MANTENNA: The Evil Spy With Pop-out Eyes!

"He Man and the Masters of the Universe" was one of America's hottest franchises from 1983 to about 1986, when at long last the spotlight was wrenched away by the Transformers. At only three years old during its peak, I was actually too busy with the Smurfs and the Glow-worms to get caught up in He-mania, and wasn't even dimly aware of its more feminine spin-off, She-Ra.    I did, however, wind up with at least one of the associated action figures that immediately caught my eye in a typical toy store visit...an almost indescribable bug-eyed mutant who now stands as one of my favorite character designs in toy history.

So bizarre that no two artists could agree on what his mouth even looked like, MANTENNA was the token "bungling underling" to She-Ra's arch nemesis, Hordak. Apart from enhanced vision, his telescoping eyes could emit any type of ray the writers felt like using, including a "balance distortion ray" in his debut appearance that does nothing but make people fall down.

Mantenna has since been reborn as a non-posable "Staction" figure by NECA toys, and he's looking creepier than ever while perfectly blending the original cartoon and figure designs.

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