It’s often the case that when I write about a toy on my blog, I become much more interested in it the process of my research. That certainly happened when I covered Laser Light Skeletor (designed by David Wolfram). For several years I’d had some interest in the figure simmering in the back of my brain, but finally writing about it brought matters to a full boil.
The problem is, of course, that Laser Light Skeletor was only released in Europe, and in limited quantities. A vintage example, even a beat up one without accessories, is far outside of my price range. Enter Barbarossa Custom Creations.
If you’ve ever purchased a custom action figure from any customizer/builder, you know they’re not cheap. That’s just a factor of economies of scale. It’s considerably more difficult for one person to create one figure at a time than it is for a fully equipped factory (with steel molds, paint masks, etc.) to pump out one figure among tens of thousands. It’s even more difficult with a complex toy like Laser Light Skeletor, with its extensive paint applications, stitched cloth cape/hood, and internal electronics. Even accounting for all those factors, Barbarossa’s version still costs only a small fraction of the price of a vintage example, making it my best option for acquiring my own Laser Light figure without having to take out some kind of loan.
The Barbarossa version of the figure seems to be patterned after the Spanish release of Laser Light Skeletor, with its shorter cape and bolder colors. The figure comes standard with the original translucent havoc staff (in a slightly orangey shade, like the Spanish release), along with a somewhat simplified, translucent cast of Saurod’s gun:
A set of additional accessories are also available upon request, for $25 more:
Original Skeletor Havoc Staff, minus the ball the the bottom, in translucent red/orange:
A mashup of Laser Power He-Man’s sword with Spikor’s wrist cuff, with added handle, in translucent red/orange:
Skeletor power sword (with modified handle to allow him to hold it), in translucent red/orange:
He-Man battle axe, in translucent red/orange:
The plastic material has a good, realistic feel to it, and the figure stands without any issues. He retains his original ball and pivot joints in the legs. It probably would have been easier to have fashioned the legs with the older-style rubber connectors, and I appreciate the extra step here to keep the original joints.
The light-up mechanism has been modified. Instead of raising his right arm to activate it, there is a green push-button on/off switch on the figure’s backpack. The pack fits a bit loosely in its chamber – I’m not sure if that’s a result of the modification, or if the original was like that. As a result, it’s helpful to hold the pack steady while you push the button. The circuit runs on a button cell battery rather than the AA used in the vintage figure. I would imagine the reduced weight in the back also makes the figure easier to stand up.
The details on the body and head are nice and crisp – this is a good cast of the original figure, and the paint work is sharp too. The copper metallic paint has black base coat, which I think adds a bit of realism to the look.
Laser Light Skeletor is certainly a departure from the more traditional Skeletors produced by Mattel. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who love the design, Barbarossa’s offering is a great way to get your hands on a credible-looking replica at a price that makes it more realistically attainable for many (but certainly not all) collectors.
With the original release half boot Skeletor (Design by Mark Taylor), released in 1982. With the Masters of the Universe Classics Laser Light Skeletor (2015) With Battle Blade Skeletor (1992), also designed by David Wolfram With “New Adventures” Skeletor, Disks of Doom Skeletor and Battle Blade Skeletor. All designed by David Wolfram or based off of designs by David Wolfram.
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Name: Laser-Light Skeletor Faction: Evil Warriors Approximate US release date: None – released in Europe in 1988
Laser-Light Skeletor, released in Italy and Spain a year after the end of the Masters of the Universe toyline in the US, was a figure most North American fans were not aware of until they discovered it online years later. That was certainly true for me. Because the figure was produced in limited numbers overseas, it’s one of the most expensive vintage He-Man toys to acquire today. (Update: I’m also informed that there was some distribution of Laser-Light Skeletor in Switzerland. Thanks to Olmo for the information.)
I’m not someone who owns a lot of high-dollar items, but if I was going to own one, this would be it. I can’t fully explain why that is – my tastes tend to gravitate toward the aesthetics of the earlier MOTU figures. But there is something about Laser-Light Skeletor in all his creepy, funky techno-glory that really draws me in.
The earliest known concept art for the figure comes from Dave Wolfram, who also did a lot of work on the New Adventures of He-Man toyline. (That line is actually just called “He-Man”, but it’s common to refer to it as “New Adventures”, after the accompanying 1990 animated series)
In this artwork, dated June 22, 1987, Wolfram incorporates all kinds of wires and mechanisms into “Bio-Mechazoid Skeletor.” The design is quite similar to the final Laser-Light Skeletor, except he lacks his cape, glowing right hand, and glowing staff. He carries a strange claw weapon that might have been intended to work like a pair of pliers.
Image Source: Power and Honor Foundation
Wolfram created another piece of concept art that reflects a closer-to-final design, including the staff, right hand, cape and battery pack:
Image courtesy of David Wolfram
Wolfram’s style is pretty distinctive, reflecting a kind of brutal futurist design that would come to dominate the New Adventures of He-Man toyline’s look, especially in the villain faction. Laser-Light Skeletor technically belongs in the original Masters of the Universe toyline, but he is clearly a giant step in the direction of the New Adventures.
An early, rough prototype of the figure appears in a 1988 French Catalog. It looks like a quickly thrown together proof of concept type figure, built from a standard Skeletor toy, but with gloves, trunks and boots painted brown/copper. He also has some crude armor laid over his chest, as well as a cloth cape and hood ever his sculpted hood. The light feature has been incorporated into his eyes (quite effectively) and hand. His staff is built from the original release staff, but with a snake-like head and in translucent red.
Image source: Grayskull Museum
Image source: La Cueva del Terror
A closer to final version of the figure appears in the Italian advertisement below. This prototype has a yellow belt buckle, a “Y” shape in red on his forehead, and a translucent red casting of the original Skeletor havoc staff, with the disk designs removed. This prototype uses all newly sculpted pieces, other than the staff.
A closer look at the image of Skeletor (this time from the cover of Magic Boy magazine) reveals that the face on this prototype appears to be wider than the final design, although it could just be an illusion caused by the paintjob:
The cross sell artwork for the figure seems to be based on a further refined design for the figure, which is almost like the final toy, but still features a not-quite final staff and finer paint work on the right boot:
Image via Jukka Issakainen
The final figure lost the “Y” on the forehead and the colored belt buckle, and has further modifications to the staff design. The figure has quite an extreme “squat” pose, reminiscent of some of the knock-off He-Man figures produced earlier in the 1980s. He has a creepy, stylized, almost alien-looking skull face (loose figure images below via eBay):
Laser Power Skeletor rides Tyrantisaurus. Image source: La Cueva del TerrorThe laser figures on Beam Blaster and Artilleray. Image source: La Cueva del Terror
Designer Dave Wolfram provided me with some background information about the look and origin of the figure:
While MOTU was tanking domestically, it was still going strong Internationally, which was a year behind in the product cycle. This was done to have something new for that market. LISA (the light transmitting plastic) was a fairly new ‘shiny toy’ for the designers at the time, so that was the hook for that segment. I think Martin did the final He-Man design… I did the design for Skeletor. My working name was Bio-Mechazoid Skeletor, and it was inspired by influences like Giger, and the Gibson novel, Neuromancer. Sadly, like many of our products of the time, engineering dictated what we had to design around, and in this case it was a huge battery box. Try as we might to design around it, it made the torso oversized, so to compensate, we had to give the legs a little more bend, leading to our new working name: “Take a Dump Skeletor”.
Unlike every previous version of Skeletor before him, Laser-Light Skeletor had a removable hood. This variant had some extensive wiring around the back of his head – a feature he shares with the New Adventures Skeletor:
Image source: Jimmy_Ikon/He-Man.org
Skeletor’s LED eyes and right hand could be activated by raising the figure’s right arm. The light from his hand was meant to also illuminate his translucent staff, although the effect diminished quickly the further it got away from the the light source
The figure was produced in Spain and Italy. Spanish versions typically came with a minicomic-sized catalog, and the Italian versions came without the catalog. I’ve heard of the figure coming packaged with a copy of the Powers of Grayskull minicomic, but I haven’t seen an example.
Spanish release with catalog. Italian release without catalog. Image source: Hake’s Americana Italian cardback. Image source: He-Man.org Laser-Light Skeletor artwork from the front of the card (by William George). Like the cross sell artwork, this features a havoc staff that is close to the original 1982 design, minus the ball end and the disks near the top. Image source: Jukka Issakainen (scanned and cleaned up)
Some figures came with belts painted gold on the front, and red on the back:
Image source: Wespenmann/He-Man.org
The catalog that came packed with the figure featured both of the light-up variants.
Image source: He-Man.org
Image source: He-Man.org
A nice poster featuring a photo the figure was included in the Yugoslav edition of the Masters of the Universe Star Comics:
Because Laser-Light Skeletor came at the very tail end of the line, he was never featured in any vintage minicomics or other stories, sadly. I suppose we can imagine that his tale might have been very similar to Skeletor as depicted in the New Adventures series of minicomics:
Update: the French Club Maitres de l’Univers magazine published a comic featuring early concept versions of Laser Power He-Man and Laser-Light Skeletor, alongside characters whose figures were released in 1987 (images are from Nathalie NHT):
Aidan in the comments below provides some fascinating background information (by way of Emiliano Santalucia) about the intent behind the creation of Laser Light Skeletor and Laser Power He-Man. I’m quoting his comments verbatim here:
A little-known fact about Laser Light Skeletor and Laser Power He-Man is that they were designed to be the lead figures for a brand new interactive toy line that would be accompanied by a live action TV series. The intention was that the figures and weapons would be able to interact with the episodes of the TV show. It’s unclear as yet how far into production the live action series got, but props and sets were designed for it and from the limited information available it appears it was going to be space-based and very sci-fi, with He-Man and Skeletor battling for possession of some sort of glowing crystals that were the source of the laser power of their weapons. Vehicles and playsets were designed for the toy line, but for reasons unknown, the plans for this line were scrapped around 1988. As the Laser figures had been made, they were given a limited release in Europe as part of the regular MOTU line, similar to what had been done with the giants and dinosaurs from the unreleased Powers of Grayskull line. Later, Mattel used the space-based idea for the ‘He-Man’ line better known as the New Adventures, while the idea for an interactive toy line accompanied by a live action show was used for Mattel’s line Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
I hope more information about the interactive toy line and the live action series comes to light as it’s one of the most intriguing chapters in MOTU’s history particularly as so little is known about it. There’s even been rumors that the pilot episode was actually made but never screened, though these rumors are unsubstantiated.
Update: for more information on the live-action TV show, see this interview with Mark DiCamillo.
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Masters of the Universe, for all its diversity and creativity, was quite an economical toyline, creatively (and sometimes uncreatively) using and reusing the same molds over and over again throughout its run. Sometimes this was done fairly invisibly, and other times it was as plain as the nose on Faker‘s face.
In this series I’ll be cataloging the reuse of existing molds, in context of what is known and what is likely about which figures were created in what order. For example, He-Man’s prototype was almost certainly finished before Man-At-Arms, so Man-At-Arms reused He-Man’s legs, rather than vice versa. I’ll also include parts that were reused from other toylines.
Sometimes existing parts were modified for use in new toys. For example, Beast Man’s chest seems to have been based on He-Man’s chest sculpt, albeit with a great deal of hair added to it. This didn’t save money on tooling, but it did save some time and effort for the sculptor. I’ll point this out whenever I see it. Whenever a modified part is used again, however, I’ll refer to it as belonging to the toy that used it first (for example, Stratos and Zodac reuse Beast Man’s chest).
I won’t comment on “invisible” parts, such as neck pegs or waist springs that are normally not seen.
First, the toys from 1988 that had (at the time) all new parts. For fun, I’m including unproduced toys as well.
Tytus
Image Source: He-Man.org
Megator
Image Source: He-Man.org
Laser Power He-man
“Ambush” Playset (unproduced)
Image Source: Grayskull Museum
These 1988 designs reused some existing parts:
Laser Power He-Man (Spanish version)
Laser Light Skeletor
There were at least six additional figures planned as part of the 1988 line, but they were never released. These were to be entirely constructed from existing parts, no doubt as a way to inject some quick cash into the dying line at minimal cost. We only know the original name of one of them (Strobo). Edit: Rather than using my made-up names for the rest, I’m going to default to the names they were given when they were released as Power-Con exclusive figures in the MOTU Classics line.
Strobo
Snake Trooper
Terroar
Plasmar
Lord Gr’asp
Slamurai
Note: The above artwork is by Errol McCarthy, sourced from He-Man.org. I’m assuming “Slamurai’s” arms and legs would reuse He-Man’s, although the artist draws them without gauntlets or boots, so it’s possible they might have been new parts.
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