Like most collectors of my age, the Masters of the Universe toy line holds a special place in my heart – now hold on a second. Why are you talking about MOTU on a Star Wars fan site? Well, to explain this, the article will initially jump into the middle of the timeline to talk about a 30th anniversary release of a MOTU character called Vykron.
Vykron was released as a San Diego Comic Con 2012 exclusive, paying homage to 3 early prototypes created in 1979 by Roger Sweet to pitch the initial MOTU range. The 3 prototypes were initially given names of He-Man, Bullet Head and Tank Head. By taking the 6” scale Vykron figure, then using the set of included interchangeable accessories, all 3 of the early prototypes could be recreated by collectors. Vykron was given a back story set a couple of generations before Prince Adam was born and… yeah, that’s pretty interesting and all, but what does it have to do with Star Wars?
Well, let’s look at the full range of accessories included with Vykron. The He-Man style character in the centre is pretty obvious with the expected chest plate, furry pants and axe. On the left of the image you have a space themed costume for Bullet Head to place on the character, or a KISS cos-player, and on the right you have the military accessories to recreate Tank Head.
And this is how Vykron looks dressed up as a Space Man, now known as Space Ace – another KISS reference thrown in for good measure.
Why are you still talking about Masters of the Universe on a Star Wars fan site? Well, perhaps the more eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted it by now, but to explain even further let’s go all the way back to 1980 before the MOTU toys were made to look closely at the prototypes.
As with all toy lines, action figures exist in 2D and then 3D pre-production forms before they are approved and sent for tooling. A picture that was unknown to me until recently, but widely known to others, appeared on social media as a recommendation and it included the 3 aforementioned prototypes for the He-Man toys.
You can see Tank Head (later Tank Top), an early He-Man (later Vykron) and the third (being the point of this article) is the sci-fi style warrior called Bullet Head.
After looking closely at the image, I reached out to some knowledgeable collectors in the Star Wars universe and Tommy Garvey from the SWCA gave me a bit of background on Bullet Head from the above image:
Those prototypes have never shown up. I believe that some employees say they remember them being destroyed, while others say that they’re somewhere in Mattel’s archives. Personally, I’d say likely destroyed, as Mattel used to do presentations about prototypes and such at PowerCon and they never showed those. I think my conceptual hardcopy is the oldest prototype from the line that’s still around, but I’d love to be proven wrong. The head was definitely based on Fett. Mattel did studies and found that little boys like Space, Fantasy, and Military themed toys the most. So, they planned a line which incorporated all 3. But the fantasy one tested the best, so it was reworked into MOTU. Those figures were built by Roger Sweet, and to the best of my knowledge, no extra parts or art for the Fett head exists.
The concept name for that figure was “Bullet Head” and it was constructed from a 12″ Fett head and sheet wax and other bits. They just kitbashed it and then spraypainted it with “metallic satin chrome” paint. The base figure is a Big Jim figure they sculpted over and then cast. Roger Sweet said the project for the 3 figures took him 60 hours.
How cool is that? You can clearly see that Bullet Head is donning a production 12” Boba Fett helmet, an adapted backpack and is carrying his rifle also! Vintage production Star Wars items included in prototype form for another popular toy line. We got there in the end…
Many thanks to Tommy Garvey, BattleRamBlog and He-Man fandom for the wonderful information shared on the back story to the photograph. Be sure to check out the links below for more information.
Photos © The Power and the Honor Foundation
https://he-man.fandom.com/wiki/Vykron
https://battleramblog.com/vykron-the-history-behind-the-he-man-trio/