He-man Dorks of the World Unite! or By the Power of Grayskull!

I'm a dork. I know it, made peace with it a long time ago. I've taken some lumps for it, especially in junior high, when most of your lumps are doled out anyway.

When I was about eight years old, I received a boon for my birthday, what I perceived to be a crazy amount of money. We're talking at least thirty whole dollars here. More money than I had seen at one time in my entire life. The year was 1982.

The only time we'd ever drive all the way to Toys 'R Us in Flint back then was shortly after our birthdays. We lived in Lake Orion, and there were no freeways to get us there quickly. Star Wars was fully wound down at this point. My young, overactive imagination was in need of a new plastic outlet.

There, in all of his muscle bound plastic glory, was He-man and the Masters of the Universe. I'd seen a few commercials on Saturday mornings. I was intrigued. The cartoon wouldn't hit for about a year. There were similar toy lines out there. I didn't really understand the genre this series was coming from. Were they all barbarians? Were the bad guys magicians, monsters? I left the store with two heroes, two villains, and a large green, armored tiger that the heroes were supposed to ride.

Each figure came with a mini comic that gave you the first glimpse into their world. The problem was, the comics didn't seem to match up in every way. It was kind of like different people were asked to come up with different concepts. I loved it. My imagination went crazy. As the next year progressed, the series exploded in popularity. There were books, comics, and eventually the first cartoon series, and none of it meshed together very well.

Most of the mini comics were very mature, swords, dragons, violence. The characters were brutish. Skeletor was truly an evil overlord. Beast Man was the savage king of his own people. The cartoon was almost the complete opposite. Most of the villains were more comedic than scary. There was always a moral to the story.

Despite it's corniness, I had to watch the cartoon every day. I was addicted. I didn't like the stories and characterization as much. I preferred my own imagination, but I still had to watch. I had to see if the newest character would appear in animated form.

I had endless adventures with those action figures. I incorporated other similar toys and knock offs. I drew my own pictures of my favorite characters. My Christmas lists for years were heavy with Masters figures and accessories. My younger brother Bob got into collecting, and we often strategically planned birthday requests to increase our collection. I always liked the bad guys better. They were just cooler looking. The heroes were too human, ordinary.

At age nine, I met a guy that would become my best friend. I got him into He-man too. The fifth grade wasn't too harsh on our boyhood heroes. That was also the year of Gremlins, G.I.Joe, and Transformers. Lots of kids our age were still dorks for toys.

Now, for those of you that couldn't already guess, taking a big, metal He-man lunch box to the sixth grade is a bad idea. It gets you picked on more than you normally would. Let's just say I already had a bunch of strikes against me a this age (I weighed about 65 lbs. and had Coke bottle glasses). I toughed it out. I was my own person, proud of my individuality even if I did get heckled and brutalized more often. Of course I made sure to hide any hint that I might still be into such things in the seventh grade. One year of extreme outcast-ism was enough. I was happy to settle back into my normal level.

The series was one of Mattel's highest grossing lines for boys ever, to this date. They even had a spin off series that was supposed to appeal to girls involving He-man's sister, She-ra. On more than one occasion you'd catch boys in the pink aisle looking over the spin off merchandise.

In late 1985 and early 1986 the series died off. The newest set of villains they had introduced were kind of lame. A live action movie came out in 1987, and it was a totally different take on the characters. It was lame. Mattel tried to re-invent the main characters with a more space oriented theme, which made no sense. I grew up, and He-man disappeared.

Well, until 2002 when the most famous action figure sculptures, The Four Horsemen announced that they'd worked out a deal with Mattel to re-imagine the series with more modern designs. Mattel had released some special edition, rare re-issues a few years prior. They proved that there was still a market. They made the mistake of trying to market the line to kids though, and it didn't really go over. There was a new cartoon, which was okay.

They also tried to use modern collectible ideas in this line: multiple versions of popular characters, short packing others to make them rare. That really only angered the people collecting. It was a fun line, but short lived.

More recently, Mattel approached the Horsemen. This time they would re-design all of the characters with a more classic feel: lots of muscle, re-usable parts from character to character, but this line would be bigger than the previous lines. These figures also wouldn't be sold in retail stores. You can only buy them online, one character is sold one day of each month. They sell out in around thirty minutes, and you're lucky to even get on the website at that time. They've packaged this newest line as the Adult Collector, Masters of the Universe Classics line. Each figure is $20 before shipping costs.

I've already given up on trying to collect this newest line, but it's hard to fight off the nostalgia. It's probably a good thing I don't have a job right now. We did get our tax return back recently, and it was much larger than we expected. The tax breaks really came through for us. I broke down. I gave in. I bought this guy to the right here, Webstor - Evil master of escape, my favorite character when I was a kid. He'll likely be the only one I purchase.

Now, let me be clear, I don't play with this thing. But, just having it around takes me back to relive so many memories of Christmases, birthdays, lazy afternoons in my backyard, play time with my little brother. I know it makes me a dork, but the nostalgia… I'm so glad there's enough of us dorks left to make this worth a toy company's efforts.

My kids now watch the old cartoons, and the newer ones too, on DVD. Owen runs around saying he's He-man. I'm so proud.