Back in the heyday of Masters of the Universe during the 1980s, a few promotional posters for the line were made. These were lush, fully-painted depictions of the characters rather than checklists featuring photos of the action figures. By far my favorite was the so-called Grayskull Poster, because it featured most of the early, iconic MOTU characters, vehicles and playsets that I owned.
He-Man.org poster He-Lurker has been kind enough to provide his fellow He-Fans with a beautiful hi-res scan of the poster:
Pretty nice, huh? Of course, while He-Man and Skeletor look ready to mash it up as usual, there’s a lot of other strange stuff going on in the background of this poster. (more…)
In the early 90s Kenner decided that they needed to cash in on the Terminator franchise the only way they knew how, by making toys based on the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I skipped the entire line at the time, because I found the figures massively disappointing overall, but it did have it’s high points. Unarguably the strangest item in the Terminator toy line up, and perhaps in any toy line period, is the Bio-Flesh generator:
The idea of a toy that can make skin is something out a nightmare, but here it is. While it’s certainly in the realm of other toys that involve pouring something gross on action figures like the Masters of the Universe Slime, it occupies a peculiar place in toy history.
Did anyone have this thing? Was the skin even half way realistic? And more importantly was it edible?
The 2002 revamp of Masters of the Universe was ambitious in scope, encompassing the toys, a new cartoon, a McDonalds tie-in and even a videogame. Mattel was fervently hoping to recapture the bottled lightning they’d found in the early 1980s.
Unfortunately, the toys weren’t as successful as Mattel’s immense hopes, and after two years it was shut down (though it lived on for quite a while via NECA’s “stactions”).
The theories for the 2002 line’s demise have been hashed out ad infinitum, so I won’t go over them again here. Suffice to say Zodak represents the second 2002 character to appear in MOTUC. As a variant of the already slow-selling (comparatively speaking) Zodac, it’s not surprising that he took two weeks to sell out; I’m very curious to see how the Goddess does in December. (more…)
It’s time, my little Poesters, to harangue Mattel in the wake of the Great Teela Disaster of 2009. But I kid the mega-corporation who really needs to get on the same page with its mediocre webstore management company!
As always, polite (but firm), thoughtful, new questions will get preference over mean-spirited diatribes about, say, the distribution of DCUC (dude, we know).
“A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, God said: ‘Let there be lips,’ and there were lips and they were red.” Every Saturday at midnight in dozens of movie theatres across the globe this line is shouted at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the quintessential cult classic films. It premiered in 1975, but performed poorly in theatres, until 1977 when it began showing as a midnight movie. The hallmark of the Rocky Horror Picture Show is the audience participation. At any given showing, you are bound to see girls & guys in makeup and fishnets doing the Time Warp, throwing rice & toast, and shouting obscenities at the movie screen. (more…)
It’s a very different origin story for He-Man, with a level of character development that rivals the MYP series. There’s something approaching actual pathos in He-Man’s story–and they even explain where he got the goofy name. It makes for an intriguing might-have-been for the MOTUniverse. (more…)
I have a terrible time finding anything I want at retail. I’m not sure if it’s my luck or what, but if there’s a toy I want I’m most likely going to have to work very hard at trying to get it. This last weekend was a bit strange, in the fact that I managed to find a bunch of stuff I wanted. I’m not here to brag about finding toys that everyone else has, but to drop some of my thoughts on my plunder. Now, let’s do this!
Forgotten Lore is a feature focusing on toys that were planned but never produced.
Today’s Forgotten Lore comes to us from Poester American Hyena. Says AH:
Arguably the best wrestling figures ever, they were produced with Marvel Legends-level articulation and came with scads of cool accessories. There was a final wave of figures that made it to prototype stage but was never released, which was heartbreaking for fans of the line because Brother Devon of Team 3-D and Homicide of the Latin American X-Change had already been released, and their tag team partners Brother Ray and Hernandez were slated for that wave. It was also supposed to include the series first female figure Traci Brooks (who just posed for Playboy) and a newly sculpted Kurt Angle. There were also supposed to be two more 12″ figures (Christian Cage and Christopher Daniels) on the Marvel Icons style body with outstanding looking cloth costumes.
I know a lot of fans were dying to know what would become of the line. Sadly, I don’t recall Jesse Falcon even mentioning it in his Toybiz/Marvel Toys retrospective at Comic-Con a couple years ago.
Hernandez
Pics of DCUC13 have made their way to the Web. You can see ’em here or here.
My thoughts: while DCUC has run hot and cold lately, this is a great-looking wave with what looks like a good amount of original tooling. It also finishes off a few groups fans have been hoping for, including “Reign of the Supermen” with ’90s Connor Kent and the Legion of Doom with Cheetah. Cyclotron is a welcome surprise, and Blue Devil and Beetle look great.
You can also find official pics of DCUC12, with variants, at TNI.
I met up with Poesters PrfktTear and Sped this weekend at the Boston Comic Con, which was much more of a comic convention than I thought was possible in this day and age. (more…)
The 2002 revamp of Masters of the Universe was ambitious in scope, encompassing the toys, a new cartoon, a McDonalds tie-in and even a videogame. Mattel was fervently hoping to recapture the bottled lightning they’d found in the early 1980s.
