The Brazilian Estrela toy company was one of several foreign manufacturers to purchased a license to produce Masters of the Universe Figures. However, the artwork they used on their packaging was slightly different from the artwork that appeared on US packaging (front and back).
My theory is that Estrela purchased the rights to make the toys, but not the rights for the artwork. Maybe it was cheaper to contract the art out locally. Most of the Estrela cross sell art is closely based on the US version, with some slight variations, almost always on the face. They also seem to modify artwork to make it look closer to the actual toy, whenever possible. This is especially evident for their cross sell art for Castle Grayskull, Wind Raider, Teela, Stratos and Ram Man. Note they also remove the orange stripes on Battle Cat’s tail – a feature included on the prototype but not on the vast majority of factory versions.
Estrela cross sell artwork comes courtesy of Jukka Issakainen, originally scanned by Polygonus. US artwork comes from Axel Giménez, Tokyonever, Jukka, StarCrusader, and my own photos and scans.
The artwork for this set comes from Axel Giménez, Tokyonever, Plaid Stallions (for the Monogram Talon Fighter), and my own scans and photos. This is not meant to be exhaustive – it merely represents the variants in US cross-sell art that I am aware of.
Teela
Teela shows up with brown boots and armor in the early 8-back cardbacks, but she can also be found with red armor/boots on some of the early vehicle packaging. It’s possible that this is just a variation in the way the print was set up, but the change may have been deliberate, in order to more accurately reflect the colors of her action figure.
Mer-Man
Mer-Man shows up with blue skin in early 8-back cardbacks, but he can
be found with green skin on much of the vehicle packaging as well as
later figure cardbacks. I believe the change was deliberate, in order to
reflect the skin tone of his action figure. Of course the cross sell
art still looks quite a bit different from the toy, regardless.
Trap Jaw
Trap Jaw’s cross sell art is something of a curiosity. It’s very
common to find a version of it where he is missing not only his jaw but
also his chest armor. On the other hand, only the jawless version
features the skull and crossbones design on his belt. There was actually
a catalog that featured a jawless version of the figure itself, making
me wonder if the art wasn’t based on an incomplete sample, and the
artist wasn’t aware of that fact.
Trap Jaw with missing jaw and chest piece, from the 1983 Consumers Catalog
Evil-Lyn
I found the flesh tone version of Evil-Lyn on the back of Dragon Walker packaging, and the yellow version on Fisto’s cardback. I don’t know for sure whether or not the change was deliberate or a printer artifact, but the flesh tone version recalls the character’s animated appearance.
Zoar
Zoar typically shows up with a two-tone orange color scheme and green
armor on the backs of minicomics. Conversely, he appears in the
toy-accurate orange and blue color scheme with red armor on the back of
vehicle packaging. I believe the version with green armor represents and
early, abandoned color scheme for the figure.
Attak Trak
The Attak Trak variants are the most subtle of this group. The cross sell artwork appears in both orange and red. There are also some orange versions of the toy, although most are red. I believe the earliest releases are orange.
Talon Fighter
The Monogram model kit Talon Fighter looks much different than its Mattel counterpart, and so of course does its cross sell art. The Monogram version represents, I believe, an earlier Mattel design for the toy.
The artwork for this set comes from He-Man.org. As far as I know there was no cross sell art produced for either Tytus or Megator. So, instead I’ve included the front artwork from the packaging, by William George. All four of these figures were released at the tail end of the line, in Europe only.
The artwork for this set comes from Axel Giménez, Jukka Issakainen, The Art of He-Man, MOTU Portugal, and StarCrusader. Unfortunately I don’t have a real piece of cross sell artwork for Twistoid – the artwork used here comes from the card front.
