WWE Superstars are the spiritual successor to the cancelled Masters Of The WWE Universe line, with a bit of the WWE Retro line thrown in for good measure.
The bodies are definitely in the MOTWU mold, with very basic body types and less of the nuanced physiques that, say, the main line of WWE Mattel figures has (some could even compare them to the old AWA figures, in fact). But unlike their He-Man counterparts, these figures have outfits and accessories that are more wrestler-friendly and true to their original characters.
Let's took at the fourth and fifth series, which were released exclusively in Wal-Mart stores.
The reason we're doing Series Four and Five together is because two of the figures are in both sets, making it difficult to distinguish them as a proper set. Much like the previous sets of WWE Superstars, if you line up each of the cards side-by-side, you notice that the background pictures kind of run onto each other... which is a neat little piece of continuity.
We kick things off with Mr. T and, while we have a ton of Mr. T figures under the Mattel license (include a Masters of the WWE Universe one), there's enough here to make this figure stand out. The WWE Hall of Famer is decked out in camo gear with a red shirt underneath (reminiscent of his stint on The A-Team), with gold chains and bracelets included.
Typhoon is actually one of the more impressive figures in this series, with a fantastic facial likeness of the former Tugboat and a removable cloth singlet.
The Rock is in his gear from the late 1990s/early 2000s, and while it's a decent likeness and everything, there's nothing here that we haven't seen before in a Rock figure. The Great One has a removable vest and pants.
Randy Macho Man Savage also stands out with his purple cape with orange stars on it. While the rest of it is similar to many Randy Savage figures out there, you absolutely need a Macho Man in this retro-style collection.
Note that both Rock and Savage are in both sets of figures.
Ravishing Rick Rude is exclusive to Series Five and has a black sparkly robe from his late 1980s WWF run. The figure is quite detailed, and given that I am a Rick Rude completist, this was a must have.
Rounding out Series Five is Earthquake, with a neat twist on a two-in-one figure. Not only can you remove his early 1990s Earthquake singlet to see a separate singlet underneath (a nod to his earliest WWF days), but you can also switch out his red boots for blue boots to be color coordinated.
While I'm not a huge fan of Mattel doubling up two of its figures one set after the other, these are six very solid additions to the WWE Superstars collection.
OOv