Evil Warriors

Skeletor: Lord of Destruction! (1982)

Released with the first wave of characters in the original Masters of the Universe toy line, Skeletor would eventually become one of the most iconic and memorable villains of the 1980s.

Castle Grayskull box art by Rudy Obrero

I remember getting Skeletor along with He-Man, Beast Man and Man-At-Arms in 1982.  I hadn’t even heard of these figures before getting them as Christmas presents. I don’t remember what toys I owned before that day, but the experience of opening and playing with these toys for the first time is permanently etched in my brain. Skeletor especially made a big impression on 5-year-old me. I’d never seen anything like him.

Design & Development

Like all the other first-wave MOTU figures, Skeletor was designed by Mattel artist Mark Taylor. Taylor’s 1979 drawing (before the MOTU line was first conceived) featured his He-Man-like character “Torak” and included a villain in the background who bears a striking resemblance to Skeletor:

Torak, by Mark Taylor. Image source: The Power and the Honor Foundation
Close-up of Skeletor-like villain, from The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog

Mark Taylor did another sketch, predating his work at Mattel, that informed his later Skeletor design. In the drawing below, we see a mummy-like character, complete with torn bandages. He has a decaying body and face, but he also has elements of the final Skeletor costume that are recognizable – most notably in the cross bones on his chest. From the crown and collar, he looks like some kind of undead king.

The sketch was recently found by Rebecca Salari Taylor (Mark Taylor’s wife). Of the sketch, she said:

It was done before Mark went to Mattel. I found it in a sketchbook. He has a few versions of skeletons as warriors and royalty. It is based off of a story he wrote once when he was a kid in college… about a skeleton king called β€œThe King of Styx” … circa 1971. I found a new stash of sketchbooks when they repaired our garage.

Image source: Rebecca Salari Taylor. Sketch by Mark Taylor.
A print of “Evil Incarnate”, offered at Power-Con in 2018 as a part of Mark’s “Sketches 1” portfolio. Image courtesy of Doug Feague.

The above drawing was first teased in this poster image sold at Grayskull Con in 2013, produced by the Power and Honor Foundation:

Image courtesy of Jukka Issakainen

The concept character who has come to be known as Demo-Man (1980) is often considered to be an early version of Skeletor, although according to designer Mark Taylor he is a separate character. While this Taylor design does feature a skeletal face, it otherwise bears little resemblance to Skeletor. In fact, Demo-Man seems more similar to Beast Man in many ways. It’s unclear what might have become of this character had he been further developed. His sword design seems influenced by the sword in the “undead king” sketch Mark did before coming to Mattel.

The sinister Demo-Man

Update: I should also mention that Skeletor’s design was influenced by Dia De Los Muertos artwork, and also by the corpse of Elmer McCurdy, which Mark encountered as a child in a scare ride at Pike Amusement Park. See: Mark and Rebecca Taylor Interview.

The B-sheet for “D Man” gives us the first look at a close to final and “official” Skeletor design. He retains the decaying face and general body shape and pose from the mummy sketch. His costume is much more recognizable as Skeletor, however, and he has his characteristic blue skin. He has the five-toed bare feet and yellow bat detail around his shin guards and chest armor that would later appear in the first minicomics. The head of the staff was meant to be attached via string and would have doubled as a flail.

Colored version of Mark Taylor’s Skeletor concept art, published by Super7 and the Power and the Honor Foundation. Image courtesy of Axel GimΓ©nez.

The D Man B-sheet was translated into a clay model by legendary Mattel sculptor Tony Guerrero. The paint details on the face were altered to the familiar yellow/green scheme, and the handle of the staff was left unfinished.

Skeletor prototype, sculpted by Tony Guerrero. Notice his stance is very similar to both the concept art and the cross sell art. Image via He-Man.org
Skeletor’s prototype seems to built on top of the original He-Man sculpt. The leg musculature looks identical.

Update: As late as July 9, 1981, Mattel was still going to use the “rotting face” version of Skeletor’s head. You can see that in the toy head design sheet below.

Image source: The Masters of the Universe Book (DK)

This design was highly detailed and would have required a lot of unique parts. Presumably to save money, Skeletor’s design was simplified and made more generic and reusable.

Skeletor cross sell art

The cross sell art (above) seems to be the next step in Skeletor’s evolution, before the final toy. Skeletor was given legs that could be reused for Mer-Man, with three-toed feet and a more generic shin guard. Instead of the decrepit forearms, he was given unpainted gloved forearms that could be reused for Mer-Man (ironically Mer-Man would eventually lose the painted gloves, making this design change unnecessary). Other differences from the B-sheet include a wider “skirt” and a simplified bird motif on the belt.

Skeletor hand painted prototype. The skirt piece seems to be broken and on backwards.

This final prototype (above two images) shows some further changes to the design. The boots were given a scaly, organic appearance, and the “gloved” forearms were made to look more ambiguous, as if they could either be gloves or bony protrusions. Again, this seems designed to make these molded parts fit with either Skeletor or Mer-Man. Interestingly, the armor seems to sit higher on the body than the final toy.

Packaging

The first release of Skeletor featured the iconic “8-back” packaging. Reissues featured a scene on the card back of Skeletor looking rather sneaky, with Castle Grayskull in the background (art by Errol McCarthy].

Image courtesy of Axel GimΓ©nez.

Production Figure

The very first run of Skeletor figures had an error in the face paint. As Mattel marketing director Mark Ellis explained:

As with all large scale endeavors, screw-ups happen. After production was authorized, the factories started to turn out the characters in amazing quantities. I walked by Tall Paul’s office one day and he had a set of MOTU figures on his desk. I picked up Skeletor and noticed on his right cheek there was an orange mark. I asked Paul and he deduced that before the paint master was shipped to the factory, apparently it was moved or some stray color was accidentally added to make that orange mark. So Paul went down and got it fixed, but not before thousands and thousands were produced with that β€œerror.”

This was actually the version I had as a kid. I certainly didn’t see it as an error. When I re-bought Skeletor as an adult, none of the Skeletors looked quite right to me until I found the one with orange cheeks. I remember staring for hours at that face as a kid, memorizing every detail.

Early versions of Skeletor had half-painted boots, which were probably meant to represent shin guards. He also had purple shorts and a black belt. Later versions had fully-painted boots and black shorts (and of course the corrected face paint). The full boot version has traditionally been associated with the black shorts/corrected face, but there are in between versions as well:

Half boots, black shorts, orange cheeks
Half boots, black shorts, corrected cheeks

All of the above have a hit of light blue in the eye sockets as well, which would eventually be cut. Below we see corrected face paint with full boots and black shorts, and no light blue in the eyes:

There are of course all kinds of international production variants as well, withΒ subtle and not-so subtle differences from the initial Taiwan versions.

Gift Sets

Skeletor was sold in a number of configurations, apart from the single-carded figure. I’ll t get into Skeletor variants in future posts (ie, Battle Armor Skeletor, Dragon Blaster Skeletor, etc), but the standard release Skeletor was available in the following gift sets:

  • Skeletor/Panthor
  • Skeletor/Screech
  • Battle For Eternia (Skeletor/Panthor/Man-E-Faces)
  • Evil Warriors (Beast Man/Skeletor/Faker)
  • He-Man/Skeletor (German set)
  • JCPenney Skeletor/Beast Man
  • JCPenney Skeletor/Mer-Man

You can explore what these gift sets looks looked like at the excellent Grayskull Museum site.

Skeletor in Action

A photo and a short video of Skeletor in action, contributed by Øyvind Meisfjord:

Artwork

The box art for the sets featuring Skeletor with Panthor or Screech are particularly good. They capture the same Frazetta feel as Rudy Obrero’s artwork, but with a slightly different flavor. I include the single packaged Panthor art piece as well, because I like the artist’s depiction of Skeletor so much:

The Skeletor/Screech artwork was painted by Rudy Obrero, while the others were likely done by William Garland.

Advertising

Skeletor was featured along with He-Man in this very early live-action commercial:

Minicomic Looks

One of the most memorable depictions of Skeletor in any media was created by Alfredo Alcala, who did the artwork for nine MOTU mini comics, the Power of Point Dread comic book/record set, and the 1982 DC series (he is credited with the inks rather than the artwork for the DC series, but his stylistic influence is evident).

Notice the body and clothing in the above illustration almost exactly match Mark Taylor’s b-sheet (this example is from the first mini comic, He-Man and the Power Sword). The face looks like a creepier, more ghoulish version of the vintage toy, however.

This artwork from The Power of Point Dread (above) is based on the cross sell art, but again the design of the skull face is unique to Alcala.

Sinister Origins

Taylor wasn’t responsible for writing the back story for any of the characters, but he did have one in mind when he created Skeletor:

[Skeletor] is a corrupted super human. His father threw him into the “Pit of Souls” as a youth to eliminate him as a claimant to the throne (Grayskull). Years after, the tribe was completely eliminated by a malevolent witch poisoner (Skeletor’s mother) who then helped him escape from the “Well” but when she saw what it had done to him she went insane and drank her own poison.

His stay in the demonic “Well of Souls” morphed his body and soul forever, before he looked very much like He Man. …. [His] hood is to help hide his glowing eyes and camouflage his distinct silhouette. It is made of the eyelid of a dragon that tried to kill him just after he emerged from the “Well”. [His armor] is made from the hide of an armadillo type monster that dared to defy him, it is tougher than steel.

[Skeletor] is the ultimate bipolar, from quiet malevolent to towering rage. … Not counting the time warp in the “Well of Souls” he is about 317 years old but he doesn’t celebrate birthdays… he never sleeps.

Taylor had no involvement in the production of mini comics, other than seeing them and approving them. The first official origin story (written by Don Glut) gave a simple but effective origin for Skeletor. He was an evil demon from another dimension, bent on stealing the power from within Castle Grayskull, and bringing more of his kind into Eternia. He was apparently brought into Eternia when the “Great Wars” ripped a hole between dimensions.


A dimension full of Skeletors!

Much later in the line, it was hinted that Skeletor was once Keldor, brother to King Randor, but the story was never fleshed out until the 2002 cartoon series.

Animation

Perhaps the most widely-recognizable look for Skeletor came from the Filmation cartoon series. Voiced to perfection by Alan Oppenheimer, Skeletor featured a stripped down, more humanoid design, and more angry-looking eyes than the original toy:

There is a brief reference to Skeletor’s originsΒ in the cartoon. In “The Greatest Adventures of All” VHS release, the Sorceress mentions thatΒ SkeletorΒ is a demon from another dimension, which accords with the Don Glut story. (ThanksΒ to both Jukka Issakainen and DuΕ‘an MitroviΔ‡ for the information.) This idea is even more fleshed out in the December 1982 MOTU Bible, written by Michael Halperin:

A new vitality soared through their veins as they woke their new bodies to the horrid laughter of Infinita’s remaining ruler — the evil, megalomaniacal, power-mad monster, SKELETOR.

Beneath his hood eyes peered at them from the dark sockets of his skull face and his voice rang hollowly from the recesses of his bony jaws. In his hand he grasped the black, ram-headed HAVOC STAFF. He knew they were the minions he needed to break the Space Portal seal so he could invade and conquer Eternia. On the other hand Evil-Lyn, Beast-Man and Tri-Klops recognized Skeletor as their device for wreaking vengeance throughout the universe.

Skeletor led them to his lair beneath the twin peaks of SNAKE MOUNTAIN. Around one of the crags twisted a terrible carved snake. A portal along the snake’s back until it reached the fanged mouth. Entrance here entrapped the incautious stranger for once a person stepped into the snake’s jaws they snapped shut thrusting the trespasser into almost inescapable dungeon.

A footbridge connected one mountain with the other where a blood red waterfall cascaded over crags, past blasted trees and murky swamps. Skeletor’s chamber hid behind BLOOD FALLS and only he knew its entrance, its traps and snares. The lair itself was a dark cavern dripping with venom. In one corner, its eyes blazing red, its tail twitching, sat Skeletor’s pet and charger, the giant cat PANTHOR. Its purple fur glistened as its muscles rippled when it stretched out iron claws from the mighty paws.

Skeletor waved his staff and a charge of energy sprang forth rolling back a huge boulder from one wall uncovering a screen. A wave of his hand and a picture swam into view — a picture of Eternia then that of King Randor and Marlena. At the sight of the former captain, the trio snarled and clenched their fists – and it wasn’t lost on Skeletor.

“I see you feel as I do. You’d like to invade Eternia and conquer it. My reasons are simple enough. Infinita can no longer sustain life.  We need Eternia’s air and food and I intend to take it by force. If you are with me we can accomplish our aim. But before we do we must break through the Space Portal sealed centuries ago against my ancestors. Once that’s done we’ll wipe out that simpering Eternian goodness and our dark powers will reign over all Eternia — over all the universe.”

In the animated commercial for the MOTU toy line produced by Filmation in 1982, Skeletor looked even more menacing than his later appearances in the show, with a more detailed design:

I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface on Skeletor. I could cover all his appearances in the box art, or the different comic book depictions and characterizations, or all the advertising and merchandising related to the character, but this really would turn this blog post into a novella. And maybe that’s what you’d need to really do justice to the evil lord of destruction!

I’ll return to the topic another time when I discuss Skeletor variant figures. Perhaps I’ll also do a separate post just on Skeletor-related box art, with some more detailed pictures of packaging.

Special thanks to Jukka Issakainen and Duőan Mitrović for some corrections and guidance on this topic.

Want to support the blog? Consider becoming a Patreon supporter. You’ll also gain access to exclusive content and early access to posts on the blog. Alternatively, you can do your toy shopping through my Entertainment Earth affiliate link, below. Thank you!

23 thoughts on “Skeletor: Lord of Destruction! (1982)

  1. Hi, “To me the Skeletor/Screech artwork actually looks like a Rudy Obrero piece”, I confirm, this artwork is a Rudy’s one πŸ˜‰ (confirmed by himself), awesome article!

  2. Thanks for such a great article. I never knew about the orange cheeks version. I did a video covering all the variations I have in my current skeletor collection as there are quite a few subtle one. My favorite is the blue eye shadow version.

    Here is a link to the video.

    Cheers

    Toy Polloi

    1. Thanks for the kind words! The orange cheeks variant was my first Skeletor as a kid, but when I got Battle Armor Skeletor I noticed he didn’t have that. I had no idea at the time he was a production error.

      I didn’t want to get too deep into all the Skeletor production variations in this post. It would have turned the post into a book, and taken a lot of additional research. I’m definitely interested to see your video – I’ll take a look this evening.

      Thanks for reading and commenting!

  3. Keep up the good work. I found your blog due to being featured on he-man.org’s homepage.
    Feel free to share more of your opinions and reactions about the figures in your articles when you first played with them.

  4. LOVE this blog…it brings back so many memories. Can’t wait till you get to the Sorceress and Evil-Lyn

    1. Thanks very much, Rui! It probably won’t ever be a book (publishing books based on another company’s intellectual property is tricky), but that would be cool!

  5. I love the Alcala-based Skeletor head that comes with the Demo-Man figure. Very creepy and distinct.
    It’s also interesting to note how the early artwork has informed later versions of Skeletor. The 200X figure seems directly based on the Mark Taylor “D-Man” illustration, while the Classics one comes from the cross-sell artwork. I guess nobody has done a Havok staff with the ram’s head on a string, though!

    1. I’d love to get that version of the Havok staff! I’d also like to see a five-toed version like the Mark Taylor concept (and early Alcala art) released in Classics

  6. Ah… Skeletor. For every great hero, you need a great villain, and to He-Man’s hero, Skeletor is, in many’s opinion, one of the best fantasy villains of all-time.
    From his eerie, more sinister portrayals (the early mythos, some later incarnations) right to his more comedy-based, pantomime villain, there’s no mistaking ol’ skull-face.

    It’s always struck me that, as the line (and even more so with the Filmation cartoon series) was friendlied up for younger children, the actual concept of a man with a face who’s skin has (seemingly) been burnt off or decomposed, to reveal his bare skull, is actually quite dark and I’ve wondered if he came anywhere later in the franchise’s development, if this would have actually got through or not. There was a long-runnng (supposed) urban myth back in the early days of the internet, that in France, episodes of the cartoon series featuring Skeletor were never shown as he was deemed to be too scary. As far as I know, this is nothing but an urban myth.

    Either way, it might be argued that Skeletor is, on appearance alone, just as iconic as He-Man. Everyone, even non-fans, seem to recognise him.

    I can remember buying my Skeletor figure, in 1983. I’d had He-Man for a few weeks or so, and was desperate to have his arch-enemy to engage with in duels (before this, I can remember just playing with He-Man in small ‘temples’ I’d built out of wooden building blocks, sometimes knocking them down with his power-punch). My parents were very big on making me save up for toys, and so save up I did.
    Eventually, I’d saved enough and my mother going into town after school, and excitedly going with her ready to purchase Skeletor. I can remember going into Owen & Owen (a long-defunct UK high street chain), just minutes before 5 p.m. when they were due to close, hurrying upstairs to the toy section, picking Skeletor off of the shelf, and going across the the checkout, putting Skeletor on the counter with a big plastic bag filled with coins, most of them half pennies (which ceased to be tender later in 1983, which shows how long ago it was!) I can remember the girl on the till rolling her eyes as she had to count out the Β£2.99 in all this small change.

    Although my He-Man had been a second wave release, and so had 12 figures featured on the back, with Skeletor his line-up had been modified further to include some latter-second wave additions – Evil Lyn in place of Mer Man, and Faker in place of Zodac. I remember the excitement of thinking how there were new characters being added to this exciting new line, and gazing at the card back for hours over the next few days wondering “who” each one was and which to get next… and my dad pointing to one saying “all they’ve done is painted He-Man blue for that one” on one of them! πŸ˜‰

    I’ve still got my original Skeletor, and in fair condition. Over the last year or two his torso has started to go green, although there’s several useful guides on YouTube on how to correct this. This last week I’ve repaired his legs (with aid of hooks and a band) after they became seperated about a year ago.

    I’ll have to check this, but I’m not sure my Skeletor doesn’t have the ‘orange’ cheeks too, though I’ll have to check this next time I pull him out of storage. I do remember that some later versions, even the pre-hard head version (which never looked as good) had some really sloppy and rushed looking paint jobs, often with far too much green, and also very sloppy detailing on the teeth.

    Skeletor is one of those characters that seems to transcend Masters of the Universe and be recognised and simply “cool” anyway. I remember in the latter days when He-Man had maybe become a little *too* goody-goody, I sometimes rooted for Skeletor to win!! πŸ˜€

    1. One thing I mean to add (oh no, there’s more)… is regarding Skeletor’s havoc staff. On the classic boxart for the figure (itself part based on various earlier sketches), the rear horn (as in, the one nearest Skeletor’s back) curls around to make it look as if the head has a tuft on it’s chin. At least, that’s what I thought as a child. But it seems I wasn’t alone and several artists, who used the art as their basis, also depicted this “chin tuft”. Maybe kinda like He-Man’s sometimes absent missing bracer originating where it was covered by his shield in early design sheets, it seems to have been a “mis-interpreted” little quirk. ….And now I’ll have to think of at least one example! πŸ˜€

  7. Just checking old stuff again (toys), and I compare my two halfs of the Sword of Power… Skeletor’s is stamped ‘Taiwan’, is slighty, but very noticeable LONGER in the blade then He-mans, which is a Malaysia stamped. nothing of major interest but there you go if of any use..

    I might try to take pictures but… i’ll admit skeletor’s sword is a bit… mm.. well, the handle has teeth marks ^_^;

    1. Interesting! I’ve noticed my Mexico Dragon Blaster Skeletor’s sword is shorter than the original Skeletor Taiwan sword as well.

      There is something about the swords that made them an irresistible chew toy for young kids πŸ˜€

  8. Skeletor was the first ‘villain’ figure I got for any toy line, and I have to admit, the toy creeped me out a bit at first, but this was softened by the memorable performance of the Filmation version care of Alan Oppenheimer, to the point where I found myself sympathising with Skeletor for having to deal with his often slow-witted and ineffectual underlings. That Oppenheimer cackle, along with his many insults still bring me to a bemused chuckle upon any viewing.

    Although the action figure spooked me as a child of 4 or 5 (I got him around ’84) looking back, I think the toy achieves a solid balance of being sinister looking without being too terrifying. He was supposed to be menacing and a credible threat to He-Man but probably not scare little kids to death… i think they achieved that nicely in retrospect.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.