Author: Adam McCombs

MOTU Classics

MOTU Classics Production Variants

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Pretty much every action figure line will have some amount of production variants. I’ll define that term this way: a variation in the paint or mold of a figure release, either based on a running change to the same figure at the same factory, or differences due to the same figure being produced at different factories. Because the original Masters of the Universe line was so huge, it was produced in many factories all over the world, leading to many hundreds of production variants that fans are still cataloging to this day.

MOTU Classics had far fewer production variants than the 1980s line. For one thing, the production numbers on the Classics line were far fewer than the vintage line, and for the most part Classics figures seem to have been made at the same factory (as far as I can tell) until Super7 took over towards the end of the line and switched to a different factory.

Still, there were some running changes to a single figure’s paint and/or mold in the Classics line. Some of those changes were publicized as improvements and even used in the marketing of the line, while others were subtle and done pretty quietly.

For the purposes of this article, I’m not going to count the Super7 “Ultimates” re-releases of Skeletor, He-Man, Teela, Faker and Ram Man as production variants. There was a huge time gap between the original release and these Ultimates release, they were made by a different company, with different packaging, different accessories, etc. There are other redecorated re-released that I’m not counting either, such as the Toys “R” Us DCU two packs.

There may be other production variants I am not aware of – these are the ones I have cataloged over the years.

He-Man (Dec. 2008)

He-Man was the first figure sculpted for the MOTU Classics line, before it was actually a line. As the 200x NECA Staction line was petering out, Eric Treadaway of the Four Horsemen decided to try a new approach to He-Man. The concept was to take the bulky, muscular proportions of the vintage MOTU figures and augment them with more sculpted detail, painted detail, and articulation. The legs were lengthened to make them look a bit more realistic, and the size was increased to make them feel as big in the hand of a grownup as the original He-Man felt in the hands of a child.

Prototype

The first image below is the first He-Man prototype, which Mattel quietly put on display at a booth at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. Fan reaction was overwhelmingly positive, leading Mattel to greenlight a limited run of figures in this style. The second and third images represent a revised prototype, with a lowered belly button, smoothed over boots, more vivid colors and a few other changes. The final figure would get orange bracers rather than gray. One aspect that stands out is the reddish color around the eyes, which was a feature of the first release MOTU Classics He-Man figure.

Version 1

The Version 1 first release He-Man featured some reddish-brown spray around the eyes, like like the resin prototypes above. Depending on the version you got, this could have been done subtly or sometimes quite dramatically.

The first version had a couple of other idiosyncrasies. Like King Grayskull before him, his shoulders were assembled backwards. I remember back when I first started collecting this line, I had a hard time picking out backwards shoulders, but over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Sadly they were a recurring issue in the MOTU Classics line. This particular figure could also be a bit glossy.

Pictures by The Cult of Vintage

Another idiosyncrasy was in the pelvis – the first release He-Man figure had a wide pelvis piece, giving him a slightly bow-legged appearance. I don’t have a loose version of V1 He-Man to photograph in that way, but I’ll show a close up picture of the difference in the section on Skeletor. The V1 He-Man also had a fairly stiff loincloth.

As I understand it, there were also some early He-Man figures that also had a flesh tone crotch piece, which gave him an unfortunately naked appearance under the loincloth. I don’t have a photo of that, but I heard about it from an old interview with Terry Higuchi, a Mattel designer who worked on the line. I’m not sure if any of these made it into the hands of fans, however.

Version 2

With the Version 2 He-Man, Mattel set about to fix the various issues with Version 1. They discontinued the red airbrushing around the eyes, which many fans didn’t like. They corrected the backwards shoulders, and they also made the pelvis piece narrower. The loincloth was also made more flexible, and he was less glossy. This version came packaged with a “The Original” burst on the packaging.

I should mention that even though there are only two discrete variants of this figure, there are all kinds of random variations on the figure’s face from. Sometimes the hair piece got glued on too high over the head, showing too much forehead (as in the carded example above). Sometimes the eyebrows were painted on too high as well.

Skeletor (Jan. 2009)

Skeletor had quite a few changes from his first release until he was discontinued. I’ll go over each step in his evolution.

Prototype

On the original resin prototype by the Four Horsemen, there was very little green on the face, just a bit on the lower surfaces of the jaw, teeth and cheekbones, as if it were a green light glowing from beneath his face. There was also a wash in the teeth to bring out the detail, and of course you can see paint deco in the eyes and nose. The prototype was shown in an issue of ToyFare Magazine, and in a Matty Collector ad:

Version 1a

The very first Skeletor figures appeared on the standard MOTU Classics card, with no “The Original” burst. The earliest figures had very unique paint on the face, with some light green airbrushing on the forehead and cheekbones, and a bit of very subtle blackwash on the teeth to bring out the details. It’s a very clean look, but this was quickly changed.

In addition to the face paint, other distinguishing features include the open left hand, and a much wider pelvis piece than was on most figures in the line. As mentioned earlier, this wide pelvis was found on the original He-Man release. It was also on the SDCC King Grayskull exclusive, and on some early versions of Faker as well. Early in 2009 this wide pelvis was modified by Mattel to a narrower design, allowing the legs to be a bit closer together.

Version 1b

The next version is much more common than Version 1a. Really the only difference between this and Version 1a is the face paint, which now has a pale green wash on the forehead and low relief areas of the sculpt. This would be the general way of painting the vast majority of the original Skeletor figures in this line. In my opinion this is the best looking paint job for Skeletor. It brings out the highly detailed sculpt (which is mostly lost in Version 1a) without being too green. You can also see the wash on the teeth that was present in the prototype version.

It’s also possible to find kind of an intermediate version of this figure, with a more airbrushed look like V1a, but with paint coverage more like V1b. This one looks good too:

Version 2a

After the original run of Skeletor figures had sold through, Mattel reissued him again. This time the package had a burst on the front saying “The Original.” The idea was to implement a running change and give Skeletor a closed left hand, which would help him dual wield both his Havoc Staff and his sword. They also wanted to improve the face paint on the figure. However, many figures came out in the burst packaging and still had the open left hand. They did, however, have the updated, narrower pelvis. The greenwash on the face was often slightly more irregular, with a slightly darker green paint used. Some of the paint jobs on these reissues are quite messy, but it’s also possible to find some with clean paint or minimalist green paint as well. There is a ton of variation because this paint application was done by hand at the factory.

Version 2b

This final version of Skeletor is the same as Version 2a, but with a closed left hand. The closed left hand was also used with the “toothless” Skeletor that came with the Mo-Larr set, and in the Toys “R” Us set with Lex Luthor, but I would consider those both to be different releases altogether, rather than production variants.

In any case, the closed hand version of Skeletor often had a slightly messy application of the green on his face paint, but it is possible to find more subtle versions. It can vary a lot from figure to figure. I’ve even located a closed hand version with face paint resembling the original prototype figure (images below). Note the very minimal amount of green paint on the forehead.

One of the first figures I bought as an adult collector, back in 2012 or 2013, was a Version 2b:

V1a, V1b, V2a, V2b heads

Stratos (Feb. 2009)

Below is the resin prototype Stratos figure. Note the forward facing “wings,” red belt, and medium gray color:

Resin Stratos prototype

The actual production figure was made with a darker gray body. Also unfortunately the wings were glued down and facing the back of the arms. This was a factory error, as the wings were supposed to rotate freely. You can see the problem in the Matty Collector ad below, where the forearms are posed at an extreme angle to get the wings facing forward. This was possible to fix with some hot water and determination, however.

An early factory version of Stratos got the color scheme of Beast Man’s belt by mistake. While both characters had blue trunks, Beast Man had a gold belt, while Stratos was supposed to have a red belt. A few gold belt Stratos figures slipped out before the mistake was caught. The gold belt version appears on some cardbacks too (V1 Ram Man and V1 Granamyr, for instance). The picture below seems to show an early sample, since the factory version had the wings glued in place, rotated toward the back of the arms.

Here is a comparison picture of the red and gold belt variants, from the excellent MOTUC Figures site:

For comparison, here is a picture of the standard Stratos figure, with the wing problem fixed by me:

Moss Man (March 2010)

The Four Horsemen played with many different options when it came to Moss Man’s flocking. The picture below shows a subtle, short flocking used on a resin prototype.

The actual figure got longer flocking, with bare areas around the joints. There were two well-known variants of Moss Man. Early versions of the figure had flocked ears on both of the included heads. This was a mistake, and it was quickly fixed. But of course anything that is produced in low numbers becomes more collectible, so the flocked ears version is worth a bit more on the secondary market.

Battle Armor Skeletor (March 2011)

The prototype Battle Armor Skeletor was sculpted by Djordje Djokovic, who also shared the images below. The figure was going to have a cleaner, more vintage toy-like face paint, and also bare feet. Fans requested that the figure get purple feet to represent boots, and Mattel made the change.

Pre-Production Sample

There was a pre-production factory sample of the figure that had some differences compared to the version fans got. It had much messier green paint on the face, reminiscent of some of the previous Skeletor faces. It also had black paint on the battle damage lines on the chest armor. That would be changed to silver paint on the production figure.

Version 1

The production Battle Armor Skeletor figure got a toy-ish interpretation of the paint around the teeth, reminiscent of 1980s Skeletor figures. Early versions had a subtle, airbrushed green around the forehead (sometimes very subtle, as shown in the first image) and the sides of the face.

Image source: Pixel Dan

Version 2

Later versions of the figure had hard lines dividing the yellow face from the green painted areas, indicating the use of a paint mask.

He-Ro (July 2009)

He-Ro’s production variants were very much pre-planned and done for the purpose of marketing. He-Ro came with one of three random gem colors: green, red, or purple. Green was the color he was supposed get in the vintage 1980s line.

Also, the version for Sale at San Diego Comic-Con came with an SDCC logo printed on the chest, under He-Ro’s armor:

Faker (Feb. 2009)

The early versions of Faker had the wide pelvis piece found on the first King Grayskull, He-Man and Skeletor figures. Later versions released on the burst packaging had the narrower pelvis piece.

Version 1
Version 2

King Grayskull (July 2008)

King Grayskull prototype

King Grayskull was the first figure released in the line (although He-Man was the first to be sculpted). Released as a con exclusive, he came with a deluxe Castle Grayskull themed box with opening jawbridge and sound effects. The figure itself had the wide pelvis mentioned several times in this article. He also had backwards shoulders. These issues weren’t fixed in the original release. However he was reissued in a new deco and in the standard packaging in 2010, and that version had the fixes. I wouldn’t really call the second version a production variant, given the gap in time and the total revamp to packaging and deco.

However the 2008 King Grayskull did come in a couple of rare variants. Some random boxes came instead with a bronze colored version of the figure, which was meant to represent the statue of the character that appeared in the Mike Young Productions cartoon. There was also a raffle for a very rare transparent blue version of the character, the Spirit of King Grayskull. The “Spirit” version was eventually reissued years later, but with a glow-in-the-dark green deco.

Demo-Man (Dec. 2011)

Demo-Man’s prototype was done in a fairly muted green color. He had a great deal of sculpted and painted detail, and he came with a much loved “Alcala” version of Skeletor’s head as a bonus.

Prototype Demo-Man with bonus prototype “Alcala” Skeletor head

The production figure was done in a much brighter color. However on the old He-Man.org boards it was pointed out that some versions had a bright red tunic, and the others had a dark red tunic.

Photo by T-Man

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0
History

Big Jim and Masters of the Universe

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Way back in 2008, there was a Retro Junk article outlining many of the connections between Big Jim and Masters of the Universe. Overall it was very informative, although there are a few errors in it. Understandable, given more limited information available at the time, compared to today! I thought I would do my own overview of the connection between MOTU and Big Jim, with some updated information. The connections between the two properties are many, and range from subtle to blatant!

Battle Cat & Panthor

It’s well known that Battle Cat was made from recycled tooling from previous Mattel toys. The first release of this sculpt was the Big Jim Tiger, an unarticulated but well-painted and sculpted toy that came with the Big Jim on the Tiger Trail set. Both the tiger figure and its packaging were marked 1976.

The first reuse of this mold came with the Tarzan and Jungle Cat set from 1978. The inner back leg of the cat figure is marked 1978, although it looks like the “8” was made in the tooling by simply creating an extra loop on the 6 from the previous 1976 Tiger.

Below is the proof card for the Tarzan and Jungle Cat set. It bears a 1978 copyright date and a printing date of 1977. The artwork is actually by Mark Taylor, who designed most of the first wave of Masters of the Universe toys. The plants in the illustration were based on some of the plants around Mark’s house!

This set appears in Mattel’s 1978 catalog below:

The earliest Battle Cats are marked 1976 on the inner back leg, just like the Big Jim Tiger. In fact, the earliest version of Battle Cat, which had a striped tail, has almost the exact same painted patterns as the Big Jim Tiger, only with a different color palette. Versions after the first short run didn’t have the striped tail and had a simplified color scheme, but were still marked 1976. Other releases of Battle Cat can be found stamped 1978 and 1982. Panthor figures are usually molded in the same black as the Tarzan Jungle Cat. However, Panthor’s teeth were painted only on the front, unlike the Jungle Cat’s teeth. Some Panthors were molded in green like Battle Cat. In both cases they are covered by purple flocking, which usually obscures the date stamp.

There is a popular graphic going around showing the evolution of these cat figures. However, because it was based on the Retro Junk article, it copies a mistake on the date of Tarzan and Jungle Cat. Years ago, NLogan, the author of the article, reached out to me on Twitter to let me know that he had been wrong about his date for the Jungle Cat, which he originally gave as 1971. My 2015 Battle Cat article had also relied on his information, and so had the incorrect date until he reached out to me. The correct date for the Jungle Cat, as previously mentioned, is 1978.

Zoar & Screeech (1983)

Zoar and Screeech, both released in the fall of 1983, were based on the Big Jim Eagle (1974-1975) figures, which came in a few different paint variations. The Masters of the Universe Zoar and Screech figures reused the mold, but were done in much brighter colors. They were also given removable armor and perches to stand on. These birds were scaled realistically to the 10″ Big Jim line, but in the 5″ MOTU line they were giant birds.

Man-E-Faces (1983)

Man-E-Faces typically gets compared to two Big Jim figures. The first is Zorak (1975), who had a face changing ability. While the action features are similar, the designs of the two figures have nothing in common. You might also notice, the Big Jim figure in the ad below has the same face-changing feature. This feature was also used for the Princess of Power Double Trouble figure.

Image source: Plaid Stallions

Man-E-Faces has also been compared to the Big Jim Vektor figure. If anything, the influence would go in the opposite direction, because Man-E-Faces (1983) was released before Vektor (1985). Vektor seems to have been designed by Errol McCarthy, while Man-E-Faces was designed by Mark Taylor. However, I don’t believe Vektor was intentionally copying Man-E-Faces – instead I think they are both drawing from the look of old fashioned deep sea diver equipment (more explicitly in the case of Vektor).

Image via Lulu Berlu
Man-E-Faces cross sell art (left) and Vektor action figure
Left: Man-E-Faces concept art by Mark Taylor. Right: Vektor/Prof. Obb concept art by Errol McCarthy

Skeletor (1982)

Skeletor is sometimes compared to the Big Jim Captain Drake figure, released in 1977 or 1978. He also had a face changing feature, like Zorak. However, because one of those faces is a skull in a hood, he gets compared to Skeletor. I think both Skeletor and Captain Drake are both drawing on older mythology, pop culture and archetypes, and I wouldn’t really connect the two to each other.

Trap Jaw

Trap Jaw is often compared to the unreleased Big Jim Iron Jaw figure. The Big Jim design had a very similar face and jaw shape to Trap Jaw, and even would have included various mechanical arm attachments. Iron Jaw was supposed to be a part of the Big Jim Spy Series, which went from 1980 to 1982. However Iron Jaw was never released – perhaps because Mattel wanted to take advantage of the concept in the more lucrative Masters of the Universe line. Trap Jaw was released in 1983.

Further cementing the connection between the two characters is his printer’s proof Man-E-Faces cardback (courtesy of Luis Villagomez), which shows Trap Jaw with the name “Iron Jaw.”

Beast Man

Beast Man famously recycles his whip from a Big Jim character named The Whip (1975). An early promo picture for Beast Man actually shows him with his own unique sculpted whip handle. But, perhaps the small handle was considered a choking hazard, and so he was given the larger Big Jim accessory instead.

The Whip
Beast Man
Prototype with smaller whip

The final Beast Man figure was not based on any Big Jim character, but early concept sketches for Beast Man were based on the Big Jim Gorilla, originally released in 1973.

Left: Big Jim Gorilla. Right: Beast Man concept art by Mark Taylor.

Fisto

Fisto has been compared to Boris from the Big Jim Spy Series (1980-1982). Boris had a spring loaded and telescoping fist feature. Fisto had a giant “metal” fist on a spring-loaded arm. Fisto’s arm would swing forward, but the fist didn’t pop out of the arm. I don’t think there’s really a significant connection between these two figures – lots of toys have had punching features, after all.

On the other hand, the 1975 Big Jim Torpedo Fist figure does seem to have some visual cues in common with Fisto:

Jitsu (1984)

Jitsu has been compared to Dr. Steel (1975-1976) from the Big Jim P.A.C.K. line. I think that’s a fair comparison, considering both had metallic chopping hands and a chopping action feature.

Attak Trak, Point Dread & Talon Fighter (1983)

The Big Jim line had two vehicles that had some things in common with the Attak Trak and Talon Fighter from Masters of the Universe. The Big Jim All-Terrain Vehicle had the same track flipping mechanism as the Attak Trak. That mechanism was actually licensed from a third party invention company, and Mattel opted to design two different vehicles around the mechanism. There was also the Space Spy vehicle, which had roughly the same profile as the Talon Fighter, although without the bird theme. It even had the radar dish on top. However, both the Space Spy and the All-Terrain Vehicle seem to have come out in 1983, the same year as Attak Trak and Talon Fighter. Perhaps they were both derived from the same root concepts at the same time.

Image source: Super Shogun Blog

One other connection exists. Errol McCarthy did the sticker art for the All-Terrain Vehicle. It appears that some of the unused art he did for Big Jim ended up on the the MOTU Point Dread cardboard insert. This information and the images below come courtesy of Alessio Di Marco:

Original Sticker sheet design copy for ATV
ATV Stickers
Point Dread insert

Webstor (1984)

While Webstor himself seems to have been based on an earlier Masters of the Universe design by Mark Taylor, later adapted by Roger Sweet, his grappling hook comes straight out of the Big Jim Pirate Boat (1978). The grappling hook was used by Big Jim’s Alpinist Joe (1981).

Gygor (unreleased)

Gygor was a proposed reuse of the Big Jim Gorilla from the Jungle Adventure set (1973). The idea was to cast the gorilla in yellow and give it a black costume and red cape. Another version of Gygor was drawn in red with silver armor and guns.

Image via The Power and the Honor Foundation

Mark Taylor’s “Big Jim He-Man”

This piece was recently put up for auction among a number of concept art illustrations by Mark Taylor. It was called “Big Jim He-Man Variation” on the front, and “He-Man & Horse Int.” on the back. This was apparently an exploration of doing He-Man in the Big Jim scale. This idea never went anywhere, but it’s a striking design. The only visual cues for the traditional He-Man design are the shape of the shield and the colors on the warrior’s costume.

“Good Female” Big Jim concept

Errol McCarthy worked on some Big Jim concepts as the line was winding down. One of them was a female character who had a jet pack, a feathered flight cape, and a pet mechanical falcon. She seems like a cross between the Sorceress and Stratos, both of whom predate McCarthy’s concept here. The similarities are probably coincidental, but I thought it would be worth mentioning.

Left: Sorceress. Right: Stratos.

Changing Outfits

Finally, the other Big Jim theme that was a minor part of MOTU was the concept of characters changing outfits. The early “Fighting Foe-Men” mini comic treatment by Don Glut emphasized the changing of outfits in order to obtain different powers. Below are some examples from the text:

BEAST-MAN — Another native of Eternia’s jungles whose tribe — or pack — has seemingly always been at war with their natural enemies, the human tribe of He-Man. Beast-Man has formidable strength, but it is his ferocity that makes him a natural leader. He has the agility of a gorilla. But when he dons his various costumes, he takes on the powers of other animals — the speed of a gazelle, the charging force of a rhino, etc. Beast-Man, though he despises He-Man’s tribe, yearns to take one or more of its females as a bride. He is totally evil and corrupt. His only redeeming quality is the “love” he bears for his own race, though it is actually more like instinct than any real emotion. His voice is gutteral, almost a growl.

WING-MAN (alternative name: Air-Man) — One of the last of a race of mountain-dwelling beings who have mastered the air. Wing-Man is a denizen of mountain peaks hidden high above Eternia’s clouds. He utilizes a flying craft equipped with various weapons resembling characters of flying creatures — a deafening bird’s cry siren, a hornet’s sting, etc. But he can fly without use of the craft, thanks to a set of foldable wings — including a set of bird’s wings, bat’s wings, insect’s wing, etc. He has a good sense of humor and is a natural practical joker, which makes him bearly [sic] tolerable to such brooding characters as He-Man.

He-Man — A native of Eternia, raised by his jungle-dwelling tribe. He is a mass of muscle, with incredible physical strength and a short-fuse-temper. His prowess got him awarded, by the tribe’s elders, a series of fantastic weapons and costumes which they had found in the ruins of a fortress once occupied by Eternia’s pre-war scientists. The costumes augment his strength, each one giving him a single new power — a forcefield, the increased strength of a Hercules, etc. He-Man loves his people, but he craves excitement and adventure, and so has set off on his own. He does not always fight fair and often resorts to underhanded methods to get the job done.

Big Jim came with an assortment of Action Sets that would transform Big Jim figures into different athletes and adventurers. Of course Barbie also came with many different outfits, as did G.I. Joe.

The “change outfits to change powers” idea didn’t go very far in Masters of the Universe. It’s mentioned in some of the first few comics written by Don Glut, but the idea doesn’t really appear again after that to my knowledge. There were eventually a few spare outfits available for the figures, in the form of the 1984 Weapons Pak and the 1986 Jet Sled and Stilt Stalkers sets. The outfits themselves didn’t give the wearers any special powers, however.

Left: a page from King of Castle Grayskull. Right: a page from Battle in the Clouds

Hopefully this has been helpful in making clearer some of the many connections between Big Jim and He-Man! Because of that connection, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the Big Jim line, even if I missed out on it as a kid.

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6
Evil Mutants

Quakke: Boulder-Busting Bandit (1991)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Quakke is one of my favorite villains from the so-called “New Adventures of He-Man” series, mainly owing to his dynamic design and unusual action feature. Released at the tail end of the line, with a larger body and more cartoonish face, he seems to be drawing from both the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the bulky build of the original Masters of the Universe line.

Design & Development

Quakke was designed by David Wolfram, with the working name of Earthquake. This was also the name he was sold under in Europe.

Concept art by David Wolfram

Below you can see what appears to be the original wax prototype for the figure:

Image via He-Man.org

An early painted prototype is below. You can see at this point he had a red costume and gray or purple skin. His “grabatron meteormace” is a rough mockup:

A while back the Yo Tengo El Poder Facebook page showed a number of pieces of artwork they had found, originally from the Mattel Spain offices, based on original New Adventures concept designs. As you can see, the Quakke artwork below is based on the above prototype design:

Image source: Dani Ramon Abril

As the character was further developed, his costume would be revised to bronze and silver metallics, which were common costume colors in the line. He was given red skin and an even more cartoonish face. His chest armor was sculpted to look like it was split front and back from the force of his earthquake generating power, and he sported a cool-looking seismograph on the front of his chest. His helmet looks constructed out of overlapping scraps of metal. You can see a close to final design for him in his cross sell art. The major difference is he has gloves in the artwork, while the figure would have bare hands.

Quakke cross sell art

Figure & Packaging

Quakke was released on the standard New Adventures card, with artwork on both front and back. The US card provided a pretty good bio for the evil mutant.

Bio:

The Legendary Hard-headed, Bad Tempered, Boulder-Busting Bandit from the meteor pelted dunes of the Denebrian Desert. This carbon-silicon mutant can smash fortress walls and crush the forces of good armed with his grabatron meteormace.

Mission: Skeletor has set Quakke loose on Primus to break-up the Galactic Guardians, shatter their stronghold, and steal the secret of the Vasionic Resonator which shields the planet from outer space attacks.

Battle Equipment: grabatron meteormace & meteor

The figure itself had specialized articulation to help him to hold his mace with both hands, including an unusual ball joint on his left forearm. A lever on the back would cause his arms to raise. You could use this feature to make him raise and lower his mace. The two-piece meteor held in his “grabatron” would split in half when smashed down on the ground. It’s a fun effect, although it probably limits his play to just that one action.

Jetlag He-Man Series

Quakke appeared fairly regularly in The New Adventures of He-Man series as one of Skeletor’s mutant lieutenants. His design was a bit simplified compared to the action figure, as you can see in the stills below from “Sword and Staff.”

In the same episode, Quakke is temporarily strengthened and transformed by the Nordor Crystal, becoming even more powerful than Skeletor:

To my knowledge, Quakke did not appear in any of the various comics in the series, which all tended to show only first and second wave characters.

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The “New Adventures” series doesn’t appear to have been that well advertised, but Quakke does show up in several Mattel catalogs of the era, as well as in some German toy magazines.

MOTU Classics

To date, Quakke has been re-released only once, as a seven-inch figure in the MOTU Classics line. He came out late in the line, when Super7 had taken over production from Mattel. Because he was made in low numbers, he’s quite expensive on the secondary market.

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Mini Comics

The Lost Faker Mini Comic: “Ring of Dreams”

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Danielle Gelehrter recently sent me an unpublished mini comic script by Michael Halperin, called “Ring of Dreams.” It dates to June 16, 1983, meaning that it likely would have been published sometime in 1984. Had it been published, it would have been Faker’s first mini comic appearance. It may have been cancelled because the Faker figure itself was cancelled sometime in 1984, ultimately to be reissued in late 1986.

Story Summary

In the story, Skeletor gives a magic ring to Faker, who gives it as a gift to Queen Marlena. Marlena accepts the gift, thinking it is He-Man giving it to her. [In this story then, Faker must look identical to He-Man.]

That night, the Queen dreams about a monster called the Glabrezu that attacks the gates of the palace. The dream comes true and the monster appears. He-Man and Battle Cat ride out to fight it, but it dissolves into thin air.

Perplexed, He-Man, Teela and Man-At-Arms visit the Sorceress to find out what happened. The Sorceress uses her magic and discovers that Queen Marlena is wearing the Ring of Dreams, made by the dwarves of the mystic mountains. Wearing the ring causes your dreams to come true. Teela mentions that He-Man had given the Queen the ring, which is news to He-Man. From this they determine that it must have been Faker who gave her the ring.

That night, the Queen dreams of a powerless He-Man locked in a cage on Snake Mountain. The dream comes true, and He-Man finds himself a helpless captive of Skeletor and his Evil Warriors. He is unable to bend the bars of the cage.

With He-Man out of the picture, the Evil Warriors attack the palace. Man-At-Arms, Teela and the other heroes try to keep the villains at bay. During the battle, Man-At-Arms rips out Faker’s control panel and pulls out some of his wires.

The Sorceress as Zoar flies to the palace and telepathically tells the sleeping Queen to dream of He-Man’s Power. It works and He-Man regains his strength, allowing him to bend the bars of his cage and join the fight, turning the tide of Battle. During the fight, He-Man breaks Skeletor’s Havoc Staff. The Queen gives the Ring of Dreams to He-Man, who returns it to the Dwarf King.

You can see the scans of the original script below. Click on each image to enlarge. Enjoy!

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