Recommended music: George Thorogood & The Destroyers – Bad To The Bone
Happy Monday, MOTU fans! I hope you had a great weekend. For this #MastersMonday, let’s take a look at a 1985 vehicle release from the vintage Mattel Masters of the Universe line: Battle Bones!
What makes this vehicle special is that it’s a ‘Collector’s Carry Case’ that actually fits into the story. In the TV ads, Battle Bones carries up to 12 Evil Warriors to Castle Grayskull, and another Battle Bones brings up to 12 Heroic Warriors to defend it. The ad also notes that your parents will need to help you put it together, since you’ll need a screwdriver for assembly. 😄
As a kid, one thing I really liked about this vehicle was the opening mouth compartment. The big dinosaur or dragon-like skull could chomp down on figures, but it was also meant to hold the figures’ weapons, which was a handy way to store most of the accessories from the line. The William George artwork on the front of the box—which I’ve reused here with one of my own Battle Bones—showed that you could actually clip in characters from different factions. I always wondered where good and evil warriors would go together for a rideshare. The box also showed how the bones on top serve as a convenient handle for tiny fingers.
I always found it funny that Battle Bones got his own origin story the same year in the minicomic ‘Skeletor’s Dragon,’ which came with Dragon Blaster Skeletor. In the story, Skeletor uses magic on a pile of dinosaur bones so he and his pet dragon can ride to Eternia, where they interrupt a big game of Tug-O-War. Later, the Sorceress frees Battle Bones from Skeletor’s spell, he gains the power of speech, and is used in the exact manner to transport Heroic Warriors. 😆 The character also stands in for Battle Cat in ‘The Stench of Evil’ minicomic, since he doesn’t mind Stinkor’s smell.
A smaller version of Battle Bones was later made as a stamp case that could hold up to eight MOTU character stampers. In the 1990s, this same mini mold was used again for the Creepy Crawler Goop-A-Saurus, with a few changes to hold more art supplies.
An updated version of the vehicle appeared in the 200X Mattel toy line, but the original hasn’t appeared on screen since a cameo in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 season one episode “Demon Dogs.” There are rumors that Battle Bones designs will show up in the 2026 Masters of the Universe live-action film, but we’ll have to wait until it comes out next month to know for sure.
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