Tagged: greatest action figures of the 1980’s
How Did I Miss The ‘Defenders of the Earth” Cartoon From 1985?!
Wait a second here! How could it be that I’ve never heard of the cartoon ‘Defenders of the Earth’ from 1985?! Up until a few minutes ago I never even knew it existed. This cool 80’s cartoon even aired for 65 episodes and featured legendary comic characters The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, Lothar along with their children kicking villain ass. I know, everyone probably has seen the shit out of this show except me, I grew up in Wisconsin, never had cable tv and perhaps there it just simply didn’t air around where I lived?!
Whatever the case I’m a bit stunned I missed out, as a kid in 1985 I would have loved this show. The animation looks solid too, and even as a kid I could tell when cartoons had shoddy work done on them, my first thought was that it looked like the same animators that worked on G.I. Joe. There was even a Marvel Comic book series of it too..
I guess Marvel legend Stan Lee even wrote the lyrics for the damn theme song! Damn! Is this some sort of proof of the Mandela Effect manifesting in my life? Anyway this is like a King Features version of The Avengers and I think this could make a pretty cool little movie. Anyone else miss this as a kid?!!
Wait now there were also action figures too?! What? Hmm….I am perplexed!!
And some Robot Chicken…
Power Lords Vintage TV Ad! The Coolest Action Figures of the 1980’s?!
I’ve raved here before about The Power Lords action figures from the 1980’s, they were probably some of the most bizarre action figures of that decade and that’s exactly why I needed them all!! Finally someone thankfully uploaded one of the vintage TV commercials that got me all revved up as a kid and I’m starting to think I need to hunt all these down again for myself! The Power Lords weren’t very well known and that’s probably because these action figures were creepy as fuck!
As a kid even I was a little off put by them in the best way possible-I mean the hero of the power lords is Adam Power a decent looking gentleman until he turns into a blue skinned, black eyed, veiny super powered weirdo!! Check out these classic adds, I’ve gotta say I love that animated sequence it opens with, if only they had a full on animated show back then!! Damn!
Now THAT’S what I call some cool action figures!! I must admit I had He-man go up against the Power Lords many times and Adam Power always won, then of course they teamed up and took on Skeletor & Griptogg!! Check out this awesome video to get a full on look at how cool the Power Lords mythos really was!!
It’s really no surprise that The Power Lords were created by Wayne Barlowe who gained a cult following for his book “Barlow’s Guide to Extraterrestrials” way back in 1979. It contains his visualizations of different extraterrestrial life forms from various works of science fiction, with information on their planetary location or range, biology, and behaviors, in the style of a real field guide for animals, such as Roger Tory Peterson’s guide to birds of North America. I may have to hunt down this book too while I am at it!! Barlow has also worked on creature designs for movies like Pacific Rim, Blade II, Both Hellboy movies, Avatar & The Hobbit!
Universal Dork 