Around 1990 or so I traded with a kid at school for a few action figures. It was one of these weird trades where some kid I rarely spoke to asked me if I wanted to trade him my rubber shark (which I had used for a school project) for a figure he had. I asked him what he had to offer and he showed me a few toys. One of them immediately stood out as something awesome... His name was Blade.



At the time I honestly don't remember making the connection that Blade was the same character from He-Man. If my memory is correct, I believe the kid I was trading actually called this guy He-Man or something else. Needless to say this wasn't the type of trade I would have normally made, but since all he wanted was a stupid rubber shark that I never used anyway, how could I say no?



When I got Blade home I was informed that this was "Blades" as we used to call him from Masters of the Universe, the movie. Naturally he looked an awful lot like the character from the film and he portrayed that in my childhood games. However, for years I had this lingering feeling in the back of my head that this guy was not really Blade from the He-Man movie, he just looked like him. I was certain for years that this guy was a bootleg.



Why you ask? Well for starters, it was 1990 or so and I hadn't seen a new He-Man figure in what seemed like a century. Although Blade came out in 1986-1987 I sure as hell had never seen him in stores. It was especially hard for me to believe because I never saw a damned He-Man movie figure. For good reason, Mattel never made a He-Man movie figure. They only made three figures...



Honestly it wasn't until a few years ago that I truly believed that this Blade was authentic. Even looking at him now, it's hard to believe this guy is a He-Man figure. He doesn't have a rubbery head. His face is jam packed full of details, his entire body is sculpted better too. He also stands up straight instead of the typical MOTU "hunched over" look.



Nowhere on his body do I see any evidence of Mattel's branding either. It simply says "Mexico" in a few places. Almost a certain sign of a bootleg. Yet this figure is the genunine article. He's one of my all time favorite He-Man characters as a result.



In the movie, Blade was pretty cool. He was shown as being He-Man's near equal in sword play. In my world, Blade was the ultimate badass. He worked for any villain in nearly any plot as a near undefeatable swordsman. His unique look always made him one of the toughest villains that any of my heros would encounter, not just He-Man.



He also remains as one of the few figures that I still have from my original MOTU collection. I really hope Mattel makes a MOTUC version of Blade. He'd be a perfect fit for the Masters of the Universe Classics line. He has a body that only would need a small amount of new tooling as most of his armor could be strapped onto the basic buck.



Some folks believe that Blade was just a cheap movie version of Tri-Klops, but that seems hardyl accurate. Sure, Blade only has one eye and is a swordsman, similar to Tri-Klops... But Blade doesn's shoot lasers or any of that nonsense. He's just a bad ass swordsman. And we know how Blade lost his eye, he's got a HUGE scar underneath his eye patch from where a sword took his eye out.



In the movie there is some reference to some old bad blood between He-Man and Blade. Which always led me to believe that it was He-Man who had caused the damage to Blade's eye. What more could you want in a rival? MAKE THIS FIGURE MATTEL!

Blade remains one of the coolest characters in all of MOTU. He doesn't have any hokey extending necks or bug out eyes. He's just a badass. You can tell from the amount of dirt and grime on him that he saw plenty of play at my house. Blade is also one of the most forgotten Masters of the Universe characters because by 1987 most people didn't own any MOTU figures and a lot of other people have tried to forget the movie altogether. Don't let that make you bias towards Blade, he's truly one of the best figures to come out in the entire run.