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.
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.
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:
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.
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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Fun article! Thank you!
Though I’m not sure how effective a “sneak attack” would be if there’s A GIANT GLOWING SKULL FLYING TOWARDS YOU. 😉