Review – Masters of the Universe Roboto

Line: Masters of the Universe * Manufacturer: Mattel * Year: 1984 * Ages: 4+

“As a member of the Heroic Warriors, Roboto is notable for being the only fully mechanical warrior in their ranks. His metal body makes him invulnerable to pain and able to resist many attacks that would leave an ordinary warrior injured. His computer brain also renders him highly intelligent. He has a transparent body, through which his inner working gears can be seen, and his right hand is a mechanical claw, which can be replaced with an axe or laser gun.”
— from Wikipedia

Masters of the Universe, according to Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea by Roger Sweet and David Wecker, was pretty much the creation a single person. The book is a look at the eighties toy line through the eyes of a disgruntled, bitter man, and most of the text focuses on the toys in the series that Roger Sweet claims were primarily his creations.

Which, I guess, means that the cool gear-turning Roboto was created by someone else. No matter to us, though, because he’s got a neat gimmick and is a robot toy. And this week, at least here at battlegrip.com, we’re all about the robot toys so let’s jump into this gear-spinning review.

Over at Topless Robot, the article The 12 Coolest Masters of the Universe Action Features says about the incredible Roboto (who comes in at #11):

“While Skeletor was busy making He-Man robots that were blue, Man-at-Arms was busy creating Roboto — a robot with swappable arm weapons (much like Trap-Jaw) but more importantly, with gears inside that actually moved when Roboto did! Sure, there were maybe four gears in him tops, but they were cunningly placed to make it him look incredibly detailed and technical. And it was the ’80s, so we were pretty easily satisfied.”

That pretty much nails Roboto’s claim to fame and the only real reason that we remember him about 25 years after he was released. Inside Roboto’s clear plastic torso we can see a total of six gears — two blue, one red, one green, one orange, and one yellow — that turn when you twist his waist left or right. And if you think that’s a lot of colors for gears, it’s nothing compared to Roboto’s wacky, rainbow color scheme. Blue arms, red hands and legs, purple trunks, a red visor, a gray head; yeah, Roboto is one colorful robot.

Anyway, though, back to those rainbow gears. Not only do the gears rotate when you twist his waist, the gears also raise and lower Roboto’s red visor. Twist his body in one direction and the visor drops down to reveal a black, featureless space where his face should be, while twisting the other direction raises the visor up to conceal that black space. Wow, were we really this easily impressed back in 1984?

It’s a gimmick, and not even a very exciting gimmick when you look back at him. What’s worse is that rotating the torso is smooth and easy until the visor is fully raised or lowered at which point you’ve got to apply some pressure to continue turning the waist. I just know something’s gonna break in there.

Other than his clear torso packed with gears, Roboto has one other gimmick: Interchangeable weapon hands. Shown above, his three hands are an axe, a gun, and a robotic claw. These weapons snap off an on his right arm without any trouble but unfortunately there’s nowhere to store the unused hands. I guess we can see why the Cobra B.A.T. is a superior version of this gimmick, since the B.A.T. can carry the unused weapon hands in his backpack.

After you get past his gears and weapon hands, Roboto’s pretty much like the other action figures in the old Masters of the Universe toyline. Bow-legged, with thick arms and legs, Roboto is actually a little more on the silly side than he is the “wow, that’s a cool toy” side of things. Mastering the Universe has this to say about the Masters of the Universe action figures’ pose:

“. . . would have a hypervirile, hypermuscular body that would make all previous MAFs (male action figures) look like Ichabod Crane. He would be crouched slightly forward, with knees and arms bent as if preparing to pounce on an opponent, any opponent.”

I guess the author forgot to add “goofy” to the description.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really love the look of these old Masters of the Universe action figures, but only due to nostalgia. I think anyone seriously looking at these today can admit that they look a bit strange, with their bizarre proportions and stance making the figures look more like caricatures of humans than actual humans. Superheroes — and let’s face it, He-Man is a superhero — always look like supremely advanced, toned humans, but these take it to a ridiculous level.

Closing Thoughts

Roboto has a silly feature, a weird color scheme, and is forever locked into that unusual body type that could only have come from the eighties. Still, his gears and interchangeable weapon hands make him a fun toy, and I can completely understand why any collector of eighties action figures would be happy to have Roboto in his collection.

My Roboto is going to sit comfortably on my toy shelf, forever surrounded by other bizarre — but fun! — toys. Have a happy life, Roboto.

Philip Reed never had many Masters of the Universe toys when he was a kid, and he’s not very likely to collect many of them today. It’s a neat series, but the older toys just don’t hold up to time and the new toys are too damned difficult (and expensive) to make it worth trying to collect the entire line. A new Roboto would be kinda neat, though.