So, I thought I'd show off one of My most prized and cherished yet some of the most obscure of all of My vintage action figures:
Monster Man aka
Halloween Monsters made by
SOMA! in
1986! During an era when
Masters of the Universe was arguably the hottest property (My favorite of all back then) of the decade and because of this many companies that was relatively unknown compared to Mattel would make their own bootleg/knock-off fantasy series' of their own. Well, My favorite of these "other" lines was by SOMA, a smaller company of yesteryear that has since been defunct for decades.
Here is a menagerie sample of the
Monster Men! So, it was about 1986 when I would go to all the great stores with My Grandma during some of the best times during the heyday of "true action figure collecting" ever (I count that 80s - early 2000s). One of My favorite stores we'd go to was
Woolworths! They were an American general-merchandise retail business that basically went out of business, rejuvenated and became something else. There was two of them locally and My fave of the 2 was the one further away though the other one was also really nice. They had such variety and options in items of all kinds to groceries to action figures and to this day I remember how their action figure isles looked like I mean they arguably were the best even compared to stores like K-Mart, Venture & Target.
Woolworths even had their own "exclusive" toys & action figures and the
"Monster Man" figures were among them. There was only six of them within the set and unfortunately they either cancelled the series or just ran it out with that selection. They never had any names whatsoever nor backstories for that matter just a detailed blister card on the front and completely blank on the back besides company & store info (I do not have the cards still) so no additional ideas or thought went into these guys besides their overall designs. I believe these figures were a very limited run because despite that I was very young at the time, I remember seeing them only a couple times at that same Woolworths where there was lots of MOTU and tons of G.I. Joe but these guys were non-existent! However, later on, from 1990 to a short period afterward, Walmart would pick them up apparently for a limited run and label them as
"Halloween Monsters" under a completely new blister card with new art yet they are still nameless and still a blank card with the Walmart info. Unlike Woolworths' original run with the series, Walmart got uncreative and just placed them in the Holiday/Halloween section hence their new name. They didn't see them as a cool action figure line but just as a novelty for the spooky time. After this they fell into the void of obscurity, became things of legend in the action figure world and only collector's like a Me would know about them. There only a handful of people on YouTube (if even that) that talk about them and have since become VERY expensive on eBay!
So they are about 5.5" tall or around in that scale. They fit in nicely with the vintage MOTU line and with exceptions, a little fan-fiction and imagination, they could fit in other vintage series' from the 80s & 90s and maybe even lines from the 2000s depending on how your preference is. They are really soft and are made of a rubbery plastic. Their limbs are removable and I suppose you could swap their parts to each other. I believe I did that back in the day as I had tons of fun with them back then. The sculpting and paint is fairly decent, its all cool 80s designs which you can clearly tell they are by first glance! Oh and they followed the 80s & 90s great trend by glowing in the dark! Their quality is top notch. I didn't take care of My vintage MOTU unfortunately hence why I was such a huge collector @ MattyCollector if ya know what I mean but I took care of these strange fellas thank goodness
Like I said earlier on, these guys never did have any identities so I have named them and have took some pics of them as well like usual. Here there they!
Muck-O-Man!Fire-Man!Tree-Man!Rock-Man!Varanian-Man!Avian-Man!The Copyright!Scale with vintage MOTU Prince Adam!We're All Together Now!Well there you have it, I hope you have been kinda educated
about these obscurities and everything about them. Questions please if ya got'em! Next up, it be some more monsters but these are more "well known"! Till then see you around