In 2020, Ed Duncan was working on reviving one of Mattel's brands from the '80s, He-Man and Masters of the Universe.

And as you get into He-Man, especially as a Black man, um, you start to realize there's not a lot of diversity in the line.

And it's interesting because Mattel's first action figure line in the '60s was a line called, uh, Major Matt Mason that was about, uh, a group of astronauts, uh, and it was, you know, pre landing on the moon, kind of picking up on the space race.

And you have four human figures in that line, and they're, one of them is a Black male.

In 1966, we made a Black male astronaut.

But for some reason, Masters of the Universe actually stands out with its lack of diversity, and you get almost 65 figures into the line and towards the end of the run before you have a Black, uh, figure show up in the line.

And so as I'm making this line, uh, viable for relaunch, this starts to become a real obvious, uh, challenge that we would need to find a solution for.

Black Lives Matter protests were happening across the country.

In 2020, Ed Duncan was working on reviving one of Mattel's brands from the '80s, He-Man and Masters of the Universe.

And as you get into He-Man, especially as a Black man, um, you start to realize there's not a lot of diversity in the line.

And it's interesting because Mattel's first action figure line in the '60s was a line called, uh, Major Matt Mason that was about, uh, a group of astronauts, uh, and it was, you know, pre landing on the moon, kind of picking up on the space race.

And you have four human figures in that line, and they're, one of them is a Black male.

In 1966, we made a Black male astronaut.

But for some reason, Masters of the Universe actually stands out with its lack of diversity, and you get almost 65 figures into the line and towards the end of the run before you have a Black, uh, figure show up in the line.

And so as I'm making this line, uh, viable for relaunch, this starts to become a real obvious, uh, challenge that we would need to find a solution for.

Black Lives Matter protests were happening across the country.