Strobo cardback art

[Battle Ram Man]

As we learned from Grayskull Con, Strobo was actually intended to be a figure. Mattel had actually planned to put out a bunch of cheap repaints like this. I found the card art on the Italian He-Man forum.

I dig the Snake Horde Troopers too!

[Mechanizor]

Cool card-back art. I don't like the Snake Horde Troopers' costume much, looks a bit too rigid for those snakes, however the design of techno axe is very nice.
Thanks for sharing BRM.

[GREP-A-TOR]

Cool pic, those horde trooper snake men are a trip

[Shawn]

Are you talking about Ferros, Repta, and Rachney from The Origin of the Sorceress or something else?

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u304/SomebodyED/blog_model_ferros.jpg

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u304/SomebodyED/blog_model_repta.jpg

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u304/SomebodyED/blog_model_rachney.jpg

[D.M.]

Secret of the sword/opening She-Ra 5 parter script:

http://bustatoons.blogspot.com/2011/04/she-ra-script-into-etheria-3.html

[Shawn]

AWESOME! I didn't know that. THANK YOU! I never spend much time reading the actual scripts. I always though that hordtrooper's name was "Mark".

Remnants of the "Dino reptilian Kingdom" then? The IRL reason for their creation? (yeah doubtful LOL, but fun to consider nonetheless!) Considering how many reptilian races exist in Filmation, I'm not sure if that's a direct reference or not. The idea of Hordak working with the Snakemen doesn't seam to pop up in 1985 save for these two references towards "reptilian Hordesmen"...Perhaps this is why when Rattlor, Tung Lashor introduced by Filmation they are Horde and Mattel agreed to this in the King of the Snakemen mini comic. Then this line of thinking might have inspired the flashback of The Power Tour, which in tern lead towards the incomplete revelations of The Powers of Grayskull and this particular toy brings the reference full circle!

Coincident or continuity?

[Emiliano]

For the record, the cat is out of the bag, but that picture was never supposed to be posted. Not your fault, an HM.org user posted it without permission first. But oh well...
This is part of The Power and The Honor Foundation Errol McCarthy collection of original inked drawings. As usual we hope to be able to reveal ALL those cardbacks in time

[Battle Ram Man]

Sorry about that. Do you want me to remove it?

I love Errol McCarthy's artwork. Here's hoping that we get to see them all released officially soon!

[Shawn]

"All"? Not just "BOTH" ...

[Matthew L. Martin]

Fascinating. Can you tell us if you know anything about whether this was PoG or 'standard' MotU?

I can think of several reasons that Snake Men would be working for the Horde, but this was also a key factor for me in formulating a principle in understanding MotU that I first elucidated in conversation with Shawn:

"Masters of the Universe 'continuity' is always subordinate to the need of the next wave of action figures."

[Jukka]

I second these questions.

[Shawn]

Are the Dino Reptilian Kingdom a Pre Snake-Man, Pre Horde Empire first army of darkness on Preternia?

Or did Hordak just summon a few of Rattlor's siblings from the void and enslave them to Troll King Hiss in modern Eternia?

Hordak: "Yes "king" Hiss, indeed MY EVIL HORDE does still EXIST...And once again your people are my slaves. Muhahaha *snort *snort"

Either way, that's Hordak's face on a bunch of Rattlor looking dudes in King Hiss pants. King Hiss looses and Hordak wins!

WTF did Strobo make it to a printed story before these guys? LAME! More importantly how many more characters where planned for this wave? I recall reading that these where all shown at Power-Con year one & two...I know we can't talk about EVERYTHING because Mattel sucks or whatever...But I recall the number being between 5-8 characters, including Strobo and this Snake Horde trooper. Not posting the art is one thing, but we can AT LEAST talk about it. Drum up some interest so more people know to hassle Mattel so they will cave and let us see these legally right?

Look how well those Alien RE-Action figures went over! Imagine the 1987 Lost wave(s) of VINTAGE MOTU done with the love of that first wave of commemorative BUT BETTER.

I hate Mattel, because i feel like they hate me...

[Matthew L. Martin]

Are the Dino Reptilian Kingdom a Pre Snake-Man, Pre Horde Empire first army of darkness on Preternia?

Or did Hordak just summon a few of Rattlor's siblings from the void and enslave them to Troll King Hiss in modern Eternia?

Another possibility is that Rattlor and Tung Lashor weren't the only Snake Men to escape the banishment to the Void, and led a small group of refugees to join up with the Evil Horde.

[Shawn]

It raises a lot of fun questions doesn't it? :-D I've been thinking about this A LOT!

We know some Snake Men where not banished (Khan's Repton ancestors) If these one joined the Horde then why didn't the Elders (He-Ro?) not banish them to Etheria alongside Hordak?

If they did get banished to Etheria along with Hordak where have they been?

Why wouldn't we have seen them before later half of 1987 or early 1988?

Are these the FIRST Horde Troopers then? *
(MYP gave us hollow suits of enchanted armor I totally like these better)

What are the circumstances that any Snakemen would slip through the Elder's (most likely He-Ro's) ability to imprison them?

How many are we talking about you think?
(that goes for all non imprisoned Snake Men, be they the ones that later evolved (devolved?) into the Reptons or "Pure Bloods" (The faithful?) like Tung Lashor or Rattlor (who must be long lived) and these new cousins of his. I worry that more then a few of these guys would undermine the accomplishment of The Snake Men's banishment to the Timeless Void by the Elders. (He-Ro?)

Why didn't King Hiss accidentally summon them alongside Rattlor and Tung Lashor?
(I assumed only those two where summoned because they where the only Snake Men out there...)

* My working hypothesis is (as usually is...)

[3:37 mark if you have yet to see this epic lore puzzle piece!]
Hordak being an ancient wizard, and possible member of The Council of Elders playing both sides of the Preternian Great Wars as the Unnamed One was leader of the Dino-Reptilian Kingdom (mentioned in He-Ro's 1987 bio) make even more sense now then ever before! (Or it's just confirmation bias?) Keldor being this Unnamed One's apprentices then is simple enough to imagine how that would play out. I bet even a child could figure that out Hiss must not have been King for very long. Or the Great Wars lasted MUCH longer then we think. Either way a logical (if loose) sequence of general events practically writes it self. Continuity concerns practically melt away! Though I'll save the long winded lore dump for another time. Suffice it to say, It would seam that a house divided against it self, really cannot stand for long. All house team ups throughout the various media of the late 80's is just history repeating i self.

Another thought, is that these guys might be a super elite force of specialty trained Horde infantry, Serpent Squad. (they do need a name and if Emiliano cannot share, this be my suggestion) That way if they are few in number and highly trained, it just makes Rattlor & Tung Lashor all the more special for having trained them then. (though that still leaves unresolved questions...)

Given that these might be PoG, with Zodac being the last remaining member of the "council of wise" in Filmation and an "leader of the council of Elders" in coloring book and The original bible, I wonder then if Strobo and the Cosmic Enforcers where intended to be The He-Ro's army? Though That's assuming Mattel had figured out Zodac's affiliation and existing story when designing Strobo. That's probably just wishful thinking on my part...Though nothing known about Strobo precludes that from being an option. Though I would want them to all come FROM Eternia, not to it like in later versions.

We should be so lucky if all these other mysterious kit-bashed characters of this 1987/88 Lost Wave are as equally cool. Might vintage Keldor turn out to be Randor's twin brother in similar Horde armor? haha. Moss Man and Stinkor and Scareglow didn't need much tooling to be cool. Rumor has it that a 3rd character has Fisto's head...

[Shawn]

GOOD point! I'm only guessing that it could be a preternian era reference since that is where Zodac's original back story comes from. They might have forgotten all about Zodac being the ruler of the Council of Elders by 1987! Seeing Fisto's head reused on He-Ro's body makes me think less thought went into these then I would prefer...

"He-Ro/Fisto hybrid" (OMG do we need NAMES for these guys!) as KELDOR? I've not considered that, but you could be right! Personally I think not. Keldor is said to be a magic user in his single Canon reference. I can't see him using laser guns like this guy does...I agree with your assessment that Keldor's allegiance. I doubt Randor's brother would have started off as a bad guy! An idea I once considered for a Keldor toy 1987 was to have interchangeable faction logos like the Fighting Foe Men, so keldor could he Heroic, Horde or Snakemen at different points in the story. Perhaps that is why his logo area is blank then? [B]Perhaps this is Keldor?[B] Fisto head aside, it's more interesting visually then 200X's Keldor we are still kind of stuck with since then.

[Midnight Bass]

I absolutely think that Mattel forgot about Zodac being leader of the Council, if they ever knew about it to begin with. The only places I think it was ever mentioned were in the Filmation series bible, and that one book that was pretty much based on material in the bible. I added it to Zodac's Wikipedia listing back before MOTUC started, and I think that's the only reason ToyGuru even included it in his bio.

But despite our fan-based ideas, I don't think Mattel really had plans to include the Cosmic Enforcers in the PoG stories. So having a guy with Zodac's head running around in that era probably wouldn't have mattered to them at all.

Heck, they were probably planning on having Eldor be the leader of the Council. Which I guess could lead to another question: is Zodac Eldor? Hm.

[Shawn]

I think you are right about Eldor being The Counsel's leader for 1987. The Council of Eldor's...That's hardly even a retcon if they did forget about Zodac's story...This IS possible, Keldor was Skeletor, so precursor characters might have fit the bill considering this was set up to be a huge prequel.

Also keep in mind, Filmation's Golden Disks of Knowledge. Zodac was the last living member of The Council "of wise"...There are more references, oblique or outright that he was the original leader of the Council more then him being a bad buy or an unaffiliated Bounty hunter.

[Midnight Bass]

This is the most exciting thing I've seen pop up in years. My only question is surrounding what era the cardback is coming from. If it were in He-Man's era, then maybe Hordak used his own abilities to pull the snake men from the void and made them into a new generation of Horde Trooper. But if it was in the past (the POG era) then why was Strobo there? Was that his original era and he came to the future to help He-Man retrieve the meteorite? Or did the artists just not know what to do with him so they stuck him in that one magazine story. It's very interesting.

[Shawn]

Hordak summoning King Hiss's forces and making them Hordsmen to spit King Hiss is an idea I like! If he controeld them once, I can imagine he could do it again!

Part of the problem I have with saying "this character is definitely a Pog/Preternian era character" is that nothing in preternia seams to STAY in Preternia or vice versa. Time on Eternia isn't linear. Look how much has survived into the modern era. Hordak, The Three Towers, King Hiss and a handful of Snake Men. Possibly Grizlor and a whole bunch of NON toy filmation and various licensed media people, places and things to numerious to list in a short reply post. ****, we need a book to catalog it all!

Though if you JUST mean they have a "PoG" cardback that's a different thing then...Though I wonder since Gwildor was to be recarded, how many other characters would ALSO get recarded in 1987 or 1988 had it been as popular as Princess of Power? Would PoG have just been another faction like The Horde and the Snakemen? I think perhaps both? Perhaps this would have been a rebranding of MOTU as a WHOLE? Filmation helped to create "He-Ro" and did some early development work for a cartoon so...



Your question about why Strobo made a single appearance is a GREAT question! Why not He-Ro right? Strobo was in one of the last few US magazines. We also saw PoG Dinosaurs (that if memory serves TALKED!) and Grayskull when it was WHITE and perfectly new...Most of the stories, simple as they are don't contradict the mini comics or Filmation much, if at all in 1986/1987. This theme continued across the last few Marvel/Star comics as the perplexing and often contradictory "continuity" seams to have been leading UP TO The Powers of Grayskull as a SINGLE cohesive trans media narrative...I would argue Marketing at the last couple years was finally getting their collective shit together in this regard. It's a shame they didn't do this sooner...

[Matthew L. Martin]

According to Emiliano's presentation at GrayskullCon (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDFY9BpgBVo) they were going to be present-day figures before PoG took off. If you look at most of the 1987 Heroic and Evil Warriors, you already see a lot of the same design philosophy--Clamp Champ, King Randor, Scare Glow, Ninjor. New heads and a few new accessories, but basically existing parts reused.

[Shawn]

I really need to make the time to watch that whole video. So much awesome information only Emiliano could know! Do you know about where in the video Emiliano references these?

You make an excellent point. This is clear pattern for Mattel still in use today. Scott even kind of explained it all in his rare bits of complete honesty...

Characters like Zodac, Evil-Lyn and Faker are about as cheep as you can get for late 1982/ early 1983. That banked Ram-Man and Roboto tooling budget. You see this repeated with MossMan & Stinkor so on and so forth continuing into POP with stuff like Spinnerella. It's almost a drinking game. "Mattel is so cheep, take a drink if a character is zero tool" You get pass out drunk wake up the next morning and realize you got fired for approving Stinkor...Which turns into a drinking game for us "How drunk do I have to be to think this is a good idea" :P

[Matthew L. Martin]

It can swing the other direction, too--note that 1986 has almost no reused tooling, outside the Leaders.

[_RZ_]

I know we can't talk about EVERYTHING because Mattel sucks or whatever.... Not posting the art is one thing, but we can AT LEAST talk about it. Drum up some interest so more people know to hassle Mattel so they will cave and let us see these legally right?

It's a sad situation... hopefully P&H can do another book as a lot of fans would love to get their hands on stuff like this.

Is there really stuff we're not even allowed to talk about?

I thought it was only the posting/sharing of pictures online was the problem for P&H or Mattel...

Look how well those Alien RE-Action figures went over! Imagine the 1987 Lost wave(s) of VINTAGE MOTU done with the love of that first wave of commemorative BUT BETTER.

I would be all over this, and I'd probably re-buy all of the original vintage stuff I sold off over the last fifteen or so years. The Alien figures are a little different as they have been well-known to collectors for a long, long time, I bought a bad resin copy of Kenner Kane figure in the 90's at a toy show, and they've had a lot of copies and collector attention a lot more than PoG ever has, as a lot of that stuff I only discovered in the late 90's-early 00's. I never did spring for those He-Ro copies that were floating around a while back.

This Strobo art is awesome, thanks for all this great information on this topic guys...

[Shawn]

That Whiplash head on Rattlor body with Mosquitor legs and Trap Jaw gun is awesome. Does the Trap Jaw chest armor even fit on the Rattlor body? I don't have a vintage Rattlor handy to test that out though I need to pick some spare parts at the vintage Toy shops. The plus side of these being LESS tolling then He-Ro and Eldor is that they are more easy to customize.

Is there really stuff we're not even allowed to talk about?

I thought it was only the posting/sharing of pictures online was the problem for P&H or Mattel....

It was a question more directed at Emiliano since the rumor mill/He said she said type of info has been talked about less openly on the forums. The "PM club" as you well call it. We all Know well Emiliano is blacklisted from working with Mattel or it's partners thank's to Scott's poisoing his name inside Mattel...There is stuff Emiliano CAN"T talk about was my point, painful as it must be for him...Yet James gets to make Videos for dreamworks and write bios for statues and Nate gets to do prelim design work for the 4HM and sculpting for the new people making the busts. Other fans working with Darkhorse on the book. Again. This has to be painful for Emiliano. I was trying to convey sympathy without spelling all that out, which might just come off as rubbing salt in the wound if I explained it like this? (Sorry Emiliano!) .

I would be all over this, and I'd probably re-buy all of the original vintage stuff I sold off over the last fifteen or so years. The Alien figures are a little different as they have been well-known to collectors for a long, long time, I bought a bad resin copy of Kenner Kane figure in the 90's at a toy show, and they've had a lot of copies and collector attention a lot more than PoG ever has, as a lot of that stuff I only discovered in the late 90's-early 00's. I never did spring for those He-Ro copies that were floating around a while back.

This Strobo art is awesome, thanks for all this great information on this topic guys...

You make a good point, though it's something I've never quite understood to be honest. We've known of He-Ro Elder and a few other things since the late 1990's. Perhaps physical copies helped to make the Kenner aliens figure more prevalent in the convention goers "before the internet", but I first learned about them from old toy archives in 1998 or so...About the time I learned He-Ro's name and first learned of Eldor's existence. It's inconceivable to my mind how/why a fan of MOTU could NOT know who these guys are much less that they do not want them. "Error error does not compute" doesn't even begin to explain my lack of ability to comprehend.

[img]http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwxyjgdBmZ1qlo1lto1_400.gif[/img}

Sometimes I think what I need to do is spam every toy place across the internet where I tell people how awesome these guys are...But then I realize, I kind of already do that. LOL

I never got that Custom He-Ro either . $500 seamed like a high prince IMO for a small run of custom figures. If it was an actual cast of the prototype like Star Wars POTF2, Droids & Ewoks tail enders from 1984/1985 PERHAPS I could spend $100-$150. But even that I still don't understand the high prince these type of things command. At least with a custom sculpt you have a lot of time devoted to an original sculpt. That's worth paying for. I understand the complexities of casting and mold making and small run of bootleg productions...But even considering all of that, the princes often feel like they are gouging desperate collectors. :/ Considering the production runs of some convention exclusives, WTF Hasbro and Mattel? Seriously just manufacture this shit already. Look how well a Faux vintage MODERN toys are doing with Legends of Chuthulu kickstarter and the wide range of RE-Action figures. NOW is the time for this retro revolution.

[Shawn]

raise your hand if you are bugged that this and the other kitbashed characters cardback art wasn't in the big ol art book?
(re-reading this thread I look a bit like a psycho don't i? LOL)

[Captain Atkin]

raise your hand if you are bugged that this and the other kitbashed characters cardback art wasn't in the big ol art book?
(re-reading this thread I look a bit like a psycho don't i? LOL)

It would be great to see all of the card artwork in a future book.

[MIDOR]

Just now seeing this thread. Starting on the emiliano at 2014 greyskull con. but as late as it is I won't get to finish it.

I will hold off on my thoughts and questions until then.

[MIDOR]

Just got done watching it. (watched it in bits and pieces).

It was interesting to get a bit more detailed history. Would have been nice to have seen the slides that was shown.

Now to the thing that's bugging me.......

So, let me get this straight......

While they was trying to get the Powers of Greyskull line they (mattel) was getting close to releasing new? characters that was relied heavily on reusing parts. Such figures was definitely? strobo and possibly these snake/lizard/reptile guards in horde armor (armour).

And these said figures was in modern day eternia?

ok. so when the massive drop in sales killed the POG I imagine that it also killed off these figures as well.

Do we know what other figures was coming out besides strobo? Or even heavily thought about being released?