I have been following the Sketch Lottery for the past couple of weeks because it is a really cool site that features the art of a few of my friends. But when their most recent topic came in the vein of Power Lords, I just realized that I had to feature the pieces here on CCD. Adam Power was one of my favorite toys of all time, and I share that love with my boy Joey Esq. There are five pieces in the gallery already, but there will probably be more to come shortly. I am posting the first five, and then if there are more I will get 'em up shortly. Check back to Sketch Lottery often so that you can see some of the great work they do. They take on different topics all the time. For now, it's Power Lord hour!!!!!! Check them out after the jump...
Hey kids, it’s the day before Friday and that means its time for another installment of Throwback Thursday to hopefully help get you through your day and make that weekend come just a little quicker. Last time, much to the delight of no one judging by the ghost town that sprang up in the comments section, I reviewed some Rap Attack mixtapes from the mid 90’s. Maybe they were a little too local or obscure, I dunno. The songs were all great though, so whatever. What the hell do you people know anyway? Jerks.
So where was I? Oh yeah, this week, I’m switching things up a bit, as this column isn’t going to cover music at all. Instead, your throwback this time around is toys. 80’s toys. Forgotten 80’s toys. That’s right, in response to the complete lack of response my last article got, I’m going even MORE obscure. Whatever, I live dangerously. Anyway, without further ranting from me, here are 5 cool toy lines from the 80’s that I’m pretty sure nobody but me even remembers.
The 80’s were a great time for toys. Far better than today, despite all the advances in tooling, sculpting and articulation, conceptually the toy lines of the 80’s violently molest anything you can find on the shelves of a modern Toys R Us. Toys were a way bigger deal in the 80’s too. Aside from TRU, there was Child World, and Lionel Kiddie City, both of which were also giant stores dedicated solely to the sale of toys. Beyond that, stores like Sears, Consumers, Macy’s (when it was still called Macy’s/Bamberger’s), Gimbel’s, and Bloomingdale’s ALL had toy departments where kids could get their action figure fix. Don’t believe me? Go to Toys R Us today, and aside from wrestling figures, you’ll find shelf space dominated by Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe, and He-Man, all toy lines that were born in the 80’s. Of the big toy companies of the 80’s only Hasbro and Mattel still survive today, but back then companies like Revell, Remco , Tomy and Ideal contributed just as much to the wealth of great boys toy concepts that were abundant in the 1980’s. Let’s check some of them out!
MANTECH: Released by Remco in 1983, Mantech were among the first action figures I can remember owning. I don’t remember what the story line was, but they were really cool figures, around 8 inches tall, and all of their limbs and accessories could be interchanged in pretty much infinite combinations. There were only 6 figures ever released. The good guys were Laser Tech, Aqua Tech and Solar Tech and the bad guys Nega Tech, Doom Tech and Terror Tech. They also had 2 vehicles, the Traxon and the Terrorizer and a playset, the Battle Station Laser II.
Apparently, Mantech was also the first instance of me being a completely spoiled child because I had every one of these. The Battle Station was particularly cool, especially to 4 year old Joey. It was enormous, it had all kinds of computers and weapons, and tons of pegs and holes where the weapons that came with the figures could attach. Unfortunately, as most toy lines from the early 80’s that didn’t have a cartoon or movie for support, Mantech was crushed by the Star Wars and He-Man juggernauts. There was allegedly a Marvel comic book tie in, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough to save Mantech from becoming a forgotten 80’s toy.
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