Continuing on, here is the last article in my series on US Masters of the Universe gift sets. What is a gift set? It’s any boxed MOTU item containing two or more toys. Some of them, like the He-Man and Battle Cat set, are very well known. Others are much more obscure. Some of these were produced in quite low numbers, and so are very hard to find today.
Unfortunately I don’t have good images for every gift set. In some cases I don’t have any images at all. If you are reading this and are able to contribute better images of any of these sets, please let me know! It’s also possible that there were other gift sets I’m not aware of. If so, please let me know. The nicer images I have tend to come from auction houses like LCG, Heritage and Hakes.
One note on the standard Mattel sets – some of them were reissued in subsequent years, and so they had updated cross sell art on the back to reflect the latest toys. To keep things clean, I’m just going to visually represent the original release for each of these sets
Approximate release date: specific date not found.
Artwork by William GeorgeTop illustration by Bruce Timm
Battle Armor Skeletor and Land Shark (1985)
Approximate release date: 08/01/1985
Artwork by William George
Heroic Warriors 3 (1985)
Approximate release date: 08/18/1985
Note the prototype colors on the Mekaneck instructional illustration!
Evil Warriors 3 (1985)
Approximate release date: 08/18/1985
Battle Armor He-Man and Battle Armor Skeletor
Edit: this is one I missed. It’s from the old Grayskull Museum site, reportedly from 1985. There is a catalog scan showing it with US spelling and then a photo of a fan’s set with Canadian/UK spelling. Would love to learn more about this one – I’m not sure if it was actually released in the US or not.
He-Man and Jet Sled (1986)
Approximate release date: specific date not found.
If you have a better image to share, let me know! I don’t have an image of the reverse side. This is one of the rarest gift sets.Image via Tomart’s Action Figure Digest
Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor (1986)
Approximate release date: specific date not found.
Artist unknown.
Hordak and Mantisaur (1986)
Approximate release date: 11/01/1986
Image source: Buzz Saw Hordak. If you have a better image to share (especially of a US version), please let me know. I don’t have an image of the reverse side. This is one of the rarest gift sets.Artwork by Joe Chiodo.
Evil Horde Three Pack
Update: thanks to Faith U. for sharing this image of the planned Evil Horde three pack. It was apparently not released, since to my knowledge no examples of this set have ever turned up. This was a fold out page from Mattel’s 1986 Dealer Catalog:
JCPenney MOTU Sets (1985-1986)
JCPenney offered sets of two figures in a rather plain cardboard box, with uncolored cross sell artwork on the front. Inside the figures were poly bagged, and included all of their accessories and minicomics. I should also add that I believe Montgomery Ward also offered these gift sets, but I’m not sure if there is any difference between them, packaging wise.
Hordak and Grizzlor
Mantenna and Leech
Please let me know if you have a better image of this, preferably a neutral shot of just the box front
Moss Man and Sy-Klone
Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
Roboto and Mekaneck
Stinkor and Spikor
Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
Two Bad and Tri-Klops
Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
I should also make note of some advertised sets that I’ve never seen packaging pictures of anywhere:
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There used to be an excellent resource for MOTU Gift Sets at Grayskull Museum. Sadly that website is no longer available (you can see the archived Gift Sets page here). I think it’s valuable to have a guide to the gift sets, so I’ll be putting out a series of posts covering them all, starting with the US versions. I’ll address Canadian and European sets in separate posts. This article is the second in the series. Update: apparently Grayskull Museum has been archived at a mirror site! However, I will also be covering some sets not listed at Grayskull Museum.
What is a gift set? It’s any boxed MOTU item containing two or more toys. Some of them, like the He-Man and Battle Cat set, are very well known. Others are much more obscure. Some of these were produced in quite low numbers, and so are very hard to find today.
Unfortunately I don’t have good images for every gift set. In some cases I don’t have any images at all. If you are reading this and are able to contribute better images of any of these sets, please let me know! It’s also possible that there were other gift sets I’m not aware of. If so, please let me know. The nicer images I have tend to come from auction houses like LCG, Heritage and Hakes.
One note on the standard Mattel sets – some of them were reissued in subsequent years, and so they had updated cross sell art on the back to reflect the latest toys. To keep things clean, I’m just going to visually represent the original release for each of these sets
Approximate release date: unknown, sometime in 1984
Artwork by William Garland. The artwork here is the same as the original 1983 set, which had the original Skeletor rather than the Battle Armor variant.
Battle Armor He-Man and Road Ripper
Approximate release date: 11/05/1984
Artwork by William George
Battle Armor Skeletor and Screeech (1984)
Approximate release date: 10/03/1984
Artwork by William Garland? I’m less sure about this one.
Fisto and Stridor (1984)
Approximate release date: 09/04/1984
Artwork by William Garland
Heroic Warriors 2 (1984)
Approximate release date: 09/23/1984
Evil Warriors 2 (1984)
Approximate release date: 09/23/1984
JCPenney MOTU Sets
JCPenney offered sets of two figures in a rather plain cardboard box, with uncolored cross sell artwork on the front. Inside the figures were poly bagged, and included all of their accessories and minicomics. I should also add that I believe Montgomery Ward also offered these gift sets, but I’m not sure if there is any difference between them, packaging wise.
Mekaneck and Ram Man
Please let me know if you have a better version of this image
Buzz-Off and Fisto
Image via eBay. Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
Jitsu and Clawful
Image via eBay. Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
Kobra Khan and Whiplash
Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
Prince Adam and Orko
Man-E-Faces and Battle Armor He-Man
Webstor and Battle Armor Skeletor
Image via Grayskull Museum. Please let me know if you have a better picture of this set!
I should also make note of some advertised sets that I’ve never seen packaging pictures of anywhere:
Webstor and Jitsu (Montgomery Ward)
Battle Armor He-Man and Kobra Khan (Montgomery Ward)
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Max I.
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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!
There used to be an excellent resource for MOTU Gift Sets at Grayskull Museum. Sadly that website is no longer available (you can see the archived Gift Sets page here). I think it’s valuable to have a guide to the gift sets, so I’ll be putting out a series of posts covering them all, starting with the US versions. I’ll address Canadian and European sets in separate posts. Update: apparently Grayskull Museum has been archived at a mirror site! However, I will also be covering some sets not listed at Grayskull Museum.
What is a gift set? It’s any boxed MOTU item containing two or more toys. Some of them, like the He-Man and Battle Cat set, are very well known. Others are much more obscure. Some of these were produced in quite low numbers, and so are very hard to find today.
Unfortunately I don’t have good images for every gift set. In some cases I don’t have any images at all. If you are reading this and are able to contribute better images of any of these sets, please let me know! It’s also possible that there were other gift sets I’m not aware of. If so, please let me know. The nicer images I have tend to come from auction houses like LCG, Heritage and Hakes.
One note on the standard Mattel sets – some of them were reissued in subsequent years, and so they had updated cross sell art on the back to reflect the latest toys. To keep things clean, I’m just going to visually represent the original release for each of these sets.
Mattel MOTU Sets (1982-1983)
He-Man and Battle Cat (1982)
Approximate release date: 07/02/1982
Box art by Rudy Obrero
He-Man and Wind Raider (1982)
Approximate release date: 08/08/1982
Box art by Rudy Obrero
Skeletor and Panthor (1983)
Approximate release date: 09/02/1983
Box art by William Garland
Battle For Eternia 1 (1983)
Approximate release date: unknown, sometime in 1983
Note: unfortunately I don’t have an image of the reverse of version 1 of this gift set. Box art by William Garland.
Teela and Zoar (1983)
Approximate release date: 11/02/1983
Box art based on Rudy Obrero’s work
Skeletor and Screeech (1983)
Approximate release date: 10/21/1983
Box art by Rudy Obrero
Heroic Warriors 1 (1983)
Approximate release date: 08/14/1983
Evil Warriors 1 (1983)
Approximate release date: 08/14/1983
JCPenney MOTU Sets
JCPenney offered sets of two figures in a rather plain cardboard box, with uncolored cross sell artwork on the front. Inside the figures were poly bagged, and included all of their accessories and minicomics. I should also add that I believe Montgomery Ward also offered these gift sets, but I’m not sure if there is any difference between them, packaging wise.
He-Man and Teela
Man-At-Arms and Stratos
Image via Grayskull Museum. Please reach out to me if you have a better image to share!
Skeletor and Beast Man
Image via Grayskull Museum. Please reach out if you have a better image to share!
Skeletor and Mer-Man
Image via Grayskull Museum. Please reach out if you have a better image to share!
Man-E-Faces and Faker
I should also make note of some advertised sets that I’ve never seen pictures of anywhere. I’m not sure if they were all made, but someone on Facebook mentioned to me that they remembered getting the Beast Man and Stratos set.
Stratos and Beast Man (advertised as “Winged sky baron and his savage henchman!” by JCPenney)
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Nordor is one of the most unique and interesting playsets ever created, in my opinion. I never encountered it as a child, but I’ve been fascinated with it since I first saw it as an adult.
Design & Development
When I interviewed former Mattel designer David Wolfram, he gave me some good background information about Nordor:
A lot of projects had nicknames. Nordor’s was the “Galactic Gallstone.” The original model was conceived of and sold in by Dave McElroy. It was up to me to make it happen. I wasn’t in love with the projector, but that was what was sold in initially.
The interior parts went together pretty well. The exterior sculpting was a different matter. The sculptor assigned to the project was much more suited to preschool toys and smooth dolls heads. Fortunately for me, the project was being sculpted in hard clay, rather than wax. No matter how much direction that I gave him, he just couldn’t get beyond mushy. Finally right before the date it was to be turned over to engineering for casting, Martin Arriola suggested the I should take matters in my own hands. So, right before it was set to go, I came in on the weekend, stole it out of his office, and spent at least one day adding fissures and other details. It’s funny, but nobody from sculpting ever said a thing. If you look on the bottom side, you can see some cracks that look suspiciously like the letters “DW”.
David Wolfram
Okay, so a lot to unpack there. Let’s start with the original Dave McElroy concept he mentioned. That concept, called the “Evil Spheroid” appears in The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog, as shown below:
Dated May 9, 1988
The Evil Spheroid, dated May 9, 1988 was basically an asteroid base that folds out into a playset, although it lacked the skull motif on the final version. It also seemed to lack any visual reference to the projector feature, but David mentions it was already a sold-in feature of the toy once it got to him.
Once McElroy’s idea was approved, Wolfram was tasked with bringing it to life. Unfortunately I don’t have his concept art for the exterior, just the interior. This was shared by The Power and the Honor Foundation in the 2015 Dark Horse book, The Art of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. In does include the skull theme, visible from the interior side, and an updated throne for Skeletor in the quintessential Wolfram style. Also included is the projector concept. His artwork dates to September 21, 1988, just four months after McElroy’s concept drawing.
Nordor concept, by David Wolfram
In a 1989 German magazine called He-Man Die Neue Dimension, we do get a look at a casting of that rather plain-looking prototype that Wolfram mentioned. The interior is spruced up by the platforms (probably carved from wood) and decals, but the exterior is sadly lacking in detail.
Image courtesy of Ben Massa/Orko’s KeepImage courtesy of Ben Massa/Orko’s Keep. Note the very crude mockup of the throne.
Here’s the prototype in a 1989 French catalog, this time including a white projector and some dark blue or gray cannons. This version also appears to have a much narrower walkway and a gold skull on the throne.
In the corner you can see a crude skull drawing being projected by the prototype projector:
Image courtesy of Alessio Di Marco
You can see the finalized, much more detailed sculpt in this 1990 French catalog below. It also shows the projector feature at work.
Image via Grayskull Museum
Toy & Packaging
I’ve heard before that William George did a lot of the front-facing packaging art for the New Adventures line. I’m not sure if he did the artwork for Nordor, but it is quite nicely done. The packaging images below were taken from an eBay auction:
This appears to be an early sample or final prototype with very minimal purple overspray. Nordor cross sell art
Exterior
On the exterior of the playset, you can really see all of the sculpted details added by Wolfram – a collection of cracks, craters, mechanical parts and other details. It’s quite a striking looking playset. To me it’s the Castle Grayskull of the New Adventures line. I guess Skeletor had to go into the future in order to get a skull-faced fortress!
Note: in the original playset there is a copper colored plastic piece that’s used to keep the playset closed when in asteroid form. My Nordor is missing that piece, so I am keeping it closed with a twist tie from a loaf of bread! Rear viewRear lower viewCrater closeup. Can you spot David Wolfram’s initials?I’ve outlined what I think are David Wolfram’s initials in red.
Interior
The playset interior isn’t quite as striking as the exterior, but it’s still cool and a great way to display your figures. My example was missing some of its decals, so I ordered a replacement set off of eBay.
InteriorThe reverse of the skull faceProjector – side viewFlogg, Slushhead and Skeletor in NordorSkeletor takes a load offRotatablepanel on the wallThese were the original copper colored pieces that came with the playset – two cannons, two cannon clips, decorative skull for the throne, and the connector piece that holds the playset closed. Image comes from an eBay auction.
Unfortunately my projector doesn’t work, I believe due to a burned out lightbulb, so I wasn’t able to capture a picture of it in action. However, Cory Howard got a shot of it on his playset, which he graciously shared for this article:
Nordor came with two film strips for use with the projector. I scanned both of them so you can see what’s on them: illustrated action scenes of the characters.
It’s definitely an unusual choice for a playset feature. I believe the point of it is to think of it as some kind of surveillance monitor that Skeletor (or whoever is onboard) uses to keep tabs on his enemies and on battles going on in various locations.
Nordor in Animation
In the New Adventures of He-Man animated series, Nordor was a moon, rather than an asteroid. This version of it actually had its roots in a brainstorming session with David Wolfram and Mark DiCamillo. In my interview with David, he said: “Oddly enough, one original that I did hang onto, probably since it wasn’t product-related, was the drawing I did defining the New Adventures world. Mark DiCamillo and I sat down for a few hours brainstorming, and then I drew this up, which was sent to the writers and animators for the show.”
Illustration by David Wolfram
This directly influenced the look of Nordor moon in the animated series. In the cartoon show, Nordor actually originated from Primus. It had been a piece of ground removed from the planet because it had become infected by an evil crystal. After being blasted into space, it went into orbit around Denebria. When shown in episodes it was usually just lunar terrain, but in intros and establishing shots there were some paintings of the entire moon:
However, in the episode “Queen’s Gambit,” Skeletor’s villains carve out a small Nordor-shaped meteor from the moon, attach rockets to it, and launch it toward the planet Primus. This was closer conceptually to the Nordor asteroid playset than was the moon in the series.
Comic Appearances
Wolfram’s drawing also influenced the minicomics created for the toyline. As seen below, Nordor is the moon of Denebria.
From The New Adventure, illustrated by Errol McCarthy
1990 Annual
The moon Nordor is featured in the 1990 He-Man Annual in a story called Inside the Evil Moon. It tells the story of how Skeletor crash-landed on Nordor and discovered its power. He also establishes himself as master over the Evil Mutants:
German Ehapa Verlag He-Man Magazine
The prototype Nordor playset appears illustrated on the cover of issue 6 of Ehapa Verlag He-Man, 1989:
Image: He-man.org
It also appears in a pinup in issue 7, 1989:
Note: these images also appear in the UK He-Man Adventure magazine, issue 20!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at Nordor, both as a playset and as a location in the various New Adventures stories!
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