Written by Adam McCombs
Name: Weapons Pak
Faction: None
Approximate US release date: September 27, 1984
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.
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.
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:
You sometimes see the armor used on Moss Man as well:
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:
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:
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.
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:
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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