The Pre-Filmation Era in MOTUC Thread

[Sabretooth]

Hi everyone!

I posted a question in WTFWTK 2.30 about Skeletor's devil army from the early minicomics and Toyguru was quite positive about the idea:

Q:Will you consider releasing Skeletor’s devil-warriors as they appeared in ‘The Power of Point Dread’ and ‘Masks of Power’ minicomics, or the red werewolf-demon and the green lizard-demon as they appeared in ‘Masks of Power’ minicomics? These characters can probably be done with minimum tooling.

Toyguru:

A: Those would be cool villain army builders, but nothing can be confirmed right now.

Those of you who would like Skeletor to have his devil-army please show your support.

[evenflow]

I think they would make a good 2-pack. I would love to get them.

[snakeeyes0217]

Hmmm...I always felt they were kind of wussy as a kid but I can imagine them filling out the ranks and looking pretty cool now.

[krosfyah]

I love the pre-filmastion era of MOTU. I got into the toys first and even before I had them I used to make up stories just staring at the Christmas catalog pictures. when I got the mini comics with my first figures I played the story that way, when filmation came along it was really very different, but it didn't take me long to warm up to it and then love it too. That being said I think a merging of the two is my favourite. MYP kind of did that but not to the extent that I would have liked. I still have this vision and I think honestly the Horsemen seem the most spot on when it comes to how I see Eternia in a perfect setting. (their story ideas when crafting the 2002 line was basically a good mix of the dark pre-filmation days and the aspects that filmation introduced. I'm not big on the techno sword ideals but it fits into the pre-filmation ideaology. anyway GREAT thread looking at these pics makes me feel like a kid again.

[Whiplash7]

So...what do you guys think of the Battle Chariot? I think it's a pretty cool drawing. I only like the pre-filmation vehicles, so if they ever made one of these, it would be on my list!

[Neal1972]

Very cool vehicle. It's got a ruggedness about it that I like.

[Muscle of Grayskul]

Definitely want the Battle Chariot and Demon warriors as well as the wolf and lizard warriors

[danbrenus]

Woah, I always thought it was just an unfinished stage of the Battle-ram!
Definitely this is on the top of my list for the veicles!

[Swanmarsh]

I also thought this Battle Chariot was an early prototype of the Battle Ram.

I'd support it if released separately.

[Kevenn]

The Battle Chariot reminds me a lot of the 200x Battle Tank.

[josh]

The Battle Chariot reminds me a lot of the 200x Battle Tank.
http://www.he-man.org/assets/images/...letank_vw1.jpg

That's one of the few vehicles I still want from 2002 after all these years. Unlike many of the others, it actually seemed like the designers heads were in the correct mindset when they worked on it.

[snakeeyes0217]

http://www.he-man.org/assets/images/...ariot_full.jpg

http://www.he-man.org/assets/images/collect_toy/131.jpg

Holy cow, I just thought it was another made up vehicle from the imaginative mind of Mr. Alcala! Thanks for the image!

I love it and would happily add it to my collection. But truth be told, I'd rather put my energies into getting us the Battle-Ram first. The version the Horsemen showed at SDCC was a spot-on update.

*** Please be sure to remove image-tags when quoting a message, thank you! ***

[Sabretooth]

Hi everyone!

I found this website
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2689/
and thought it might be interesting to read for those of you who like pre-filmation era and beginnings of MOTU. The most interesting part are the Big Jim influences of the early MOTU figures. Until now I thought that all the influence from Big Jim was BattleCat/Panthor, Zoar/Screeech and Gygor. It is a fact that there was much more: AttakTrak, ManEFaces, TrapJaw and maybe even Skeletor! And others like Jitsu!

Those of you who are MOTU experts probably know this already but this was definitley new information for me!

BTW. Do I see correctly that in the picture with Battle Chariot posted above Man-At-Arms has got a cape? If so I would like to see this cape in a Weapons Pack!

[Kane429]

Hi everyone!

I found this website
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2689/
and thought it might be interesting to read for those of you who like pre-filmation era and beginnings of MOTU. The most interesting part are the Big Jim influences of the early MOTU figures. Until now I thought that all the influence from Big Jim was BattleCat/Panthor, Zoar/Screeech and Gygor. It is a fact that there was much more: AttakTrak, ManEFaces, TrapJaw and maybe even Skeletor! And others like Jitsu!

Those of you who are MOTU experts probably know this already but this was definitley new information for me!

BTW. Do I see correctly that in the picture with Battle Chariot posted above Man-At-Arms has got a cape? If so I would like to see this cape in a Weapons Pack!

Fantastic find! Thanks a million!

[snakeeyes0217]

Hi everyone!

I found this website
http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/2689/
and thought it might be interesting to read for those of you who like pre-filmation era and beginnings of MOTU. The most interesting part are the Big Jim influences of the early MOTU figures. Until now I thought that all the influence from Big Jim was BattleCat/Panthor, Zoar/Screeech and Gygor. It is a fact that there was much more: AttakTrak, ManEFaces, TrapJaw and maybe even Skeletor! And others like Jitsu!

LOVED this article! I too knew about Battle Cat but the character design influences are obvious. As a designer of consumer products I know toy time lines are the tightest so I can understand why the design team didn't reinvent the wheel.

[josh]

Bump.

Emiliano posted the 1981 Mattel Licensing Kit, and it's awesome!

[Swanmarsh]

Another reference to villanous Stratos!

I do hope we get to see an evil Stratos variant incorporated at some stage into MOTUC, preferably with the Beast Man feet (even if that is not the way he was portrayed).

[Whiplash7]

Cool, it's nice to see all of that!
Those are the same bios that I posted on the first page of the thread. It's interesting to see their origin.

[josh]

Another reference to villanous Stratos!

I do hope we get to see an evil Stratos variant incorporated at some stage into MOTUC, preferably with the Beast Man feet (even if that is not the way he was portrayed).

Yeah, evil Stratos (I hear the cool kids call him Avatar ) with Beast Man feet would be awesome!

[Swanmarsh]

Yeah, I've seen that used plenty ... but the question is why do they call him Avatar?

Shouldn't his name be Avator ... or Strator ... or Wing-flappor?

[snakeeyes0217]

Another reference to villanous Stratos!

I do hope we get to see an evil Stratos variant incorporated at some stage into MOTUC, preferably with the Beast Man feet (even if that is not the way he was portrayed).

I'm not really into the "evil" Stratos. Having worked with marketing companies, I know for the sake of getting things done quick they often take liberties with things that may or not yet be defined about a brand.

Then again...maybe if he was colored differently like he was in those group shots in the early mini-comics I might be more interested.

[MegaGearMax]

Bump.

Emiliano posted the 1981 Mattel Licensing Kit, and it's awesome!

I saw that...so that's where the art from those Kid Stuff records comes from...

[Jace Madan]

Chalk me up as another huge fan of the pre-filmation era MOTU. As a kid I had a ton of the toys, but never saw the cartoon. I just finally saw a few of the filmation episodes a few years ago when I rented the DVDs.

I knew the plot points and history of the Filmation series of course, but to me the mini-comics were the "real" MOTU. The feelings the art and characters and settings evoked were (and still are) amazing. Eternia was this savage, dangerous place filled with mystery and adventure. The world I gleaned from the mini-comics was rich in ancient history and myth. He-Man was a noble, fierce warrior who went around the land slaying monsters, saving damsels and battling skeletor. And Eternia was such a huge, grand and varied place. Fiery hot volcanoes, dark and murky tar swamps, gigantic misty forests, rainy jungles, dark giant-spider filled caves, endless desert dunes, and the mystical and mysterious Castle Grayskull, old as time and legendary.... It reminds me of a raw, prehistoric earth, filled with dinosaurs, giant beasts and deadly terrain.

And the world would be littered with ruins of an advanced, long-dead civilization. I always played like Roboto was the last functioning robot created by this lost society, found off-line by MAA, and rebuilt and rebooted. Which was why his chest was clear, the society was so advanced and decadent, the clear torso was just a fancy design thing to do, like a convertible car. And others like Zodac used remnants of this ancient advanced technology to get power.

What I got from the mini-comics and created in my imagination was far more grand in scale and more... raw, savage and visceral world and characters.

Skeletor was a terrifying, powerful entity, a truly horrible evil force. You would be uncomfortable and intimidated just looking at him from across the room. You didn't want him to get closer and even touch you, he repulsed you out of fear. Even He-Man had this twinge of fear when facing his foe. He was like if you came face to face with the real Devil.

And Beast Man, mine was a savage animal, a barely restrained beserker. He would sit at Skeletors feet one second, and rush over and tear off an enemies' arms off the next second, howling and screaming, drool pouring from his terrible maw.

Trap Jaw was a frankenstein-like character, a painful abomination, a man of flesh and metal, torn apart and stiched together, with heavy iron armor and clanking parts, he was a prisoner in his own ruined body. All he could do was focus his rage on others and kill and destroy, for Skeletor would not let him rest in peace.

And so on and so forth. The subsequent cartoons didn't really jive with the ideas I already had in my head.

[DC_WARLORD]

Love your ideas, JACE. I'd love to see a mature HE-MAN cartoon done like that. Or a comic book.

[Larry Waters]

Jace, it is as if you got into my mind and read the imaginings that I've had since I was 6 or 7 years old and my brother got He-Man and Battle Cat for his birthday (we only got toys for B-Day and Christmas, and his b-day came first, after MOTU was launched)!

Love your vision!