Written by Adam McCombs

Continuing on, here is the last article in my series on US Masters of the Universe gift sets. What is a gift set? It’s any boxed MOTU item containing two or more toys. Some of them, like the He-Man and Battle Cat set, are very well known. Others are much more obscure. Some of these were produced in quite low numbers, and so are very hard to find today.

Unfortunately I don’t have good images for every gift set. In some cases I don’t have any images at all. If you are reading this and are able to contribute better images of any of these sets, please let me know! It’s also possible that there were other gift sets I’m not aware of. If so, please let me know. The nicer images I have tend to come from auction houses like LCG, Heritage and Hakes.

One note on the standard Mattel sets – some of them were reissued in subsequent years, and so they had updated cross sell art on the back to reflect the latest toys. To keep things clean, I’m just going to visually represent the original release for each of these sets

Other articles in this series:

• Gift Sets of MOTU (1982-1983)
• Gift Sets of MOTU (1984)

Mattel MOTU Sets (1985-1986)

Jitsu and Night Stalker (1985)

Approximate release date: 09/18/1985

Hordak and Grizzlor (1985)

Approximate release date: specific date not found.

Battle Armor Skeletor and Land Shark (1985)

Approximate release date: 08/01/1985

Heroic Warriors 3 (1985)

Approximate release date: 08/18/1985

Evil Warriors 3 (1985)

Approximate release date: 08/18/1985

Battle Armor He-Man and Battle Armor Skeletor

Edit: this is one I missed. It’s from the old Grayskull Museum site, reportedly from 1985. There is a catalog scan showing it with US spelling and then a photo of a fan’s set with Canadian/UK spelling. Would love to learn more about this one – I’m not sure if it was actually released in the US or not.

He-Man and Jet Sled (1986)

Approximate release date: specific date not found.

Flying Fists He-Man and Terror Claws Skeletor (1986)

Approximate release date: specific date not found.

Hordak and Mantisaur (1986)

Approximate release date: 11/01/1986

Evil Horde Three Pack

Update: thanks to Faith U. for sharing this image of the planned Evil Horde three pack. It was apparently not released, since to my knowledge no examples of this set have ever turned up. This was a fold out page from Mattel’s 1986 Dealer Catalog:

JCPenney MOTU Sets (1985-1986)

JCPenney offered sets of two figures in a rather plain cardboard box, with uncolored cross sell artwork on the front. Inside the figures were poly bagged, and included all of their accessories and minicomics. I should also add that I believe Montgomery Ward also offered these gift sets, but I’m not sure if there is any difference between them, packaging wise.

Hordak and Grizzlor

Mantenna and Leech

Moss Man and Sy-Klone

Roboto and Mekaneck

Stinkor and Spikor

Two Bad and Tri-Klops

I should also make note of some advertised sets that I’ve never seen packaging pictures of anywhere:

• Stinkor and Moss Man (Montgomery Ward)
• Spikor and Sy-Klone (Montgomery Ward)
• Two Bad and Roboto (Montgomery Ward)
• Zoar and Screeech (Montgomery Ward)
• Evil Horde Four Pack – Hordak, Grizzlor, Leech, Mantenna (Montgomery Ward)

Check out the full series of Gift Sets articles!

• Gift Sets of MOTU
  • Gift Sets of MOTU (1982-1983)  
  • Gift Sets of MOTU (1984) 
  • Gift Sets of MOTU (1985-1986) 
  • Canadian and European Gift Sets 

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