Following a fan vote for the next big-ticket Masters of the Universe Origins toy item, the results have been tallied. The winner is, perhaps, not one fans might have expected: the Snake Lair! A castle for King Hiss and his serpent minions, it allows them their own dedicated space outside of Snake Mountain and the cramped Viper Tower.
Snakes! Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
The Snake Lair beat out many long-requested items like a revamped vintage Fright Zone, Filmation-inspired Fright Zone, cartoon-based larger Attak Trak, and more. The Snake Lair primarily featured in mini-comics, and hasn’t featured as heavily in alternate media as the other choices. Conspiracy-minded fans are already suggesting it’s awfully convenient that the retail line is leaning heavily into the Snake Men theme, and their home base wins. A more likely alternative, however, is that fans buying all those snake figures want a new place to display them.
All we’ve seen of the Snake Lair is a drawing of the exterior, which makes it look like a fold-in-half playset similar to Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain. Potential action features include a working portcullis, gun station, and King Hiss’ sarcophagus. No images of the interior are available, but expect some sort of throne for the serpent king. At retail this would probably run around $90; as a more limited Mattel Creations exclusive, it will probably have a higher mark-up.
Though Mattel heavily hyped the Snake Men as an add on to the vintage line in the mid-’80s, Fimation’s Lou Scheimer felt that the skin-ripping King Hiss wasn’t appropriate for children, and added his sidekicks to the Evil Horde in the She-Ra cartoon instead. The 2002 cartoon and tie-in toy line introduced the Snake Men as villains towards the end, and never got to resolve their storyline; a glut of excess repaint figures and an ever-changing time slot for the series killed off those toys and the show. Netflix’s recent CG He-Man and the Masters of the Universe managed to get in a whole season of Snake Men, but the streamer canceled the series thereafter.
All these decades later, they’ll finally have a home. Crowdfunding looks set to begin early in 2024.
