I thought it might be useful to put up some resources that, back in what I might call the golden days of fandom, used to be readily available online. These were all once archived on He-Man.org. I’m creating Imgur links for each book. This is a resource, not an article, so I won’t be providing any commentary here. Enjoy!
Update: I will be adding some She-Ra Golden books as well. Watch this space!
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Recently one of my connections on social media was asking if there was a resource of all of the vintage cardbacks collected somewhere. While most of them are scattered throughout my site, I thought it might be helpful to collect them in one place.
There are lots and lots of cardback variants, both by country and by release order. My objective isn’t to provide every single last variant (and I certainly do not have scans or photos of them all). My objective is to do all the US cardbacks, and any major variants. Major variants would include things like 8-back vs 12 back reissue versions of the earliest cardbacks, or any major updates to the artwork on the scene at the top or the illustrated instructions on the back of the card. I generally won’t provide variants based on different cross sell art featured on the cardback. For example, a 1983 He-Man 12-back would have different cross sell art compared to a 1984 He-Man 12-back. The character selection changed to reflect whatever was new for the year.
Let’s define cardbacks: for my purposes this won’t include the backs of boxes on large items like Castle Grayskull or Battle Ram. You can find those in my previous “Box Art From A-Z” series. This is the back of the individual figures on blister cards, for the most part. I’ll also include the cardbacks of smaller accessories like Jet Sled, since the back of the packaging was in a very similar format to the standard figures. I’ll also include the backs of the Modulok and Multi-Bot packages, for the same reason. I’m not including gift sets with the regular carded figures – I plan to do a separate article about those later.
I’ll sort the cardbacks in chronological release order to the best of my knowledge. Please note, however, that some figures, like He-Man and Skeletor, were released at the same time. From 1986 to 1987, many figures featured artwork on the front of their cards, so I’ll include shots of the front as well.
Photos and scans in this article come from: Hake’s Auctions, Heritage Auctions, LCG Auctions, Star Crusader, eBay, Deimos and KMKA.
One other quick note: Mosquitor, Ninjor, Scare Glow, Snake Face, Clamp Champ and King Randor were all released late in 1986, but I’m including them here as they are generally grouped with the 1987 wave.
Mosquitor
5-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1191
As with the other Evil Horde members, Mosquitor’s cardback features only Evil Horde faction toys in the cross sell artwork.
The front of the card featured artwork by Bruce Timm:
Ninjor
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3069
Ninjor continues the trend of placing Snake Men cross sell art in a green scaly background box.
The front of the card features artwork by Bruce Timm:
Scare Glow
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3072
The front of the card featured artwork by Bruce Timm:
Image via Jukka Issakainen
Snake Face
9-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1967
The front of the card features artwork by Bruce Timm:
Clamp Champ
12-back action scene art: unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3073
The front of the card featured artwork by Bruce Timm:
King Randor
12-back action scene art: unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3068
The front of the card featured artwork by Bruce Timm:
Image courtesy of Jukka Issakainen
Blast Attak
8-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1710
Blast Attak featured only 8 cross sell art characters on the back of his card. Artwork on the front of the card is by Bruce Timm:
Image via Jukka Issakainen
Sorceress
8-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1787
Sorceress featured only 8 cross sell art characters on the back of her card. Artwork on the front of the card is by Bruce Timm:
Image courtesy of Jukka Issakainen
Sssqueeze
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1417
Artwork on the front of the card is by Bruce Timm:
Buzz-Saw Hordak
8-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1732
Artwork on the front of the card is by Bruce Timm:
Image via Jukka Issakainen
Blade
11-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3295
Blade and other movie figures had a “To Be Featured In The He-Man Movie!” box for movie-based cross sell art on the back. Artwork on the front is by Bruce Timm: I hope to eventually get a better quality image for this cardback.
Gwildor
10-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3294
Apologies for the low-quality image. I hope to find a better one. Artwork on the front is by Bruce Timm:
Saurod
11-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3670
Artwork on the front is by Bruce Timm:
Rotar
11-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3024
Rotar was released on a deluxe-style card, and features Bruce Timm artwork on the front.
Twistoid
11-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 3024
Twistoid was released on a deluxe-style card, and features Bruce Timm artwork on the front.
Update: I thought it might be a good idea to include also Eldor and He-Ro, who were planned for 1987, but not released. We do have replicas of their cardbacks in the form of the 2019 Super7 recreations, and we also have the original card art for Eldor.
Eldor
4-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 1759
The Eldor cardback featured only cross sell art for Powers of Grayskull toys. The front of the card was a total redesign for the Powers of Grayskull subline.
Super7 cardback recreationOriginal vintage cardbackOriginal vintage card front
He-Ro
4-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: Unknown
The He-Ro cardback featured only cross sell art for Powers of Grayskull toys. The front of the card was a total redesign for the Powers of Grayskull subline.
Thank you to the following individuals who are current Patreon supporters!
Recently one of my connections on social media was asking if there was a resource of all of the vintage cardbacks collected somewhere. While most of them are scattered throughout my site, I thought it might be helpful to collect them in one place.
There are lots and lots of cardback variants, both by country and by release order. My objective isn’t to provide every single last variant (and I certainly do not have scans or photos of them all). My objective is to do all the US cardbacks, and any major variants. Major variants would include things like 8-back vs 12 back reissue versions of the earliest cardbacks, or any major updates to the artwork on the scene at the top or the illustrated instructions on the back of the card. I generally won’t provide variants based on different cross sell art featured on the cardback. For example, a 1983 He-Man 12-back would have different cross sell art compared to a 1984 He-Man 12-back. The character selection changed to reflect whatever was new for the year.
Let’s define cardbacks: for my purposes this won’t include the backs of boxes on large items like Castle Grayskull or Battle Ram. You can find those in my previous “Box Art From A-Z” series. This is the back of the individual figures on blister cards, for the most part. I’ll also include the cardbacks of smaller accessories like Jet Sled, since the back of the packaging was in a very similar format to the standard figures. I’ll also include the backs of the Modulok and Multi-Bot packages, for the same reason. I’m not including gift sets with the regular carded figures – I plan to do a separate article about those later.
I’ll sort the cardbacks in chronological release order to the best of my knowledge. Please note, however, that some figures, like He-Man and Skeletor, were released at the same time. From 1986 to 1987, many figures featured artwork on the front of their cards, so I’ll include shots of the front as well.
Photos and scans in this article come from: Hake’s Auctions, Heritage Auctions, LCG Auctions, Star Crusader, eBay, Deimos and KMKA. Special thanks to Abraham Flores for providing the scans for the Flying Fists He-Man and Hurricane Hordak cardbacks.
Rokkon
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 9863
Rokkon has two major variants to both the front and back of his card. Upon the initial release of the figure, he was called the “young heroic battling boulder.” However Mattel quickly changed him to a comet warrior, possibly to coincide with the appearance of Haley’s Comet at the time. On the back the text over the Errol McCarthy artwork was changed from “boulder” to “meteor.”
The artwork on the front of the first release had an image by, I believe, Errol McCarthy. That was changed in the second edition to a new illustration by William George.
Stonedar
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 9862
Rokkon has two major variants to both the front and back of his card. Upon the initial release of the figure, he was called the “heroic leader of the rock people.” However Mattel quickly changed him to a comet warrior, possibly to coincide with the appearance of Haley’s Comet at the time. On the back the text over the Errol McCarthy artwork was changed from “boulder” to “meteor.”
The artwork on the front of the first release had an image by, I believe, Errol McCarthy. That was changed in the second edition to a new illustration by William George.
Flying Fists He-Man
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 9695
Flying Fists He-Man was released on an extra-large, deluxe card. As with the previous year’s Thunder Punch He-Man, the instructional panels are right below the artwork, and then the 12 characters in cross sell art are squeezed in at the bottom. The artwork at the front of the card is by William George.
Image courtesy of Abraham Flores
Terror Claws Skeletor
12-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 9696
Terror Claws Skeletor was released on an extra-large, deluxe card. As with the previous year’s Dragon Blaster Skeletor, the instructional panels are right below the artwork, and then the 12 characters in cross sell art are squeezed in at the bottom. The artwork at the front of the card is by William George.
Dragstor
5-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2313
Dragstor shows a change in the cardback design – instead of showing 12 pieces of cardback art, it instead features only five, focusing on Evil Horde characters only.
King Hiss
3-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2420
King Hiss’ carback is pretty unique, in that it features a multi-panel comic scene at the top, by an unknown artist. Below that we see a paragraph telling a bit about the origins of the Snake Men. Only three pieces of cross sell art are shown, all depicting Snake Men characters, including Kobra Khan, who was retconned into the faction. This limitation on cross sell art would apply to all Snake Men released in 1986.
Rattlor
3-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2036
Tung Lashor
3-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2331
Jet Sled
7-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2084
Unfortunately I don’t have a good quality image of the cardback for Jet Sled. If I locat a better one I will update this post. The general layout of the cardback follows those of the deluxe figures – action scene on top, six instructional panels below that, and small cross sell art below that. Unlike most cardbacks, this features 7 rather than 12 piece of cross sell art.
Megalaser
7-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2083
Unfortunately I don’t have a good quality image of the cardback for Megalaser. If I located a better one I will update this post. The general layout of the cardback follows those of the deluxe figures – action scene on top, six instructional panels below that, and small cross sell art below that. Unlike most cardbacks, this features 7 rather than 12 piece of cross sell art.
Stilt Stalkers
7-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2082
The general layout of the cardback follows those of the deluxe figures – action scene on top, six instructional panels below that, and small cross sell art below that. Unlike most cardbacks, this features 7 rather than 12 piece of cross sell art.
Snout Spout
11-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2083
Snout Spout’s card features only 11 pieces of cross sell artwork, with a special section for the Snake Men.
Hurricane Hordak
6-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2083
Unfortunately my cardback image for Hurricane Hordak is subpar. I hope to find a better one to replace it. Hurrican Hordak was released on an extra-large, deluxe card. As with Terror Claws Skeletor, the instructional panels are right below the artwork. We get cross sell artwork for four figures, as well as the two Evil Horde playsets. The artwork at the front of the card is by William George.
Image courtesy of Abraham Flores
Meteorbs
12-back action scene art: None Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: Various
Meteorbs came on unique, smaller cards. They omitted any action scene artwork on the back in favor of transformation instructions. They included cross sell art for each of the 10 Meteorb characters, including: Cometroid, Ty-Grrr, Astro Lion, Comet Cat, Tuskor, Dinosorb, Crocobite, Rhinorb, Orbear, and Gore-Illa. They all include an illustration of the the included character on the front; I believe the artist was William George.
Multi-Bot
Action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2312
As with Modulok, Multi-Bot was released in a box rather than on a card, but the back of the box looks a lot like a figure card in layout and design. No cross sell artwork is included, only a depiction of “Mega-Monster” (sometimes called Megabeast), a mix of parts between Modulok and Multi-Bot.
Extendar
10-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2797
Extendar’s card features only 10 pieces of cross sell art. For the first time we see the Snake Men cross sell art delineated with a scaly green background, a trend that would continue into 1987 cardbacks as well.
Rio Blast
9-back action scene art: Errol McCarthy Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2792
Image source: Mundo Masters
Horde Trooper
5-back action scene art: Unknown Cross sell artwork: William George SKU Number: 2549
Horde Trooper features cross sell art of Evil Horde characters, as well as the Slime Pit and Monstroid toys.
At this point I will note that quite a few of the 1987 “wave” of figures were released ahead of schedule, in late 1986. These include Mosquitor, Ninjor, Scare Glow, Snake Face, Clamp Champ and King Randor. I wonder if they weren’t rushed out early as part of the scheme to increase year-end bonuses for senior Mattel executives that famously ended the Masters of the Universe line, due to over-shipping at retail. In any case, I’ll include those in the 1987 Cardbacks article, as this one is already quite long due to the number of SKUs released in 1986.
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Weapons Pak was released in the fall of 1984 as the first low-cost accessory item in the MOTU line, made up entirely of existing parts, but released primarily using alternative colors. I think I may have run into the yellow Beast Man accessories at some point in my childhood, but otherwise I wasn’t really aware of them until I became a collector later in life.
The earliest newspaper ad I could find for the set appeared on September 27, 1984. I’ve never located any copyright or trademark filings for the set – I’m sure it was less of a priority than actual characters and vehicles.
Dayton Daily News, September 27, 1984The Indianapolis Star, December 9, 1984
The Weapons Pak was included on a standard card, with six small small blisters containing the various accessories. The back of the card featured 12 pieces of cross sell artwork:
The Weapons Pak was featured in the lower left corner on the page below in the 1984 Mattel catalog. The weapons appear to be painted rather than molded in these colors – I’m sure they were painted mockups.
Image source: He-Man.org
Interestingly, all of the chosen accessories, minus the whip (recycled from the Big Jim line), were designed by Mark Taylor, who had left Mattel in 1982, just after He-Man launched.
The weapons in the pack were divided up into six categories, and included the following:
Shoulder Armor: Beast Man shoulder armor in yellow
2 “Laser” Guns: Zodac pistol in black Man-E-Faces pistol
6 Hand Weapons He-Man sword in blue He-Man axe in blue Castle Grayskull rifle in gray Castle Grayskull axe in gray Castle Grayskull mace in gray Castle Grayskull sword in gray
Shield & Whip Beast Man whip Castle Grayskull shield in gray
Body Armor Zodac armor in black Beast Man armor in yellow
The Beast Man armor could be used on most MOTU figures, but it’s very common to see it on loose Beast Man figures, used as a replacement for the original red armor:
Image via eBay
You sometimes see the armor used on Moss Man as well:
Image via eBay
The Man-E-Faces pistol is nearly the same color as the original gun, and so works as a direct replacement for it. The black Zodac pistol and armor are often used as replacements for Zodac’s original red armor:
Image via eBay
For a while it was fashionable for owners of Savage He-Man to kit him out with the black Zodac armor as well, but from the contemporary description we have of that figure, he originally came without any armor at all, and a random selection of a couple of the bonus Man-E-Faces weapons, which themselves were recolored versions of the Castle Grayskull weapons:
Image source: Final Frontier Toys
The Beast Man whip was the same color as the original, and so worked as a direct replacement. The gray Grayskull weapons and the blue He-Man axe and sword were pretty multi-purpose, and could be used by any character.
Image via eBayImage via eBay
Incidentally, here is Mark Taylor’s original B-Sheet for the weapons rack from Castle Grayskull. This one came with a Grayskull Con exclusive print that was released several years back:
Image source: Jukka Issakainen
Top Toys produced its own version of the Weapons Pak, but with a different selection of accessories that tended to use the original toy colors, or colors from “toy versions” of the Grayskull weapons, such as Clawful’s green version of the Grayskull mace, and Webstor’s orange version of the Grayskull rifle. It also substitutes He-Man’s armor and shield for Zodac’s armor and the Grayskull shield:
The European multi-lingual version stuck to the original assortment of accessories:
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