Milestones

Five Years of Battle Ram: A He-Man Blog

It’s just over five years now since I started Battle Ram – A He-Man Blog. It’s something that I had rattling around my brain for many months before it crystallized into a blog. My first post in August of 2015 covered my favorite figure – Mer-Man!

What I wanted to do from the outset was tell the story of each toy, from its early concepts to finished toy to its depictions in stories and artwork. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to expand on some of this information in my interviews with Mark Taylor, Rebecca Taylor, Ted Mayer, Rudy Obrero, Martin Arriola and David Wolfram. I also contributed to the Netflix Toys That Made Us episode on Masters of the Universe, and my blog was referenced in How He-Man Mastered the Universe.

Recently I was honored to be able to contribute to an upcoming book from Dark Horse: The Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I worked closely with Dan Eardley (aka Pixel Dan) and Val Staples. My contributions include:

  • Interviews with over a dozen former and current Mattel people who worked on He-Man and She-Ra in its various iterations. Some were taken from the blog, and others are exclusive to the book.
  • An expanded MOTU timeline covering key events and dates for vintage MOTU, She-Ra, New Adventures, 200x, etc.
  • Fun factoids about the vintage line.
  • Figure writeups for about half of the Masters of the Universe Classics section.
  • Copy editing the vintage section.

This was Dan and Val’s baby from conception to completion, and it was an honor to be able to assist.

Many thanks to all the wonderful MOTU fans who have helped contribute to the blog – including Jukka Issakainen (who is taking a more active role in publishing articles now!) Øyvind Meisfjord, John Oswald, Dejan Dimitrovski, Dušan Mitrović, and many others! And thanks as always to everyone for reading.

Good journey!

15 thoughts on “Five Years of Battle Ram: A He-Man Blog

  1. I can’t remember when I found this blog. It was a few years back, but I’ve only recently started to comment. I love this blog. It’s so beautifully done and thoroughly researched, and I always — ALWAYS — learn loads of new things about one of my favourite toy lines with every single post. Sterling work, sir!

    And I’ve got that MOTU toy history book on order. Might try to get the Extra Special Edition, too, if I can swing it.

    1. Thank you Beedo, I really appreciate it! FYI those of us who contributed to the book only get paid based off of the Special Edition sales, if that influences anything.

      Thanks again!

  2. Happy fifth! I’ve been coming by since nearly the beginning, and no matter how much I may know about the development of a given figure, there’s always information that’s new to me. Looking forward to five more!

  3. Each and every blog article has been a joy, always being both a great overview, and – despite being a pretty hardcore vintage MOTU line since the line came out out when I was a boy – often bringing new facts and trivia to the table that I hadn’t realised.

    One of the things I’ve always loved about the line is the designs and the concepts behind them, particularly in the early and pre-line stages, and this has been covered so well in so many great write-ups.

    Here’s to the next five and beyond. Maybe you could mark this anniversary by giving us maybe your personal ten favourite figures and your thoughts on them? 🙂
    BTW – semi-related, but on the main photo on the new book, a vintage toy advertisement with which we’ve all seen quite a lot… only now have I ever realised that Zodac actually has two guns in it – one (identical) in each hands! Fascinating I’m sure!!

    1. Thank you PJ, I always appreciate your comments. That’s a great idea for a post, I’ll do that!

      I actually never noticed the second Zodac gun – it blends so well with the armor!

      Also notice the Castle in the picture – the jawbridge is two-tone light/dark, a characteristic of a friend’s early release castle

      1. Your Top 10 sounds interesting as I’ll be really interested to hear the run-down of your own personal favourites.

        I hadn’t spotted that about the jawbridge, I thought it was just lighting. It’s actually a really good photo, though seems to be by a photographer unfamiliar with the line – it’s a little annoying that He-Man is holding the Grayskull axe and shield instead of his own shield and sword/axe. (Oh and Battle Cat’s helmet isn’t on properly!) 🙂

  4. Fantastic blog this always enjoy reading it. Congrats and I’ll definitely pick up the special edition of the book.

  5. If this book only covered the vintage line I would snap it up in a heartbeat. However, congratulations on your fine contribution.

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