Month: March 2025

Mondo

Mondo Sky Sled (2025)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Until recently I have avoided collecting any of Mondo’s 1/6 scale Masters of the Universe figures. It’s not because I don’t like the way they look – to the contrary, they look amazing. But like most collectors, I have plenty of things I’m collecting currently and I really didn’t want one more thing competing with that.

That all changed when the Sky Sled was revealed. The Sky Sled is, of course, the front half of the Battle Ram. As anyone who is at all familiar with this site already knows, I am obsessed with the Battle Ram. Even better, it’s the 10th anniversary of Battle Ram Blog and this foot-long Sky Sled just happens to be coming out! It’s fate, right? I imagine Pixel Dan might feel similarly if Mondo were to come out with a Mosquitor figure on the 20th anniversary of his channel.

Initially I thought I might get the Sky Sled but just leave it at that. But of course I wanted to review it for the Battle Ram Blog, and what’s a Sky Sled without He-Man to ride it? Anyone who is a collector of action figures knows this internal dialogue and where it leads.

History

Since this blog is more toy history site and less toy review site, I thought it would be appropriate to dig into the history of the Mondo Sky Sled before getting into the review. So let’s start with Mondo toy designer Emiliano Santalucia.

Emiliano Santalucia

Emiliano is a long-time MOTU historian and a founding member of The Power and the Honor Foundation. As frequent readers of the Battle Ram Blog know, I am constantly referencing the work of the Foundation on this site. Emiliano has worked as an illustrator for Masters of the Universe comics, DVD covers and posters, and he has also done packaging art for the MOTU NECA statues and for Super7. He assisted with design work on the MOTU Classics line, and went on to be a toy designer for Hasbro and recently for his own startup, Formo. He has also been a Mondo designer for the past eight years or so. I recently shot him over some questions and he was kind enough to answer them for me.

Adam: Okay, so I remember back from our Power-Con “MOTU Historians” panel, someone in the audience asked what we would want to see made into toy form. I mentioned I’d love to see a prototype Battle Ram made into a toy. At the time you mentioned that I would probably get to see that, at least the Sky Sled. I think it was at the same time your Sky Sled concept art was being teased by Mondo.

I definitely see some of that prototype in the new Mondo Sky Sled, as well as bits from the vintage vehicle, the box art, and even a little bit of Filmation. Am I reading that accurately? What were your major influences in creating this updated interpretation?

Emiliano: LOL, I didn’t remember that, but judging by the timing, you’re probably right, I had already designed the Sky Sled by the time of the panel. My main influences, other than the original toy of course, where the well known prototype we’ve seen in archival photos (I have a ton of those at home) and in the minicomic drawn by Alfredo Alcala.

Vintage Battle Ram and He-Man prototypes
Alfredo Alcala artwork

But I also looked at the original art by Ted Mayer, from which I took some extra details. From Filmation, I took the idea of the removable panel, as seen in one of the cartoon episodes.

Battle Ram concept art by Ted Mayer
Teela’s Quest episode screenshot

My main goal was to enhance certain detail that got softened up in the original toy to allow for easy molding and demolding. For example, I wanted the front cannon to be able to move and resemble more the prototype. I also wanted to define better the bottom cannons that can be barely made out in the original toy. In addition to that, I tweaked the proportions slightly, making it a little longer, kind of like the box art, but without going too far, so you don’t really notice it, yet it is less clunky and more aerodynamic.

Vintage Battle Ram box art
Mondo Sky Sled Concept art by Emiliano Santalucia, via “Passion4Fun”
Mondo Sky Sled concept art by Emiliano Santalucia, via Toy Habits

Adam: Were there any major roadblocks you faced in the design? For instance I’m sure it’s challenging to design to a price point when there is almost zero parts reuse – other than the heads that came with the Sky Sled.

Emiliano: Fortunately, we had no roadblocks. Mondo didn’t give me a budget or a price point and let me run wild with it. I think the only thing we slightly limited was the amount of color application on the engine under the removable panel, jut to make it less difficult to produce.

Adam: The Sky Sled comes with a lot of bells and whistles, which is expected from Mondo – the removable side panels, the three laser blasts, the jet engine flame effect, and the extra heads for He-Man and Prince Adam. Is there anything you had to leave out that you really wanted to include?

Emiliano: We played with the idea of creating a base that resembled a cloud of smoke, but that was ultimately discarded. But other than that, they added even more parts that I had been requested at the beginning. For example, I didn’t know about the plan for the alternate heads until the Sky Sled was announced.

Adam: What is your personal history with the Sky Sled/Battle Ram? Was it something you had as a child?

Emiliano: I got Battle Ram during Easter holidays, I’m not sure if it was ’83 or ’84 (we were a year behind in Italy). My mom took it out of the box and tried to put it in an Easter Egg made of paper strips. It didn’t really work, but it was sweet. It was probably one of my favorite MOTU vehicles and a staple of all my playing sessions with MOTU figures. I also did a first preliminary design for the MOTU Classics version for the Four Horsemen.

MOTU Classics Battle Ram concept art by Emiliano Santalucia
MOTU Classics Battle Ram concept art by Emiliano Santalucia
MOTU Classics Battle Ram concept art by Emiliano Santalucia

Adam: What other vehicles would you want to design for this line, given the chance?

Emiliano: Of course I’d love to complete the Battle Ram. At that scale, it’s hard to make vehicles without going into prohibitive prices, but if I was given the chance, my main pick would definitely be the Attack Track!

Peer Brauner

I was also able to interview Peer Brauner, who did the original digital sculpt for the Sky Sled. Peer has worked on various brands over the years, including Star Wars, Transformers and Masters.

Adam: What is your personal history with the Sky Sled/Battle Ram? Was it something you had as a child?

Peer: Other than staring and it and crushing my nose on the toy store window, I barely have any. I never had my own. I loved the Battle Ram visually and the box art was amazing. For all the kids in the neighborhood owning one was a huge popularity boost.

Adam: Did you ever expect to be sculpting a Masters vehicle for a 1/6 scale line?

Peer: I was lucky to sculpt Roboto and Kittrina for the classics line and the vinyl Scareglow from Mondo. But I was never expecting to get to sculpt this thing. I am immensely grateful that Mondo gave me the chance to do this.

Kittrina figure
Mondo vinyl Scare Glow

Adam: Can you tell me about your sculpting process on the Sky Sled? I assume everything is done digitally these days.

Peer: Yes the whole process is digital now. It is just so much quicker and cost effective than traditional model making.

First I get the turns (a multi-sided view in parallel perspective) from the client, in this case executed beautifully by Emiliano Santalucia. He is a long time friend and partner in toys and working with him is always a pleasure. His work makes my work easy because he understands volumes in 3D so well and his turns are very precise and true to real life. That takes a lot of guessing out of my modeling process.

I start with laying out the biggest volumes and establish all the main proportions and silhouette.
Then I work my way up to finer and finer details.

Adam: What were the major challenges with this project?

Peer: And this is where stuff can get a bit complicated… let me name two examples.

The dragon head on the side. It was really enjoyable work, but not easy to get right. In the world it is placed in this is a man-made machine right? So someone crafted it. An engineer or blacksmith, forged this piece of figurine/inlay. So it has to look like a “made and stylized” object. Organic, but fabricated. Makes sense? And getting that right took me a bit.

The engine bay. There are not only a lot of objects in there but they also overlap each other.
Getting the setup in there right and arrange everything to fit on the separate layers in depth and into each other got a bit confusing at times.

Adam: Were you happy how it came out in the end?

Peer: I am very happy how it came out, I saw it on display and I can’t wait to get it in hand to give it a close inspection.

Review

Now, on to the review! The Sky Sled ships in quite a large box, with lots of molded foam inside keeping everything safe. The artwork on the front of the packaging was illustrated by Florian Bertmer, and depicts an air battle with He-Man, Tri-Klops and Trap Jaw all piloting Sky Sleds. Buzz-Off is also shown flying in the background. Buzz-Off has already been announced for this line, but Tri-Klops has not. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were be a teaser for an upcoming Tri-Klops figure.

Another panel on the box gives a little bit of a “bio” for the vehicle and credits the design team that worked on it:

The vehicle itself is 8.5 inches tall and 12.5 inches long. It was given a “distressed” paint job, with sculpted nicks and silver paint “wear” from battle, as well as streaks of dark airbrushing indicating heavy use. Every sculpted detail is brought forward with multiple hits of paint, for a movie-realistic look.

One of my favorite accessories for the vehicle is the two-tone translucent exhaust effect that plugs into the jet engine nozzle. Also in the image below, you can see that a “leather” seat has been incorporated into the design. All of the control surfaces are sculpted and have multiple hits of paint.

Taking a closer look at the back, you can see some airbrushing on the jet engine which simulates metal discoloration from the heat of the exhaust:

If you take the Sky Sled off of its included stand, you can check out the detail that’s present on the bottom of the vehicle:

Another fun detail is the handles, which come sculpted with controls for (I assume) firing the cannons and accelerating the vehicle:

The central cannon on the front has the ability to pivot left and right as well as up and down. There is also a yellow transparent “light” piece on the steering column, which was influenced by geometric shapes present on Ted Mayer’s original concept art.

The steering column can turn left and right, and the handles and rotate up and down. The rotating handles are necessary to allow He-Man (or most any other Mondo figure) to hold on while riding it.

One of the most fun features is the removable panel on the left side of the Sky Sled, which reveals the engine parts within.

Here is is the Mondo Sky Sled compared to three others made by Mattel over the years:

Left to right: vintage Sky Sled, Hot Wheels Sky Sled, Mondo Sky Sled, and MOTU Classics Sky Sled

The set also includes two bonus figure heads: one for Prince Adam and one for He-Man. They feature windswept hair and help sell the illusion of speed when either figure is riding the vehicle.

Left to right: windswept Prince Adam head, windswept He-Man head, regular “calm” He-Man head, and regular gritted teeth He-Man head. The two left-most heads are included with the Sky Sled.
Left to right: windswept He-Man head vs regular He-Man head

Speaking of riding the vehicle, let’s check out how He-Man looks when piloting it! In order to really ride it, the handles need to be tilted forward, allowing him to hang on while keeping his feet anchored on the Sky Sled.

That brings me to the final accessories – the Sky Sled comes with three translucent energy blasts that connect to the vehicle’s three cannons. They’re quite long, too long for my little glass case. I love the colors on them though. If you are not keeping your Sky Sled behind glass, I’d recommend not displaying them, really. I can imaging if this were displayed on an open shelf, it might be easy to walk by and catch the energy blast effects with your clothing, causing some immediate heartache.

Now, if you want He-Man to sit on the actual seat, it gets tricky. He can do it, but I haven’t found a way to do so without having his feet dangling under the vehicle. The Mondo male buck has pretty long legs and a limited range of motion at the hips. I wasn’t able to get mine to sit with his feet up, but maybe you’ll have better luck.

Final Thoughts

All in all as a die-hard Battle Ram fan, I’m very pleased with the Mondo Sky Sled. It’s a wonderful tribute to a classic Masters of the Universe vehicle, and it’s a pleasant surprise to see it show up in a 1/6 scale collector line. My example seems to be flawless, so I don’t have any criticisms per se. I suppose it might have been interesting to include a snake head to transform it into the evil War Sled/Doom Buggy version of the vehicle, but then that version was supposed to be green, not blue. Still, the extra figurehead would have made it more versatile for use with both Heroic and Evil Warriors.

Tri-Klops and beast Man piloting Doom Buggies.

My one criticism would really be for the windswept He-Man head, which has somewhat purple lips. They look fine from a few feet away, but up close they look a little odd. Speaking of He-Man, I’d love to see a more rough-looking (ie less handsome) face sculpt for him in this line, more similar to the original 1982 toy, but translated into the highly detailed Mondo style. I’ll get into that when I review my Mondo He-Man figure.

Many thanks to Mondo for sending me this review sample, and thanks to Emiliano and Peer for taking the time to answer my questions. A super big thank you also to Oz and Tommy!

Thank you to the following individuals who are current Patreon supporters or Facebook subscribers!

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Interviews

Interview – Bob Nall – creator of MOTU logo and package designer (2015)

Posted on by Adam McCombs
Mr. Bob Nall

Interview by Jukka Issakainen

Note from Adam: this is a 2015 interview with Bob Nall conducted by Jukka Issakainen. Jukka’s interview inspired me to interview Bob myself several years later. Jukka uncovered quite a lot of great information here, and he asked me to repost it here.

Jukka: Hi Mr. Nall. My name is Jukka Issakainen and I recently discovered your name via Power-Con that you were the person behind “Masters of the Universe” logo, packaging etc.

Bob Nall: Hello Jukka. Yes, it’s true – I did design the Masters logo and was instrumental behind the entire package design line look and am proud to this day.

Jukka: What was your involvement with Mattel?

Bob: I started at Mattel in 1976 as a Sr. Art Director. I designed logos and packages for many brands and settled on Boys items (mostly Hot Wheels). When the product designers developed He-Man (largely designed by Mark Taylor – who worked in the same group) I had the opportunity to look at the retail face of the brand. We looked at many names before coming up with MOTU – it was almost called ‘Lords of Power’ but many thought that was too religious in nature.

Anyway, my career there took me through most of Mattel Brands including Barbie for a while and eventually I ended up as Vice President of Package Design for all Boys Toys and allowed me to influence all packages for Boys.

Jukka: Can you tell more about the work you did? Like with packaging.

Bob: I worked for Mattel for 31 glorious years of creativity and during that time I worked on most of Mattel’s product lines. I left in 2007. The last 15-18 years I mostly worked on Boy’s Toy’s ( Action figures, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Games etc.). I was the primary Designer for the origination of the Masters Packaging Line Look.

I designed the original logo and the first blister cards and commissioned the final artwork. I was promoted to Manager around this time (’81/’82) and subsequently had a significant hand in directing the art through the designers that worked for me.

Jukka: Do you remember (or have in your possession) earlier concepts that didn’t make it into production?

Bob: I did have the original sketches and concepts for the MOTU logo and other candidates titles (Lords of Power) but unfortunately they are long gone I’m afraid.

Jukka: ​If you can’t find any (or they are long gone) old sketches or ideas for the logo or alternative versions. Can you try describing them?

Bob: I can say that they were all very dramatic and heroic looking. I created maybe a dozen or so before settling on the ONE. Normally I would do many more but I got to a solution quickly that everyone loved. My final draft was very tight and was done in prisma colored pencils. The final art was done by John Hamagami and was air brushed. He matched my art exactly and even improved on it a bit.

Jukka: Do you recall more about the process for the logo? What paper you used? How big?

Bob: I don’t recall the paper but my original was approximately 9×12. The final art by Hamagami was approximately 18×24 which included the blue background and exploding rocks.

Jukka: Were there inspiration from logos such as STAR WARS with the perspective-use on the logo?

Bob: This technique has been well established for many years – it inspires “bigger than life”‘” drama. Do you remember Ben-Hur? A 1959 drama. Check it out.

Jukka: Haha. Alright.

Bob: Also it was emanating from the exploding rocks. Seriously – just going for drama.

Jukka: Were you ever approached again to work on the MOTU logo and packaging after your original work was done?

Bob: All packaging that went through the Mattel Product Line was overseen by me and Marketing. I did not participate in licensed items or entertainment – that was handled by the Licensing group but they did follow Packaging’s guidelines. There were other versions of the logo that showed up but they were all based on my original design.

Jukka: I found a pic of the alternative logo of MOTU on the minicomic cover. Can you tell me more about this logo version?

Bob: As you can see, the logos on the left are the original and the one on the right is someone’s (probably a licensor) version.

It mimics the original but is not too good as far as logos go (my opinion). Back in the day, MOTU was taking off and making tons of money so many Mattel entities and others outside of Mattel wanted a piece. These types of anomalies popped up all the time.

But, I will say this – the logo you are questioning definitely followed the original MOTU logo which I created. It may have been rendered that way for a variety of reasons (who knows) but none of which came through my office for approval. As I said, there were many hands in the pot once the brand became successful.

If you may recall my earlier comment – Lords of Power was a runner-up contender for the brand name but MOTU was chosen instead.

Jukka: Did Mattel give you a direction/outline to work from, or were able to come up with the design on your own completely?

Bob: In the early eighties directional outlines were rare. In the case of MOTU I invented the concept from my imagination and my work was positively received by upper management – so we went with it. I did collaborate with Mark Taylor ( primary product designer for the line) on synchronizing package with product.

I was passionate about MOTU. Whenever I design something it means a lot to me. I believe that all designers feel that way. All work that I was involved with at Mattel was an opportunity to improve my surroundings.

Jukka: Do you remember why you decided to go with what you did? For example, using a blue background instead of a black “universe” background?

Bob: Mark Taylor and I agreed to capture the feeling that Frank Frazetta’s fine art posters conveyed. That was the inspiration of the overall look of the art. I chose to present the logo in the blue background so that the packaging would have more presence in the retail environment. Blue is known to have ‘shelf appeal’ for Boy’s products. Black can bring strong emotional appeal but it can tend to recede.

Jukka: Did you make the MOTU packaging designs with the actual figures in mind? (the red and blue)

Bob: Red and Blue are both popular colors for Boy’s products and in my mind they convey strength and vitality. As a basic color palette blue did a good job of conveying ‘good’ and red conveyed ‘evil’ – you can see this in the cross-sell of the items throughout the line.

Jukka: How did you experience the rise (and fall) of the original line?

Bob: Large company’s like Mattel often jump on a success and over produce to the point at which they kill it. Happens every day around the world. It seems that there is a propensity to get more and more until there is no more left. I think we simply over-produced the line until our consumers lost interest. Won’t be the last time.

Jukka: Do you know how the idea for the mini-comics came about?

Bob: The mini comics came about in an attempt to “authenticate” He-Man as a comic action hero. We interviewed many comic artists and started with Alfredo P. Alcala, again in an attempt to hold costs down and get great art.

Alfredo didn’t speak great English and was a bit of a loose cannon at that time – we had to struggle to get the work on deadline but we needed to hold budgets so we put up with his idiosyncrasies – I remember one time he came to our offices to present his work and he was without shoes. A true artist.

He did the whole thing – we provided a storyline and Alfredo laid out the panels, did the pencils, line art and color. It was great for a while but eventually his lack of reliability made us look elsewhere for the comic art.

We next hired Lee Nordling to coordinate the work. Lee managed a few artists that did the various stages of the comic development. The entire process was very time consuming and getting too expensive.

Jukka: Did you decide which artists to use for the painted box arts? Were there artists that you would have wanted to do illustrations but were not available or didn’t happen for other reasons?

Bob: We were trying to emulate the style of Frank Frazetta as we could not afford him. The first item that required an oil painting was He-Man and Battle Cat. That artist was Rudy Obrero.

Rudy ended up doing many pieces for the line over time. Another artist that was used very often was William George. Once we established a style and a working relationship we could then proceed efficiently saving Mattel from paying exorbitant fees. In a company like Mattel where tons of work is outsourced finding value is a top priority.

Bill George became a favorite in the early eighties because of our long standing relationship with him and his ability to quickly meet our needs with great art and a fair price. Bill did most of the box art oil paintings on the accessory items during those prime years. Mattel still has most of those original oil paintings.

Some of the designers that created the box layouts and commissioned the final art were: Harry Garo, Jiro Tomiyama, Joe Mendez and Jim Wolfe. There were others but those guys were the main designers.

Jukka: Did you for example design MODULOK package?

Bob: At the time of Modulok I was the Manager of the Package Design Group that was handling MOTU items. I was instrumental in the design direction along with the Marketing Manager (whose name escapes me) and the Package Designer himself.

Jukka: Were there specific requirements given to artists about the packaging painting? For instance if there was art about Fisto riding the mechanical horse Stridor, was it dictated that which evil warriors would also be in the image. Or did the artists have freedom in choosing?

Bob: William George did most of these and sometimes we would tell him specifically who we wanted in the frame and sometimes he would just add them. At times he had to remove and replace a figure so we usually caught this at the pencil stage.

B&W sketch image courtesy of Musclor.fr.st website

Jukka: Do you have any recollection which artworks the others (Garo, Mendez, etc) did?

Bob: These designers worked in my group – they laid out the packages, they did not do final paintings. Mark Taylor did the original He-Man and Battle Cat package and found and hired Rudy. Harry Garo designed the Skeletor/Panthor package, and William Garland painted final. As the line kept growing there was A LOT of artwork going on with 5 or 6 designers within my group. Jiro Tomiyama did a lot of them and Jim Wolfe managed quite a few projects.

Jukka: Do you remember how the artists who worked on the cardback-arts?

Bob: The main guy that did the cardback art was Errol McCarthy – he did the comic style art and believe me it was beautiful! The cross-sell images were little gouache paintings and I think Bill George did the illustrations.

Jukka: I wanted to ask, who illustrated the 1987 spin-off THE POWERS OF GRAYSKULL logo? And who did the art on that metallic skull?

Bob: As I recall, Jim Wolfe designed the Grayskull logo to stylistically live with the Masters logo. He did not illustrate final art – can’t remember who did. Probably the same artist did both the logo and skull – Jim Wolfe would know.

Jukka: Jumping to the 2002 toyline and its packaging. In them, the back-side had a photo of the figure and its functions. Do you know why they didn’t create art instead?

Bob: Money and time. Every fan would like to believe that MOTU was a work of complete passion and only passion – that simply is not true. Mattel is a business. And like every business it survives on costs vs profits. We had to do our best to keep costs down and the quality very high. We were all passionate about that.

Jukka: What’s your opinion on the later logo and packaging designs? I mean MOTU Commemorative, 200X and MOTU Classics.

Bob: The Commemorative logo (black on black) did come from my group and we believed that it skewed higher-end for the Adult Collector.

Other logo applications were executed to deliver a version of the original and not to be confused with the original. I think they each serve their purpose – so it is not so much a design call but more a strategic application. They are all good. Mine however was the best (of course).

Jukka: If you were to do a new MOTU logo and packaging, what would/might you change? Or would you leave it all as it was back then?

Bob: If I were to design it for today’s market (30 years later) it would no doubt be different. I would be influenced by today’s trends. It would probably be more ‘tech related’ but not necessarily better. Designers are all highly influence by what is going on around them. They all want to be part of what’s happening and they try to put their influence on what is popular. Enhance the current.

​Jukka: Thank you very much!

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Mondo

Mondo 1/6 Scale Skeletor (2024)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Thanks to a deal I got from a good friend, I was able to get my hands on Mondo’s 1/6 scale He-Man and Skeletor recently, in anticipation of doing a review/article about the Mondo Sky Sled. I thought I’d start things off with everyone’s favorite Lord of Destruction, Skeletor.

I got the standard version rather than the more pricey timed edition (which came with accessories to recreate Battle Armor, Dragon Blaster and Terror Claws Skeletor). That was really fine by me, as my favorite look for Skeletor is the 1982 original.

The box (shown on the opening image of this article) features some fantastic artwork by Florian Bertmer, which is referencing a panel from the 1982 Vengeance of Skeletor minicomic, illustrated by Alfredo Alcala.

Inside the box, you get the usual adult collector friendly packaging, with everything protected between layers of clear plastic, and thankfully no rubber bands. For a non-deluxe figure (in Mondo speak, the deluxe versions are called “Timed Edition,” meaning they are available for pre-order for a limited time), it feels quite deluxe. Included are two separate heads, his Havoc Staff, Power Sword, and an axe from his appearance in the Filmation episode, Diamond Ray of Disappearance. He also includes six extra hands. The airbrushing and other paintwork on my example are nearly flawless. The sculpt work is top notch.

The figure was designed by Emiliano Santalucia (his work at The Power and the Honor Foundation is referenced constantly in this blog) and meticulously sculpted by Tommy Hodges. You can see concept art for the deluxe version of the figure in the image below:

Image source: Emiliano Santalucia
The creative team behind the figure

Because of Emiliano’s deep expertise with the history of Masters of the Universe, he incorporates just the right references from the pieces of Skeletor’s long history, starting with the original Mark Taylor concept design, as shown below.

Skeletor, called “De-Man” when first designed, by Mark Taylor. Imaged by Heritage Auctions.

From Mark’s original concept, the Mondo version takes the following elements:

  • Bare feet with five toes
  • Shin guards with bat wing symbols
  • Long baltea skirt with oversized bird emblem at belt
  • The overall shape of the chest harness
  • The shape and scale of the Havoc Staff

Of course, all of these elements are tweaked and enhanced with extra detail, lending them a sense of greater realism. I always think of the Mondo Masters of the Universe designs as “movie-ready” interpretations of these characters. The head (which is a separate piece from the hood) in particular has a horror movie feel to it, while retaining the yellow and green color scheme of the original face.

Skeletor with Havoc Staff

Articulated jaw!

Skeletor’s Power Sword is based on the shape it had in the original four minicomics illustrated by Alfredo Alcala. While I don’t know of any surviving concept art for this sword, it was designed by Mark Taylor, so this is really another Mark Taylor element.

From He-Man and the Power Sword
Skeletor with Havoc Staff and Power Sword.

As mentioned previously, the axe (which wasn’t included with the original 1982 figure) is a reference to the classic He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode, “Diamond Ray of Disappearance.” This was kind of a substitute Havoc Staff, which hadn’t yet been designed for animation (for more on this, see James Eatock’s excellent episode commentary). This is actually a repaint – Mondo’s 2019 version of Skeletor had this as well.

From Diamond Ray of Disappearance
Skeletor with Havoc Staff and axe. Note there is a slight bit of paint slop on the blade of the axe.

There are also a couple of references to the 200x version of Skeletor as designed by the Four Horsemen. One appears around the back of the figure, where there is a spine design on the armor:

Compare that with the 2002 Skeletor figure armor at the same location:

Mondo Skeletor’s removable wrist bracers also appear to be a nod to the 200x figure, although they’ve been tweaked stylistically to fit in with the rest of the Mondo Skeletor figure design.

Mondo Skeletor wrist bracers
200x Skeletor wrist bracer

Now, I was able to get my hands on a loose “Alcala” head from the Timed Edition of the figure. I wasn’t sold on it at first, but once I removed the wrist bracers and gave him He-Man’s version of the Power Sword, I found my personal preferred display option. I wouldn’t have minded just a bit of subtle green spray around the edges of the face, I think that would have made it just a bit more dynamic looking.

From the He-Man and the Power Sword minicomic

Of course, the extra head is kind of just for fun – it’s a very close recreation of the original 1982 head, and not detailed enough at this scale to look right with the figure. This one came with Mondo’s 2019 Skeletor as well.

Note there are a couple of stray black paint lines on this head.

Mondo’s Skeletor figure is one of my all time favorite interpretations of the character. Many thanks to Shawn for making this possible for me!

Thank you to the following individuals who are current Patreon supporters or Facebook subscribers!

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Gift Sets

Canadian and European Gift Sets

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Okay, leaving off from my three part series on US gift sets, it’s time to move on to the Canadian and European gift sets. As a reminder, a gift set is any set of two or more toys sold together in the same packaging. Many US Mattel gift sets were, of course, sold outside of the US in packaging that included non-English text. For this article, I’m only including gift sets that were exclusive to Canada and Europe.

It’s entirely possible that there were other sets released in these countries that I’m not aware of. If you know of any that I didn’t cover, please let me know! Most of the pictures in this series come from Grayskull Museum and are old/low res pictures. If you have better images to share, please let me know!

Canadian Gift Sets

Battle Armor Skeletor, Orko and Battle Armor He-Man

Battle Armor Skeletor, Stinkor and Webstor


Roboto, Hordak and Sy-Klone


Thunder Punch He-Man and Orko

Thunder Punch He-Man and Roboto

Ram Man and Zoar (Consumers Distributing)

Trap Jaw and Screeech (Consumers Distributing)

Battle Armor He-Man and Dragon Walker (Consumers Distributing)

This one appeared in the old Grayskull Museum site, labeled as a Canadian gift set. I would be a bit skeptical of this one, though. There is apparently no mention of Battle Armor He-Man on the packaging, and it would have been easy enough for someone to put the figure in there through the broken cellophane window. In fact, He-Man looks a bit too tall for the packaging.

European Gift Sets

Battle Armour He-Man and Battle Armour Skeletor (UK)

There was supposedly a US version of this set – it was advertised but I don’t know if it was released. In the picture below, the spelling on “Battle Armour” and the absence of French text indicate that it was probably released in the UK.

Grizzlor and Spikor (Austria)


Moss Man and Two Bad (Austria)

Stinkor and Moss Man (Austria)

He-Man and Skeletor with audio cassette

Germany
Germany
France
Netherlands

Check out the full series of Gift Sets articles!

Thank you to the following individuals who are current Patreon supporters or Facebook subscribers!

  • Adam A.
  • Allison T.
  • badtaste®
  • Ben M.
  • Chupakaibra
  • Cory from Make Shape Create
  • Elsmasef – The MotU Channel
  • Eric H.
  • Erik B.
  • Gianluca V.
  • J Man
  • JackieX
  • João S.
  • Jon E.
  • Kris K.
  • Kory C.
  • Lyca
  • Max I.
  • Michael M.
  • Mike G.
  • MotuOriginsCork
  • Nate B.
  • Orion W.
  • Ove K.
  • Øyvind M. (Patreon & Facebook)
  • Philip O.
  • Rich S.
  • Robert B.
  • Scott B.
  • Steven K.
  • Tate W.
  • tupalev

Want to support the blog? Consider becoming a Patreon supporter or Facebook subscriber. You’ll also gain access to exclusive content and early access to posts on the blog. Thank you!

1