Accessories | Battle Ram

Jet Sled was one of a few small accessories sold in 1986 to fill a lower price point in the lineup for the year, along with Megalaser and Stilt Stalkers. I don’t personally have a history with any of these accessories, but in my opinion, Jet Sled is the coolest of the three.

Jet Sled was designed by Ted Mayer, who also designed the Battle Ram, Wind Raider, Talon Fighter, and the earliest versions of the Eternia playset. One Ted Mayer concept appears below, which has a somewhat similar look to the Jet Sled. I do not believe that it’s directly related to the Jet Sled.

*Image source: The Power & The Honor Foundation Catalog. Artwork dated Sep 22, 1985*.

The concept below, which shows He-Man riding on a green, shark-themed Jet sled, and carrying another white version of it on his back, looks much closer to the actual vehicle. It dates to July 8, 1984, which means it predates the larger vehicle shown above.

*Image source: The Power & The Honor Foundation Catalog*

The early prototype Jet Sled was white and quite diminutive. The shark theme was been removed from the design, which in many ways makes it seem much less “Masters of the Universe.” Zodac is seen sporting Stratos’ harness in the photo below.

You can see in the cross sell artwork below the final look of the vehicle. It’s been made larger than the prototype, and more sleek looking. It’s been given an orange/red, silver and blue color scheme. It looks similar in overall style to some US military aircraft concepts from the 1960s and 1970s. There are some very subtle “eyes” on the front. The actual toy would also feature some subtle “teeth” which are not visible in the cross sell artwork.

Toy & Packaging

Jet Sled was first advertised in newspapers in July 18, 1986. It saw two separate releases – one as an individual carded accessory/vehicle, and one as more deluxe gift set with He-Man, which included painted packaging artwork. The latter is ultra rare and almost impossible to find.

The Euro card included some artwork on the front of the singled carded vehicle that appears to be by Bruce Timm (thanks to Jukka Issakainen for the correction on the artist):

The vehicle itself came with a new blue chest harness for He-Man, complete with the traditional He-Man cross symbol, which had otherwise at this point been mostly replaced by the stylized “HM” first seen on Battle Armor He-Man. The harness could be used to clip the vehicle onto a figure’s back. The two missiles or jets are supposed to be detachable, although they can be difficult to remove.

One interesting variant is the bootleg Yugo version, which had very different stickers and a much rougher appearance.

The Jet Sled appeared in the 1986 and 1987 MOTU style guides, illustrated by Errol McCarthy, with a brief description of its capabilities:

Comic Appearances

Jet Sled appears in the minicomic story, Rock People to the Rescue. In it we learn the Jet Sled was invented by Man-At-Arms. Mid-way through the story, Skeletor steals it and uses it to attack the heroic warriors. The design in the story looks a bit closer to the original Ted Mayer concept art than the actual toy:

In Enter: Buzz-Saw Hordak King Randor uses the Jet Sled to crash into Hordak (thanks to Beedo Sookcool in the comments for pointing this out):

The Jet Sled appears in the Fall 1987 issues of the US MOTU Magazine. In Rescue King Randor we see it used as a vehicle for the King and for Prince Adam:

Jet Sled appears in the Star Comics story, The Coming of Hordak:

It also appears in issue 27 of the UK MOTU comics, in Attack of the Snakemen:

*Image source: http://www.motucfigures.com/*

Jet Sled makes appearances in several German Ehapa comic issues, both in poster art and within stories:

Other Artwork

The Jet Sled appears in a couple of major posters. We see Sy-Klone riding it in William George’s Eternia poster:

Snout Spout uses the Jet Sled as a water vehicle in this poster by Earl Norem that appeared in MOTU Magazine:

Jet Sled in Action

Øyvind Meisfjord has kindly contributed the following video of Jet Sled in action:

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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 Indianapolis Star, December 9, 1984*

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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MOTU Origins Cork
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Matthias K.

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Battle Ram

Battle Ram

A He-Man Blog

Category: Accessories

Jet Sled: Heroic rocket sled & jetpack (1986)

Toy & Packaging

Comic Appearances

Other Artwork

Jet Sled in Action

Weapons Pak: Arms & armor for your MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE figures (1984)