Category: Evil Mutants

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.

Advertising

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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Evil Mutants

Nordor: Evil Asteroid Fortress (1990)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

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 Keep
Image 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 view
Rear lower view

Crater 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.

Interior

The reverse of the skull face
Projector – side view
Flogg, Slushhead and Skeletor in Nordor
Skeletor takes a load off
Rotatable panel on the wall
These 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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Evil Mutants

Slushhead: Evil Henchman (1989)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

Slushhead, or Kalamarr as he was known overseas, is one of the most well-known of the Evil Mutant figures in the 1989 He-Man line. In fact he is the only figure from that line (aside from He-Man or Skeletor) to be remade twice in two separate modern lines (MOTU Classics and Masterverse).

Design & Development

Slushhead was designed by David Wolfram, with the original working name of Kalamari. Although I know of no surviving concept art for the figure, the Spanish Mattel corporate office appears to have preserved what looks like drawings of many New Adventures characters that were derived from original concept art. The image below was shared by Dani Ramón Abril on Facebook several years back. It does look similar to the actual figure, but there are some differences. The chest armor has more prominent tech details on it that actually kind of resemble what his backpack would eventually look like. The claws at the end of the mechanical tentacles are smaller than on the final toy, and he carries a trident gun that resembles the weapon that actually came with Hydron (or “Scuba Steve” as I always think of him in my head).

Image via Dani Ramón Abril/Yo Tengo El Poder

A similar concept version of the character appears in full color on some merchandise (journals and folders) that were released in Europe. From the artwork below, it appears that his armor was originally going to be copper colored. Metallic copper was one of David Wolfram’s favorite colors for his character designs.

By the time we see a hard copy/prototype figure, Slushhead has the final design and color scheme all in place, with the exception of his clear helmet. This version has a more rounded top, while the production figure had a more pointed helmet.

Image via Grayskull Museum

And here is the cross sell art for the character, from Mattel’s 2009 SDCC art book:

Cross sell art, based on the hard copy prototype

Figure & Packaging

Slushhead, as far as I know, only appeared as Slushhead in packaging when sold in a two pack with He-Man. On the front of the packaging he actually had the label “Evil Mutant,” because the packaging would be reused for a two pack with He-Man and Skeletor and He-Man and Flogg. On the back of the packaging, he was called out as Slushhead:

Slushhead was sold on a single figure card, but as far as I’m aware in that format he only appears under the name Kalamarr, on a multilingual card.

The first release of the figure actually came with a silver butt. That sounds funny, but some of the mechanical detail on his posterior were painted silver. As was in the case of many MOTU figures like Mer-Man and Tung Lashor, that extra paint was cut to save costs. The version below also has the more rounded helmet. It does seem to be a factory sample rather than a hard copy.

Image source: Battle Armor Dad
Image source: Battle Armor Dad

You can read more about the silver butt variant at the excellent He-Man-NA site.

Slushhead had green skin covered with suction cups and webbed fingers and toes. As mentioned before, his head was covered by a clear helmet that was filled with liquid. I’ve heard before that the liquid used was mineral oil, although I can’t confirm that. In any case, it has held up very well over the years, with no breakdown on the face paint and no yellowing of the clear plastic.

He had a removable backpack with two plug-in mechanical tentacles, which are fragile and tended to break over the years. His weapon is called a “trident laser-axe” on the packaging, although it’s not actually a trident. Perhaps the name was a callback to the weapon he had in his concept art. In any case, he had a spring-loaded chopping feature on his right arm, which allowed him to attack his enemies with the weapon. It worked as a gun when held at one end, and as an axe when held at the other end. The two-in-one weapon was a pretty common theme throughout the New Adventures line.

Bio

A bio for Slushhead was written for the Jetlag He-Man series Bible. In it we learn that he came from the Quagmi Swamp (probably a take on the word quagmire), and wears a helmet filled with swamp water. He’s described as clumsy on land because he is more at home in an aquatic environment.

The bio on the back of his packaging was somewhat similar, although in the packaging he’s described as a moron:

“Evil mutant moron and goon squad member from the Quagmi Swamp on alien planet Denabria! Has suckers on his arms and water on his brain!”

Comic and Cartoon Appearances

As one of the principle characters in the New Adventures of He-Man series, Slushhead made frequent appearances in comics and in the cartoon. I’ll provide an example from each of the major series.

The New Adventures of He-Man (Jetlag)

In The Bride of Slushead, we get a look at Felca, Slushhead’s fiance. After Sagitar saves Felca from being harmed in an accident, Slushhead invites the heroes to his wedding. Skeletor uses the temporary truce to plan an ambush on the heroes. It’s a pretty silly episode. In other episodes he serves as a Mutant Mothership copilot, serving under Flogg.

Slushhead and Felca

Original pencil art from Jetlag. Image found by Dušan Mitrović.

Minicomics

There were only four minicomics made for the 1989 He-Man line. Slushead appears as either a background character or bumbling henchman in them. He shows up in Battle For the Crystal, Skeletor’s Journey (as a comic relief character), and in The Revenge of Skeletor. Images are courtesy of Jukka Issakainen.

From Battle For the Crystal
From Skeletor’s Journey
From The Revenge of Skeletor

1990 UK Annual

The 1990 UK MOTU Annual featured a story called The Drumskalan from the Denebrian Swamp. In the story, Skeletor has a terrified Slushhead (called Kalamarr in the story) lead him to a monster called the Drumskalan so it can be made to attack He-Man.

Images courtesy of Danielle Gelehrter

The same annual features another short bio for Slushhead:

German Bastei Comics

Issue 2 of the German Bastei series features Slushhead as well (images courtesy of Ben Massa):

Ehapa Verlag

Slushhead appeared in many issues of German Ehapa Verlag comic. Here’s an example from issue 6:

Image courtesy of Ben Massa

He-Man Magazine

The German He-Man Magazine used toys instead of illustrations to tell stories, which was kind of charming:

Image via He-Man.org

Magic Boy

Slushead appears in issue 15 of the 1989 Magic Boy series. This is actually the same story as the German Bastei example, only in Italian!

Image courtesy of Danielle Gelehrter

UK He-Man Adventure

We get some Slushhead appearances, in both story and pinup form in issues 19 and 20 of the UK He-Man Adventure Magazine. Issue 20 is the same story I featured in my German Ehapa Verlag example, but in English:

CGI Promo

Slushhead appeared in a computer animated promo for the line. Here is a screenshot courtesy of Skysled:

You can watch the whole promo here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DElT_4hNAAP/

And finally, Slushhead appears in the background of this illustration published in a newspaper promoting an appearance by He-Man characters at Knott’s Berry Farm:

Image source: Tallstar
The original artwork from auction

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Evil Mutants

Doomcopter: Jaw Snapping Helicraft (1991)

Posted on by Adam McCombs

Written by Adam McCombs

In the 1989 “New Adventures” He-Man reboot, the Evil Mutants had the coolest toys. That’s true of the figures, and it’s true of the vehicles and playsets as well. My personal favorite vehicle from this line is the Doomcopter, or Skullcopter as it is known in the European market.

Image source: Battle Armor Dad
Image: Grayskull Museum

Design & Development

Doomcopter was designed by David Wolfram, who did the design work for most of the Evil Mutants. His typical style is evident here – a Gigerian mixture of organic elements and technology, with a heavy dose of body horror and skull imagery.

Doomcopter concept sketch by David Wolfram

In my interview with David, he had this to say about the design:

Lots of Giger influence there. I have this one partial sketch. As you can see on both this product as well as Nordor, the skull motif is an an important design element. I really didn’t do a lot of vehicles. I did an early sketch of a walking tank like vehicle which ended up becoming Terrorclaw and the Shuttle Pod. The vehicles ended up being designed by three different people: Dave McElroy, Steve Fouke, and Miller Johnson. Oh, and the Starship was designed by Terry Choi.

David Wolfram

Vehicle & Packaging

Doomcopter was released in 1991, with a trademark filing date of February 2, 1990. The front of the box features some wonderful artwork by William George, showcasing Disks of Doom Skeletor, Battle Punch He-Man and Tuskador:

The back of the packaging has some interesting information about Doomcopter:

I believe the cross sell art here is largely from Errol McCarthy, but I don’t know for sure.

Doomcopter
Night-strike helicraft

Primary Mission: 1) To transport Skeletor from space base Skuldor to the battlefield, 2) To launch suprise attacks against Guardian forces

Main Base: Space Base Skuldor on planet Denebria’s hollow moon

Battle Specs: 1) Guardian grabbing jaws for hand to mouth combat, 2) Rip-rotor for wrecking guardian strongholds, 3) Skull shield glows in the dark for midnight sneak attacks

The above description gives it a different appellation than the front of the box – it’s the “Night-strike helicraft” rather than the “Jaw snapping helicraft.” It also refers to “Skuldor,” which appears to actually be referring to Nordor. Perhaps Skuldor was an alternative name for it early on that didn’t get corrected on the packaging. Skuldor is also referenced on the packaging for Butthead and Terrortread.

The toy itself is lightweight but very nicely sculpted, with a little blue overspray on the purple body.

Rip-Rotor detail

The skull façade glows in the dark very weakly, and can be a bit hard to capture:

Here is a scan of the instructions, which go over the various features. The snapping jaw was controlled by the lower button, and the higher button would release the flying “Rip-Rotor” once it had been wound up sufficiently. It featured stirrups as well to help keep the figure in place, although it didn’t fit every figure.

Comics & Stories

To my knowledge, Doomcopter never appeared in the various international comic book stories (UK MOTU Magazine, German Ehapa Verlag, Italian Magic Boy, etc.) It did, however, appear in a couple of He-Man magazine issues that featured toy photography with inventive dioramas to tell stories and, of course, sell toys.

1990, Issue 2: Gefahr Für Primus

1991: He-Man News

Jetlag Animated He-Man Series

Doomcopter in the Jetlag New Adventures of He-Man Series is pretty faithful to the toy design. One liberty taken with it is that it has a laser cannon mounted inside the mouth, which Skeletor uses as its primary attack weapon.

From “You’re in the Army Now,” a story involving Adam on trial for allegedly deserting his post and betraying the Galactic Guardians. The story is largely told in flashback. In this particular instance, Doomcopter ends up crashing into the side of a mountain.

From “The Running of the Herd,” where the Evil Mutants ambush the Guardians on the planet Equinos during Sagitar’s people’s ceremonial “running of the herd:”

Because it appeared at the tail end of the New Adventures line, unfortunately there isn’t a ton of media or artwork for this vehicle. Still, it’s a fun design and definitely worth picking up for any New Adventures collector.

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