birthday. I remember discovering He-Man figures at the local KB toy store, walking to the back of the aisle where the cool stuff was stocked and seeing what I recall as a wall of Masters of the Universe figures before me. The figures at the time came with mini comic books that told a decidedly different story than what would come from Filmation some time later.

Masters of the Universe were wildly popular back then, and as with many toys, are enjoying a resurgance as those of us who had them as children reach middle age. This particular He-Man is a bit of a masterpiece: it nods in every appropriate way at the original Mattel figure, while introducing all of the things about modern action figures that make them enviable to people my age.

Masters figures were cool in that they were larger than GI Joe or Kenner’s venerable Star Wars line, but they stood in odd squatting positions like wrestlers about to pounce. Their rubbery legs were fixed in a 45-degree bend, and their brick-shit-house physiques were common across most every buck. They were such an unusual mix of Conan-style swords and sorcery and sci-fi, though–with horror-movie-monster characters thrown in–that it was impossible not to appreciate them.

The Filmation cartoon, to my mind then and now, cast a corny light on the line, but it didn’t seem to hurt it one bit.

But all that is just some typing; it charms me to no end that my nearly adult children took a moment to hit Target and present me with a piece of plastic in the very same way that I have, and still do, for them.