Friday, April 12, 2013

Swords & Sorcerers: Are they Galaxy Warriors?

The original Galaxy Warriors line consisted of twelve characters. At least a year later two new Galaxy Warriors appeared (Deevil and Rahh), sold in the UK on blister cards with the title "Swords and Sorcerers" next to a Galaxy Warriors logo (below). Examining the S&S Warriors raises some interesting questions. The most important of which is, should these figures be considered as "official" characters in the Galaxy Warrior toy-line?

Magnon, released in the S&S toy-line.

Deevil


The back of the S&S blister card (above) shows the four figures in the line.

ACAMAS TOYS:
Looking at the S&S releases (above) the first interesting thing to notice is that this is not being released by Sungold. On the bottom right corner of the blister cards is a logo for Acamas Toys. As far as I know, these figures were still stamped Sungold on them, but Sungold is not actually releasing them. Perhaps Acamas was a subsidary of Sungold. Or maybe they bought some Galaxy Warriors so they could release them on their own.
    Who was Acamas Toys? It appears that Acamas Toys was a company that released products in the UK. They released a figure called Automan in 1984 in the UK. (Information about Automan found Here). They also released a Darth Vader costume in 1983 (below). The Acamas Toys logo can be seen clearly on the box.


Acamas had to licensed to release the Darth Vader costume or it would have been sued. Thus, we can assume that Acamas was officially licensed to release these S&S Galaxy Warriors in the UK.

Another curious thing about the S&S figures is their connections to Sewco's Galaxy Fighters. At least one Galaxy Fighter, Sun Hawk, may have been released under the Swords and Sorcerers title (below).

The Galaxy Fighter, Sunhawk.
Sun Hawk is packaged with his normal Galaxy Fighter accessories, and the Galaxy Warriors (below) all come with their appropriate Galaxy Warriors accessories.


Pay close attention to the artwork on the Swords and Sorcerers blister card. Now check out the Galaxy Fighters release of Sun Hawk (below).


Essentially, the S&S blister cards are the Galaxy Fighters card with a Galaxy Warriors logo on it, being released by neither Sungold or Sewco. The Swords and Sorcerers Galaxy Warriors are an interesting "curiosity" and more research is needed to answer the many questions they raise. [I list those questions at the bottom of this post.]

Conclusions:
So, should these figures be considered as "official" characters in the Galaxy Warrior toy-line? For now, I consider Deevil and Rahh to be acceptable additions to the Galaxy Warriors toy-line, but it should be remembered that they were not part of the original 12 figure and 4 beasts toy-line (seen in the below image).
   Although they were never released individually on blister cards that had the Sungold stamp, they were shown on a strange version of the beast-box, which did bear the Sungold stamp (2nd image below). This image comes from a beast box where Rahh is packaged with the Horse. (Please see the Horse's page for details.)




Current Unanswered Questions:
1a. Is the Sun Hawk on S&S card legit or did someone make a custom "Mint on Card" Sun Hawk by placing him on a S&S blister card?

1b. If the Sun Hawk release is a legit part of the S&S line, then why does this line include both Galaxy Warriors and Fighters? Even if Sun Hawk is not legit, then why is the blister card a Galaxy Fighters card with a Warriors logo on it?

2. Where were the Sword and Sorcerer figures released? Were they only UK releases? Perhaps Sungold and Sewco made some deal with Acamas Toys to release some figures under a different title in a particular country or region. If they agreed to this, then why place just a Galaxy Warriors logo on the card and no reference to Sewco's toy-line the Galaxy Fighters? Also, why only include one of Sewco's Fighters and Four of Sungold's Warriors?

3. Were Sungold and Sewco connected in some way? Was one a parent company of the other, or were they just Hong Kong "allies" in the cheap action figure business, willing to share molds and art with one another? If they were connected companies then the combination of Warriors and Fighters elements in the S&S releases would make sense.

4. Why did Sungold release two new Galaxy Warriors in the S&S line? Why not just release a second wave of Warriors on the blister cards they already had? And why only release two new figures anyhow? They could have easily just repainted old figures and given them a different name, or made minor changes like removing Baltard's topknot (which the Galaxy Fighters actually did, in order to create a new character).

5. Were Deevil and Rahh produced at the same time as the original 12 figures, but only released later? Maybe Sungold decided 14 figures was too many for the initial release and they needed to cut it down by 2. If this is the case, then maybe Rahh was considered to be too much like Mattel's He-Man, and maybe Deevil was seen as too much like the Galaxy Warrior Thor.

Please note: When, and if, I can answer any of these questions I will post updates.

6 comments:

  1. Hello John,

    I have a backing card for Deevil that is not S&S its the regular black backing card that the first 12 Galaxy warriros used. So that answers your fourth question Sungold did release these on original card but probably only for a very short period.

    Best regards,
    Drekkus (Derek)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Drekkus, thanks for the information. That's really interesting that Deevil had a "normal" cardback. Would you mind sending me a picture of it? I would love to add it to the site, with an acknowledgement that it comes from your collection, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hope this works

    [URL=http://s47.photobucket.com/user/drekkus/media/deevilnormalcardback_zpsb20e9ab5.jpg.html][IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f160/drekkus/deevilnormalcardback_zpsb20e9ab5.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

    drekkus

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://s47.photobucket.com/user/drekkus/media/deevilnormalcardback_zpsb20e9ab5.jpg.html

    direct link works

    good luck,
    drekkus

    ReplyDelete
  5. John,

    did it work?

    Best regards,
    drekkus

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Drekkus, the link did work. Thanks so much for the image. It makes me wonder if Rahh also got a limited release on the original cardback.

      Delete