Name: Stridor Faction: Heroic Warriors Approximate US release date: June 3, 1984
I never owned Stridor as a kid – I only had his evil counterpart, Night Stalker. Both of them were more interesting to look at than they were to play with, having no action features and articulation only in their guns and tails.
Image source: Wishbook
Design & Development
According to Martin Arriola, Stridor was created by Mattel designer Colin Bailey, who also worked on characters like Buzz-Off, Whiplash and Fisto. I’m not aware of any concept art that has surfaced for Stridor, but a hand-painted prototype without decals appears in a 1984 French catalog (below). The tail is shaped differently from the final toy, and the prototype helmet looks rather crude:
Image source: Grayskull Museum
The final toy was given a number of decorative stickers, and changes were made to the tail and helmet:
Stridor cross sell artwork
Production Figure
Stridor in Action
Photos and a short video of Stridor in action, contributed by Øyvind Meisfjord:
Packaging
Stridor was sold individually and in a gift set with Fisto. Both sets feature artwork by, I believe, William Garland, who also did the artwork on the three Panthor boxes.
Stridor box artFisto & Stridor box art
Note that Stridor is described as “Half war horse/half war machine. Stridor carries He-Man to victory!” To me that implies that he was supposed to be some kind of cyborg horse rather than a pure robot.
Comics and Storybooks
Fisto is often associated with Stridor, just as Jitsu is associated with Night Stalker. It’s a rather unique relationship. In general He-Man seems to be given the heroic vehicles and steeds and Skeletor is given their evil counterparts. But Fisto seems to have been popular enough to merit his own steed. That’s certainly the case in one of my favorite mini comics – The Clash of Arms.
In the story, Fisto, riding on Stridor, is ambushed by Clawful, Tri-Klops, Webstor, and Jitsu. He is captured and forced to fight for his life in Skeletor’s arena. He’s successful in beating off Clawful and Jitsu in turn, but Whiplash nearly spells the end for Fisto before He-Man, riding on Stridor, comes in and breaks up the fight. Stridor had apparently escaped, found He-Man, and warned him of Fisto’s plight. (Note: in this story, Stridor has a saddle rather than a bucket seat, and he is ridden like a normal horse.)
Sadly, this is the first and only appearance of Stridor in the minicomics. However, he does make a couple of appearances in Golden stories, including in Secret of the Dragon’s Egg and Teela’s Secret.
Secret of the Dragon’s EggSecret of the Dragon’s EggTeela’s Secret
Stridor also appears on the cover of this 1985 Golden coloring book:
Stridor appears a few times in the 1985 Ladybird annual, having apparently been mass-produced for battle:
Animation
A robotic horse called “Strider” appears in several Filmation He-Man episodes, including “Pawns of the Game Master” and “A Friend in Need”, but it looks nothing like the Mattel toy, and it’s not immediately obvious that there is a connection beyond the name. It’s possible Mattel derived the name for their toy from Filmation’s robot horse, but I don’t know for sure.
The familiar toy-like Stridor appears in “Origin of the Sorceress,” where we learn that Man-At-Arms created the robot horse in his laboratory. Stridor sacrifices himself in order to defeat the evil Morgoth. After he is repaired, He-Man and Man-At-Arms learn that Stridor wants to roam free, and that after his confrontation with Morgoth he had become a living thing. Consequently, they release him into the wild.
Design-wise, Filmation’s Stridor is close to his toy counterpart, except he lacks his red helmet and some of his decorative details.
Other Artwork
Stridor and Fisto were illustrated by Errol McCarthy for use in licensed T-shirts:
Image source: He-Man.org
Stridor also appeared in this 1984 poster by William George:
Stridor also appears in my favorite poster by Earl Norem, which appeared in the inaugural issue of the US Masters of the Universe Magazine:
As limited as Stridor was as a toy, he’s got a terrific design, and his partnership with Fisto lends him a rather unique position within the Masters of the Universe mythos.
Image source: Grayskull Museum
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Name: Grizzlor Faction: Evil Horde Approximate US release date: August 20, 1985
I didn’t own Grizzlor as a kid, but my brother did, and (I got Leech and Mantenna at about the same time). Grizzlor is simultaneously hilarious and creepy, with his wild furry body and his vicious-looking face, like a cross between a Troll doll and mutant bear. With a predominantly brown color scheme, he’s actually one of the least colorful characters in the MOTU universe, but he certainly “pops” in other ways.
Grizzlor seems to have originated at Filmation. Several years back The Power and the Honor Foundation shared an early development image, reportedly created by Curtis Cim. The concept (below) is already quite well developed. Grizzlor wears an early version of the Horde insignia, some extra spikes, and sports five fingers, but otherwise he looks very close to his finished form.
Image source: The Power and Honor Foundation. Shared by Dusan M.
Another piece of Filmation development art for the character shows a look that is much closer to the appearance of the final action figure:
Image: James Eatock/Dark Horse
In another image from The Power and the Honor Foundation, we see Grizzlor in full color as depicted by Ted Mayer. He looks very close to his final toy form, except that he is holding a rather strange-looking ornate weapon. His face is quite a dark black/brown, which is how some versions of the toy were colored, although most were produced in a lighter brown color. In this version he has two visible, prominent fangs, a hallmark of the look of the action figure.
Ted Mayer came up with a couple of somewhat related hairy henchmen concepts, including a mammoth/boar-like character (who has an identical pose to Grizzlor’s concept art) and a quite primitive-looking bear-like creature who, like Grizzlor, had two prominent fangs:
The first of the above two characters is often referred to as the Horde Mammoth by fans. However, Dušan M. pointed out a couple of interesting things about him. One, he isn’t straight Horde – his “Horde” insignia feature’s Skeletor’s face rather than Hordak’s. Another concept drawing by Ted Mayer, a Skeletor/Horde variant, features this same insignia:
The other thing about the Horde Mammoth character is he has no trunk. Other than the tusks, he looks quite like a wild boar. Grizzlor is described as a “wild boar” in the 1987 Style Guide, prompting both of us to wonder if these characters aren’t quite closely connected. The Style Guide is discussed in more detail later in this post.
A late stage Grizzlor prototype appears in Mattel’s 1985 dealer catalog. The prototype matches the look of the final toy, except that it is apparently hand-painted, and the Horde emblem on his chest is yellow:
As mentioned earlier, the most common version of the toy was produced with light brown molded plastic, and there was a rarer, darker version that took after Ted Mayer’s depiction. Both versions came with a green Horde crossbow with its spring-action gimmick. Due to his action feature (if you can call mounds of fur an action feature), he lacked waist articulation.
Grizzlor’s cross sell art depicts the more common version of the figure. Note that Grizzlor’s unique crossbow appears in white here, rather than the final green.
Image courtesy of Axel Giménez
Underneath all that fur Grizzlor had a very plain and flat body:
In the illustration on the back of Grizzlor’s card, he’s shown mid-leap in a surprise attack against Kobra Khan.
Grizzlor was sold in two gift sets with Hordak – one of them a plain JCPenny box, and a more deluxe-looking set that came with a comic book illustrated by Bruce Timm. William George illustrated the scene on the front of the latter box, and the back was done by Bruce Timm:
Grizzlor’s name was trademarked on September 10, 1984. The name itself implies that he’s based on a grizzly bear, although looking I wouldn’t immediately associate him with that based on his face. He’s big and furry, which is I suppose close enough. However, as mentioned earlier, according to the 1987 Style Guide (illustrated by Errol McCarthy) Grizzlor is actually a kind of wild boar-like creature. Again, this brings to mind Ted Mayer’s “Horde Mammoth” character.
Power: Ability to ravage his foes with his wicked claws.
Character Profile: This humanoid boar has two sabretooth-like tusks and a large, shaggy body. He also has sharp, dangerous claws. Grizzlor has the same strength and ferocity of a wild boar, but he is no the greatest in the smarts department. Grizzlor is the prison keeper of The Evil Horde.
In the 1984 She-Ra/Princess of Power Bible, Grizzlor is given two short bios. Again his tusks are mentioned, and he is compared to a boar, but in the second version they are clarified to be more like fangs. In the first bio he’s depicted as a coward, but in the second he’s far more ferocious (thanks to Allison Troy for the copy of the She-Ra bible):
Grizzlor’s final look in the She-Ra cartoon series is somewhat more human-like than his action figure counterpart, and his harness is black rather than yellow, but it’s still a close resemblance. Grizzlor could be a bumbling underling or menacing henchman, depending upon the exigencies of the story, and also oversaw Beast Island. In some ways Grizzlor was the Beast Man to Hordak’s Skeletor.
In the minicomics Grizzlor was generally quite a menacing figure, most especially in the issue that he came packed with: Grizzlor – The Legend Comes Alive! (Illustrated by Bruce Timm.)
Grizzlor also makes appearances in:
Mantenna and the Menace of the Evil Horde
Hordak – The Ruthless Leader’s Revenge
The Treachery of Modulok
The Power of the Evil Horde
Escape from the Slime Pit
The Warrior Machine
Grizzlor also appears in the 1985 Golden story, The Horde, where it’s said that he is the Horde prison guard. Here Grizzlor actually looks very close to Ted Mayer’s depiction of him:
Grizzlor appeared in a number of posters by William George, Earl Norem, Esteban Maroto, and others:
Illustrated by William George
Illustrated by Earl NoremIllustrated by unknown artistIllustrated by Esteban Maroto
Grizzlor of course makes other appearances in a variety of comics and magazines, which is a topic I may explore in a future post.
Image source: Battlegrip
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Rudy Obrero’s Battle Cat packaging illustration was the first piece of box art done for Masters of the Universe, which I think affords it a special place among the myriad of other pieces of ingenious artwork created for this toyline. I would put it in my top three personal favorites (the other two being Castle Grayskull and Battle Ram, with the He-Man and Battle Cat giftset artwork coming in a close fourth). When it comes to MOTU box art, there is a great deal of amazing work to choose from. Rudy’s work is my favorite, but of course I also love the art of the late, great William George.
Rudy Obrero was hired by Mark Taylor to paint Frank Frazetta-like artwork for the fledgling Masters of the Universe toyline, and that feeling is perhaps most evident in the original Battle Cat illustration.
I shared the original scan several months back in another post, but I’ve since done some digital manipulation to remove the most obvious wear marks and the horizontal packaging fold that goes across Battle Cat’s legs. Enjoy!
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Name: Hordak Faction: Evil Horde Approximate US release date: August 20, 1985
For some unfathomable reason, Hordak was the only member of the original 1985 Evil Horde that we didn’t have in the house growing up. My brother had Grizzlor, and I had Leech, Mantenna and Modulok. But what’s a faction without its leader?
Image courtesy of Axel Gimenez
Design & Development
Hordak is the leader of the Evil Horde, which debuted in 1985. According to Roger Sweet, the Hordak character name and the concept of the Evil Horde were created by Dave Capper, Director of Marketing for Boy’s Toys at Mattel. Mattel and Filmation apparently worked in tandem to develop Hordak, going through many iterations of the character before arriving at two final designs. One design would be appear on toy shelves and the other in the She-Ra cartoon (source: The Power and the Honor Foundation Catalog).
Dušan M. put together a nice graphic showing the sequential evolution of Hordak’s design. You can check it out at the Ancient Library of Grayskull Facebook group. I’ll go through each design, following Dušan’s ordering. The Filmation images come from Dark Horse’s Art of He-Man, Dark Horse’s He-Man and She-Ra, Dušan M., and eBay.
In this early concept (below), Hordak, while menacing, has the look of a post-apocalyptic thug, like a He-Man character crossed with something from Mad Max.
In the concept drawing below (by Gerald Forton and Herb Hazelton), Hordak looks much less human, and more menacing, in an alien punk-rocker kind of way. The overlapping plates on his armor give him a bit of an H. R. Giger quality. An early Shadow Weaver concept is included.
This concept below looks quite close to the first one, although it lacks the Horde emblem on the chest.
In this concept image shared by Dušan, Hordak’s costume is starting to come together, although his face still looks relatively human.
The concept below is closer still to the final Hordak design, although he still sports a punk rock row of spikes on his head.
From here we get a couple of divergent looks for Hordak, one from Filmation and one from Mattel. Both of them dropped the one-armed look (although in the Filmation cartoon Hordak could transform his arm into a cannon, and Mattel eventually came out with a Hordak variant with arm attachments).
Both of them had a similar looking, mask-like face, with a bone cowl around the back of his head. Filmation’s Hordak had a blue body suit and symmetrical arm bands. The animated Hordak has a somewhat sharp, mechanical-looking head:
Meanwhile, at Mattel, Ted Mayer took an early Filmation model sheet and tweaked it slightly, adding a red cape (thanks to Dušan M for this information). Ted can’t recall much about Hordak, but he remembered that unlike the other Horde characters, he wasn’t Hordak’s creator, but something Marketing asked him to execute. Hordak was colored gray, black and red – good vampire colors. He was given a bat-shaped shield and a strange organic-looking weapon. He has Horde bat insignias all over his costume, including on the armband on his left arm (the Filmation version had two armbands with no insignia). His head has warty-looking bumps on it and looks organic rather than mechanical.
Image source: Tomart’s Action Figure Digest
Image source: The Power and the Honor Foundation/Dark Horse
The Evil Horde insignia is actually Hordak’s face, with batwings on either side:
Update: Kris Oneida shared some reference Polaroids shown to him by MOTU minicomic colorist Charles “Skip” Simpson. Among them was a blue-skinned Hordak prototype with gold armor. Was this meant to be a Filmation-inspired variant of Hordak? Or perhaps an alternative color shot intended to be the original Hordak release? The armor color looks almost white in one image, but gold in the reverse shot. This may have been the basis for Hordak as he appeared in Grizzlor, the Legend Comes Alive. Thanks to Se Bi for the idea about the comic appearance.
Hordak prototypeHordak prototypeScene from Grizzlor, the Legend Comes Alive
According to Roger Sweet, Hordak’s face was based on a witch doctor’s mask. The “Tiki mask influence” is possible, but given the evolving design with Hordak; it is not the main one. Interestingly, Ted Mayer did another concept that’s even closer to that idea, although this one is unlikely to have anything to do with Hordak:
Here is the hand-painted hardcopy prototype. You can see the bat shield was cast in white:
Image courtesy of Alessio di Marco
Production Figure
The toy was based on Ted Mayer’s final design for the character, although the strange weapon was changed out for a crossbow:
Cross Sell artwork, based on the hardcopy.
An early version of the figure feature red “ribs” on the sides of the armor, and a painted red bat on the back, underneath the cape. The extra paint applications are omitted from subsequent releases, however.
Packaging
In the illustration on the back of the packaging, Hordak and his minions make ready to storm Castle Grayskull. Interestingly, Hordak holds Skeletor‘s staff here:
Other Artwork
Errol McCarthy depicted the character in a number of different contexts (images below are from He-Man.org), including the 1987 Style Guide, which described him this way:
Hordak acquired his power while passing through the plane from Etheria to Eternia. He as since discovered how to retain and refine it.
The 1986 Style Guide describes Hordak this way:
Name: Hordak Group Affiliation: Evil Horde Role: Ruthless leader of The Evil Horde Power: Attack with rotary action weapons. Character Profile: Hordak acquired his power while passing through the plan from Etheria to Eternia. He has since discovered how to retain and refine it. Weapons: Now he has fashioned gruesome weapons such as helicopter-like batswing propellor, 4-pronged “kinetic shield” and 3-headed thunderballs” mace that all attach to his whirling arm. Year of Toy Intro: 1985
The above of course is in reference to the Hurricane Hordak variant. The 1984 She-Ra/Princess of Power leans into Hordak’s ability to transform himself mechanically (images via Allison Troy):
Gift Sets
Hordak was sold in a number of gift sets, including a couple of different sets with Grizzlor, and a Canadian set with Roboto and Sy-Klone. Hordak was also sold in 1986 together with Mantisaur, his insectoid steed.
Update: Interestingly, in the JCPenney catalog, Hordak is shown with a black crossbow, which appears to be the Grizzlor crossbow design. This is in context of the Hordak & Grizzlor gift set. I’m not sure if any Hordak figures were actually released with this black crossbow, but it would be interesting if any showed up. On the front of the JCPenney two-pack, both Hordak and Grizzlor have the same crossbow design, the one that was associated with Grizzlor.
Image source: RM Hart
Comic Depictions
As a toy, Hordak was marketed under the Masters of the Universe brand, despite being the primary villain in Filmation’s She-Ra series. Although Hordak was a constant presence is the She-Ra cartoon, Mattel treated him very differently in their own stories. He only shows up in She-Ra’s first minicomic (The Story of She-Ra). In the Princess of Power minicomic canon, Catra is actually She-Ra’s primary nemesis.
Hordak, meanwhile, is a frequently-appearing villain in He-Man’s minicomics starting in 1985, appearing in the following comics:
Grizzlor – The Legend Comes Alive
Leech – The Master of Power Suction
Mantenna and the Menace of the Evil Horde
Hordak – The Ruthless Leader’s Revenge
The Treachery of Modulok
The Power of the Evil Horde
Escape From the Slime Pit
The Menace of Multi-Bot
The Warrior Machine
The Hordes of Hordak
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Enter… Buzz-Saw Hordak
In Leech’s surreal comic, Hordak and Leech both had the power to grow and shrink at will – which doesn’t seem to follow in any other stories.
Image via the Dark Horse He-Man Minicomics Collection
Animation
In the minicomics cannon, Hordak is generally less well-equipped on Eternia than he is on Etheria, the setting for the She-Ra cartoon series. In Etheria, Hordak’s Fright Zone is a massive industrial nightmare structure, and he has access to legions of troops and vehicles:
In the He-Man cartoon series, the heroes are in power, and the villains are constantly trying to take it from them. The She-Ra cartoon series has it flipped – the Horde has already defeated Etheria, and She-Ra and her allies strive to overthrow Hordak (voiced by George Dicenzo). The Horde is something like the Empire in the Star Wars series.
When Hordak was introduced, he was written in as the former master of Skeletor; Skeletor is said to have betrayed Hordak and set up shop on Eternia. Hordak has the ability not only to transform his arm into a canon, but his entire body into various mechanical devices. He reports to his mysterious brother Horde Prime, who is the supreme commander of the Horde Empire across all its worlds.
Box Art & Poster Appearances
Hordak makes appearances in the following box art:
The Fright Zone
Hordak Grizzlor
Hordak and Mantisaur
Slime Pit
Beam-Blaster & Artilleray
Hordak also appears in several posters by William George, Earl Norem, Esteban Maroto and others. He is variously portrayed in both his Filmation and toy looks:
Other Appearances
Hordak of course appears in a wide variety of published media. Because he’s a primary villain, it’s not practical to try to track his every appearance, but I’ll cover some representative samples here:
Golden, 1985: The Horde
“Day of the Comet” newspaper story
UK MOTU Magazine, Issue 71
As a villain, Hordak is certainly creepy enough, although he doesn’t have the archetypal quality of Skeletor. Skeletor is a symbol for death, and you instantly recognize what he’s about at first sight. Hordak has more of a horror movie creature quality. To me, Hordak is outshone by his even more freakish henchmen, while Skeletor is the most interesting villain in his faction. Still, I would have loved to have had this figure as a kid to lead my shambling band of bizarro Hordesmen.
Hordak in Action
Øyvind Meisfjord has kindly shared the following image as well as a short video of Hordak in action:
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