Manufacturer: Sungold
Year: 1983
Galaxy Warriors is probably the most well-known knockoff (rip-off) of Mattel’s Masters of the Universe (MOTU) line. In fact, more action figure manufacturers knocked off Galaxy Warriors than they did MOTU! Notable examples include Sewco’s Galaxy Fighters and Mannix’s Galaxy Heroes.
Frank Frazetta’s Influence
While MOTU was the biggest influence on the size and shape of the figures, the artwork of Frank Frazetta was the biggest influence on the actual character designs. And “influence” is putting it lightly, considering that most of the Galaxy Warriors art looks like a direct rip-off of specific Frazetta paintings!
The Galaxy Warriors logo was practically copied off of Frazetta’s painting called Against the Gods:
The Galaxy Warriors box art combines The Destroyer and Tyrannosaurus Rex:
The Galaxy Warriors card art is a slight variation of Frazetta’s Warrior with Ball and Chain:
It’s undeniable that Frank Frazetta’s artwork was heavily leveraged for Galaxy Warriors marketing material. But Sungold didn’t stop there! The characters in the Galaxy Warriors line are also inspired by Frazetta, with some even being able to be traced to a specific Frazetta painting.
The Figures
Frank Frazetta painted many images of werewolves, and Anubi is most likely a nod to this fact.
This guy has a lot of die-hard fans, and is possibly based on Frazetta’s Swamp Demon:
Frazetta painted a lot of dinosaurs, but Dino Man hasn’t been traced to a specific piece of Frazetta artwork.
This character is likely an homage to the many dragons that Frazetta painted.
Huk was directly lifted from The Snow Giants. His beard is not as long, but his helmet is the same:
The helmet of this character seems to be based on the one worn by the hero in A Fighting Man of Mars:
I haven’t found any Frazetta paintings of snake-headed men, but he certainly painted a lot of giant snakes!
While some of the characters only seem “inspired” by Frazetta’s work, this guy comes directly from his artwork titled Atlantis:
Thor is the odd man out… he can’t be traced to any Frazetta influences and he looks a lot different from the other characters.
Frazetta painted a whole lot of tigers, including some of his most popular pieces. Tiger Man most likely pays tribute to these.
This character is most likely based on Frazetta’s paintings of John Carter of Mars.
This is one of the only characters that is definitely not inspired by Frazetta’s works. Instead, Ygg is based on a piece Charles Moll did for the cover of a book called Visions of Tomorrow:
Download a 1920×1080 Galaxy Warriors wallpaper here!
