Skeleton Warriors

Gary Goddard, director of the Masters of the Universe movie conceived of the Skeleton Warriors in the hope it would be to the 90s what Masters of the Universe had been for the 80s. A phenomenon of toys and cartoons. Unfortunately like many other cartoon and toylines of the 90s it failed to catch on, with comic book properties being the flavor of the decade. Much like Masters of theUniverse, Skeleton Warriors was influenced by Conan the Barbarian when Goddard took his godson to a Conan attraction and saw how much the child enjoyed it.

A 13 episode cartoon series was produced with an ongoing story arc and dark, apocalyptic tone. A reasonably mature series and maybe ahead of it's time. It failed to get a second season but did end with a finale that made the series feel complete. 

Marvel comics produced a four issue mini series that tied into the cartoon and an annual was also published in the UK featuring some UK exclusive comic strips inside.

A toyline consisting of 8 figures was released by Playmates who were riding high on the success of their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line but looking for a replacement after the failure of the Toxic Crusaders line and with the Turtles popularity starting to decline. All five of the main Skeleton Warriors were produced but only three of the four heroic human leads were made into toys. Talyn the token female however was left out, much like female characters in other cartoon toylines such as Visionaries and Bucky O'Hare. A second wave of Skeleton Warriors figures were revealed as prototypes along with a giant skeleton dragon but unfortunately never saw the light of day.

The toy boxes featured beautiful artwork very reminiscent of the 80s Masters of the Universe packaging. An obvious inspiration after Gary Goddard worked on the Masters movie.

Death's Head

Death's Head returns to Marvel comics with his own title again, returning to his original design. After his introduction in the 80s Marvel UK comic his design was updated for his own series. He then underwent a radical make over with an EXTREME 90s look in the Death's Head II series. It's good to see him back in his original design. The over the top muscular 90s cyborg look is so out.