Cora Buhlert

On the long Pentecost weekend, I attended the Los Amigos Masters of the Universe convention in Neuss. For the rather eventful trip to get there, see part 1.

Like last year, the Los Amigos convention took place in the Stadthalle Neuss, a multipurpose event and convention center of the type found in most German cities. It’s a nice enough venue with a hotel attached and a parking lot that is probably sufficient for most of the events taking place there. However, the Los Amigos convention (and indeed most SFF and fan cons) isn’t your usual event. For starters, it draws a lot of people.

Parking Woes and the Wild Listeners

Last year, my Los Amigos experience began with a long queue to get into the con. This year, the various delays on route meant that I arrived at eleven thirty, one and a half hours after the con opened, so there was no queue. However, there was another problem and that was the parking situation.

As mentioned above, Stadthalle Neuss does have a parking lot attached. You have to pay to use it, but the fee is reasonable. However, the parking lot is not very big and so parked cars had spilled out onto the space in front of the entrance to the Stadthalle and adjacent hotel and even onto the driveway leading to the Stadthalle.

I drove up to the parking lot gate and rolled down the window only to find that I couldn’t reach the ticket button from the window. So I tried opening the door only to find that I couldn’t open it far enough to actually get out and press the damn button because some kind of pipe fence was in the way.

I spotted a trio of guys who looked like con attendees standing by the side of the parking lot chatting, so I called over to them if they could help me and press the button. All three wandered over and I noticed that they seemed familiar, almost as if I’d seen them before. Initially, I assumed I’d met them at last year’s Los Amigos convention or maybe at Toyplosion. But then I caught a glimpse of the t-shirts the three guys were wearing and realised that I recognised them because they host the Wilde Hörer (Wild Listeners) podcast that discusses the Masters of the Universe audio dramas.

“Oh, you’re the Wilde Hörer,” I said, “I really like your podcast.”

One of the three Wild Listeners pressed the ticket button, but nothing happened. No ticket appeared and the barrier did not open. The Wild Listeners crowded around the machine and tried pressing various buttons (which were not labeled) and finally succeeded in hitting the “call for assistance” button. A somewhat bored female voice asked what the problem was. “The barrier won’t open,” one of the Wild Listeners said.

“The parking lot is full,” the bored female voice replied.

“Is there anywhere else in the vicinity where I can park?” I asked.

“Not in the vicinity,” the bored voice replied, “There’s a parking lot at the vehicle licensing office.”

Of course, I had no idea where the vehicle licensing office of Neuss even is, but the woman had already switched off the loudspeaker. So I thanked the Wild Listeners and tried to reverse my car, which caused further issues, because there was another car behind me. One of the Wild Listeners told the driver that the parking lot was full, so he reversed as well, and I was able to turn around.

However, there still was the question where to park my car. I was about open Google Maps and tried to locate the Neuss vehicle licensing office or any other parking options in reasonable distance. But then I realised that the hotel adjacent to the Stadthalle had a parking garage, so maybe I could park there and pay the hotel for the privilege. I also spotted parking spaces directly in front of the entrance to the Stadthalle and the hotel, which are probably intended for short term parking. Even better, one of them was free. There were also signs announcing “Private Parking”, but judging by the cars parked in those slots, con goers had clearly taken over these parking spaces as well. So I pulled into the free slot, thinking that, “A) It’s hardly the congoers’ fault, if the Stadthalle doesn’t have sufficient parking for its capacity, and B) they can’t tow us all and besides, I will happily pay for parking.” I looked around for a ticket machine, but there was none, so I just put my parking disc on the dashboard. I also decided that once there was room on the main parking lot again, I would move my car there.

Once I had found a place to park my car, at least for the time being, I could finally go to the con. On my way into the Stadthalle, I saw a guy carrying a life-size Havoc Staff to his car. “Does Skeletor know that you have his staff?” I asked. He laughed.

This time around, having arrived late turned out to be an advantage, for there was no queue at all. I could just walk up to the ticket counter, show my pre-booked ticket, get my armband and walk in.

I later learned that the same torrential rainfall that had hit me on the Autobahn in Wuppertal also hit Neuss, while con goers were queuing outside the Stadthalle. The organisers actually opened the doors a little early, but plenty of people still got soaking wet. So I guess the delay turned out to be lucky after all, because I didn’t have to run around the con in wet clothes.

The counter for the convention exclusives and resulting queue had been relocated to the coat check area underneath the lobby. That means that the glass-enclosed lobby was less crowded and also less hot.

Arriving late also meant that the exclusives I was interested in were already sold out and exclusive plushie dragon had not been shipped in time for the con. So I could bypass the exclusive queue. I did plan to buy a con t-shirt, but by the time I’d done my rounds, the t-shirt counter was unmanned, so I’ll have to do without.

The coat check area under the lobby is also where the toilets are. The signage had been adapted to the occasion and so the women’s bathrooms were marked with Teela and the men’s bathrooms with He-Man. Stadthalle Neuss does not have gender-neutral bathrooms, but if they did I wonder which character would have been chosen for the sign? Orko? The gender-fluid Double Trouble from the 2018 She-Ra cartoon?

In general, the crowd was approx. sixty percent male and forty percent female, i.e. the same gender breakdown that Mattel’s market research found was buying the toys in the 1980s. Some of the women were parts of couples, but most of them were also geeks in their right and not just wives/girlfriends dragged along by their parents. There was also a remarkable number of kids around who seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot. Seeing kids geek out about Masters of the Universe always makes me happy, because the fandom needs new blood to continue. In general, Los Amigos has a reputation as a family-friendly convention and also offers kids programming.

There were a few cosplayers and there was also a cosplay contest later in the day. I spotted a Man-at-Arms and no less than three She-Ras, one adult and two little girls. A one point, adult She-Ra and her two mini-mes posed together.

Like last year, there were also freebies to pick up. There were a bunch of Eternia mini-figures on offer and I picked up Teela/Sorceress as she appeared in the CGI kids show. I have the matching He-Man as a mini-figure, but not the Teela.

There was also a big stack of Masters of the Universe Revelation jigsaw puzzles with different pictures. Several people took multiple puzzles, but I took just one – featuring Teela, Andra and Evil-Lyn – because that weekend also happened to be the birthday of a neighbour kid and it would make a nice gift for her. She was happy about her gift, too, as was her little brother. When I took the boxed jigsaw puzzle to the car, an elderly couple who were obviously not con goers, but regular guests of the adjacent hotel, wondered, “Why are all of those people carrying boxes of jigsaw puzzles?”

“They’re being given away at the con,” I told them, “So if you want a jigsaw puzzle, feel free to take one. Though you may have to buy a ticket to the con first.”

“No, thank you,” the elderly lady replied, “We were just curious what was going on.”

Warriors of the Galaxy and the Weird Wonderful World of Knock-Off Toys

In the lobby of the Stadthalle, almost directly next to the ticket counter, was the booth of Formo Toys, an indie toy company which produces high quality fantasy action figures in the style of the vintage 5.5 inch Masters of the Universe figures. They have a line called Legends of Dragonore featuring various heroes and villains as well as dragons. The lines originally started out inspired by unproduced Masters of the Universe concept art and characters, but then turned into its own thing. I bought two of the Wave 1 figures – the two female characters Yondara and Pantera – at last year’s Los Amigos, because I really liked the designs and they fit perfectly into my Masters of the Universe Origins display, which suffered from a notable lack of female characters at the time.

Like last year, the Formo Toys booth was manned by Peer Brauner, the artist who sculpts the figures. He’s a local – well, sort of – and hails from Oberhausen. He even recognised me from last year and we chatted for a while. I asked him if Wave 2 of Legends of Dragonore was out yet, since that wave includes some intriguing characters such as a green-skinned witch, an African huntress, an indigenous character with wings and a tree/leaf creature. He replied that they had only just received the test shots and that it would be a while before Wave 2 came out, especially since Donald Trump’s insane tariffs are hitting Formo Toys hard like the rest of the US toy industry. Considering all the terrible things Trump has done and is continuing to do – Los Angeles was literally on the brink of civil war, while I was at the con – getting outraged about tariffs on toys might seem frivolous, but it is notable that Trump really seems to have it in for the toy industry – also note his comments about little girls not needing so many dolls or him threatening the “country of Mattel“. Which is an odd choice, because the toy industry isn’t harming anybody, but just producing products that bring joy and ideally also positively influence the development of children. So honestly, why would any government target the toy industry, especially smaller companies like Formo Toys or Neca or Super 7? It makes no sense at all. Not that anything Trump does makes sense.

But even though Wave 2 of Legends of Dragonore wasn’t available yet, Formo Toys did have something new on offer, so new that many stores still have these figures on pre-order, namely the triumphant return of the Warriors of the Galaxy.

So who on Earth are the Warriors of the Galaxy? The Warriors of the Galaxy have a remarkably long history going back all the way to 1983, when Mattel‘s new Masters of the Universe toyline turned out to be successful beyond anybody’s wildest imaginations. Other companies wanted a piece of the cake, too, and so various Masters of the Universe knock-off toylines were launched, both by established companies like Remco (whose World of the Warlord toyline, based on DC‘s sword and sorcery comics of the 1970s and 1980s, actually prompted a lawsuit from Mattel) and Galoob as well as by fly-by-night operations based in the Far East.

One of these fly-by-night outfits was Sungold Toys of Hong Kong. Not a lot is known about them beyond the fact that they appear to have been founded around 1980 and operated in the 1980s and 1990s, specialising in knock-offs of popular, mostly American toylines. In 1983, Sungold Toys introduced the Galaxy Warriors, a Masters of the Universe knock-off toyline that was in roughly the same scale and also copied the muscular bodies and somewhat squatted posture as well as the sword and sorcery theme of the Masters of the Universe figures.

I should probably say a few words about knock-off toylines. Even if you’ve never heard of knock-off toylines, I guarantee that you’ve seen them around and maybe even owned some of them. Like the name implies, knock-off toylines are copies of popular brand-name toylines that look just similar enough to fool the casual observer, but are mostly of notably lower quality. There are knock-offs of pretty much anything and they are usually sold in supermarkets, discount and dollar stores, drugstores, gas stations, market stalls, those messy Italian toy stores which seemed to carry every toy ever produced, only that you never had time to properly explore them (honestly, every German kid has a story about one of those Italian toy stores and that amazing toy they only ever saw there – or maybe it were always the same toy store, existing outside time and space and accesible via portals all over Italy), etc…, but also in regular toy and department stores, often alongside the very lines they were imitating. They’re usually manufactured in whatever the center of cheap consumer good manufacturing is at the time – Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s, Thailand and Vietnam in the 1990s and China today – and distributed both by no name fly-by-night companies as well as by companies that specialise in such products such as Simba Toys of Germany (who’ve since moved into the higher priced brand-name market)

The main selling point of knock-offs is that they are notably cheaper than the original, but close enough to the real thing that if you squint hard enough they will do. You might think that the target market for these knock-off toys are lower income families, but that’s not the complete story. Plenty of people who could afford the brand-name product buy knock-offs, because they just don’t care or can’t tell the toys apart or just need a quick, cheap gift for a birthday or to shut up a kid. Of course, kids were never fooled by knock-offs, but adults often were, since most adults don’t give a damn about toys and can’t tell a Galaxy Warrior from a Master of the Universe. Many people also tend to view toys as disposable and so go for the cheaper option, because they believe the kids won’t notice and they’ll only break the toys anyway. In my younger years, I was something of a crusader against knock-off toys and always insisted on buying brand-name products as gifts for kids in the family. “No, we’re not buying Petra or Sindy or Steffi Love, we’re buying a proper Barbie. No, we’re not buying Simba toy cars, we’re buying Hot Wheels. We’re not giving kids cheap crap as presents, because kids deserve quality, too.”

Nowadays, I have a more nuanced view of the issue. When buying toys for kids, I still go for brand name products – for reasons of safety and quality, though it should be noted that knock-off toys sold in the EU (and most likely the US, too) still have to pass all safety standards or they wouldn’t be allowed to be sold. However, I also respect that some knock-off toys are actually quite interesting and unique with regards to design or just so plain weird you can’t help but like them. There are also dedicated collectors of knock-off toylines and some of those cheap knock-off toys have become quite expensive on the aftermarket, particularly if they are mint on card, because these were cheap disposable toys that were never meant or expected to last. Indeed, I saw a whole table full of various vintage Masters of the Universe knock-off figures at the Los Amigos convention, including several Galaxy Warriors. One of the hosts of the Tales From the Fright Zone podcast collects knock-off figures and purchased several at that table.

Some knock-off toylines even become brand names of their own like the various Barbie knock-offs such as Sindy by Pedigree from the UK, Petra by Plasty from West Germany (the company still exists, the doll does not) or Steffi by VEB Puppenfabrik Waltershausen from East Germany who actually survived her West German rival and is still being produced as Steffi Love by Simba Toys.

One of the best known Masters of the Universe knock-off  toylines with its own identity is Rulers of the Sun by Olmec Toys. Created by Yla Eason in 1985, Sun-Man and the Rulers of the Sun were created not just to make a quick buck, but to fill a gap in the original toyline. Because in the 1980s, Masters of the Universe was a very white toyline. By 1985, there was only one Masters of the Universe character of colour, Jitsu, who was not only a villain, but also a cliché. Yla Eason was a black mother whose young son loved Masters of Universe, but was sad that there was no character in the toyline who looked like him (Clamp-Champ, the lone black character from the original Masters of the Universe toyline, was not introduced until 1987). So Yla Eason created the black hero Sun-Man and the Rulers of the Sun, a racially diverse toyline of Masters of the Universe style heroes featuring Black, Asian, Hispanic and Indigenous characters and even a token white guy. Olmec Toys also produced racially diverse versions of other popular toylines of the day such as Princess of Power, G.I. Joe (which was more racially diverse than Masters of the Universe in the 1980s, but also managed to tell non-American kids that they weren’t welcome in the bloody tagline) and Barbie (which introduced the first black doll in 1966 and had been offering a black Barbie since 1980).

I strongly suspect that both Clamp-Champ and Netossa from Princess of Power directly owe their existence to Sun-Man, when Mattel realised that both Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power had no black characters at all (and note that Barbie had had black characters in 1966). And forty years later, there not only are several characters of colour in Masters of the Universe, but Mattel has also officially canonised the Rulers of the Sun toyline and reissued all of the characters in the Masters of the Universe Origins line.

Unlike other knock-off toylines, the Rulers of the Sun were never sold in Germany (Germany frequently didn’t get black characters, e.g. we didn’t get Clamp-Champ either, because it was assumed that they wouldn’t sell in what was still a very white country back then), so German fans have no nostalgic connection to these figures and some German fans also resented the Rulers of the Sun being included in the Masters of the Universe Origins line, supposedly because they were watering down, though good old-fashioned racism also plays into it. Therefore, I was happy to see a display celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Sun-Man and the Rulers of the Sun at Los Amigos. Because Sun-Man deserves to be celebrated for making toylines more diverse.

The Galaxy Warriors by Sungold Toys are another knock-off toyline which took on an identity of its own, though for an entirely different reason. The quality was pretty good by knock-off standards and the figures also had some interesting ideas and designs. Initially, there were twelve characters in the Galaxy Warriors line – a mix of humans, monsters and creatures with animal heads – plus a couple of beasts to ride upon. The figures were sold on blister cards with striking Frank Frazetta inspired (or rather just plain copied) artwork and some of the figures themselves were also obviously inspired by Frank Frazetta’s artwork. The characters had names, but no bios. Nor were there mini-comics, cartoons or any kind of storyline or even any indication who was good and who was evil, though there are theories. Basically, it was up to your own imagination who these characters were.

What makes the Galaxy Warriors legendary among the collectors of knock-off toys is that the basic molds were reused again and again for a plethora of knock-offs of the knock-off for years to come. In addition to the Galaxy Warriors, there are also Galaxy Fighters, Galaxy Heroes, Combo Heroes (these were quite common in Germany and sold at lots of supermarkets, durgstores, etc…), Freedom Fighters, Swords and Sorcerers, Galactic Gladiators, Lords of Insects, Troll Fighters, umpteen wrestling toylines and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knock-offs such as Turly Gang, Turtle Warriors or Tortoise Warriors. Sungold Toys also produced a She-Ra knock-off line called Galaxy Adventure Girl, which again spawned umpteen knock-offs of its own. The figures also come in lots of variations with regard to colours, accessories and packaging. Check out this YouTube channel for hilarious overviews and reviews of many of those Galaxy Warrior knock-off toylines. In short, the Galaxy Warriors  are a weird and wonderful rabbit hole of increasingly bizarre toys that is affectionately nicknamed the Galaxy Hole.

Formo Toys decided to bring back the Galaxy Warriors, now renamed Warriors of the Galaxy (though I doubt that anybody would have sued them for using the original name, since everybody and their sister was making Galaxy Warrior figures anyway), still based on the old designs from the 1980s, but now with much better sculpting and higher quality. When Peer Brauner showed me the Warriors of the Galaxy, I exclaimed, “Oh, wow, I remember those guys.  I used to see them all the time at the Comet supermarket at the Roland Center mall or the Woolworth store at the Berliner Freiheit mall or at Kaufhalle.”

Wave 1 of the Warriors of the Galaxy recreates three of the twelve original Galaxy Warriors: Magnon, a helmeted blonde human warrior who is the He-Man analogue of the Galaxy Warriors (okay, there’s also Rahh, who looks even more like He-Man, but whose status as a true blue Galaxy Warrior is unclear), Huk, a viking with a red beard and horned helmet and Baltard, an orc with pointy ears and a top knot, who is also one of the most memorable Galaxy Warriors, a) because his head sculpt was used over and over again in the various toylines reusing the Galaxy Warriors mold and so Baltard appeared in anything from wrestling lines to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knock-offs, and b) because his delightfully grumpy facial expression makes him look as if he’d rather sit at home by the fire place with a mug of ale in hand and read a good book rather than be dragged out to fight all sorts of battles against all sorts of opponents. Baltard is such a knock-off legend that he even has his own Instagram page dedicated to the many weird and wonderful incarnations of Baltard, the orc warrior who never found a gang he did not want to join.

I was internally debating whether to get Baltard or Huk, since they’re both very cool, but then I decided to get both. And since I was buying two Warriors of the Galaxy already, I might as well buy Magnon, too, so I have the full first wave and Baltard and Huk have someone to fight.

The packaging has very similar aesthetics to the vintage Galaxy Warriors packaging, though without blatant Frank Frazetta rip-offs and featuring the actual characters on the card. Baltard is billed as the “Unstoppable Creator of Chaos”, though he still looks as if he’d rather sit by the fire place with a mug of ale in his hand than creating chaos. Magnon is billed as the “Noble Hero of Planet Ferror” and Huk is billed as the “Bane of the Stormy Isles”, suggesting that he might be a bad guy. Or maybe he is just a little too fond of engaging in those popular viking pastimes of looting, raping and pillaging.

Unlike their predecessors from the 1980s, the new Warriors of the Galaxy have bios on the back of the packaging and they also come with mini-comics (which you can see here), telling their story. Magnon hails from the planet Ferror and is locked in a war with Huk’s vikings, when an intergalactic portal named the Galaxy Hole dumps all sorts of alien creatures, monsters and warriors onto his planet. Once of those warriors is Baltard, a mercenary who finds himself permanently on the losing side. The big bad appears to be another character from the vintage Galaxy Warriors line, Spikes, a faceless warrior with an all black body, sporting a green Spartan, who is one of the more memorable designs in the line. He recruits Baltard and Huk to his cause, though Huk finds out what Spikes is really up to – namely making a pact with various supervillains from around the galaxy – on the final page of his mini-comic. Meanwhile, Magnon receives a telepathic message from Yondara of Legends of Dragonore on the final page of his mini-comic, warning him of just such a pact. And since the Legends of Dragonore characters also pass through interdimensional portals as well in order to collect pieces of the divine armour of power (a very Jack Kirby-esque design that you can assemble, if you buy all the characters in the first wave), they can all interact.

Those mini-comics are a veritable treasure trove of knock-off toyline Easter Eggs. From the the original Galaxy Warriors, in addition to Huk, Baltard and Magnon, I spot Spikes (the faceless Spartan), Ygg (ugly minotaur monster creature), Thor (a human with evil eyes and a red helmet who looks like he stepped out of a 1930s science fiction cover), Rahh (an even more blatant He-Man rip-off than Magnon, who dies in Magnon’s arms on the page), Triton (human hero with dark curly hair), Tiger-Man (the sword and sorcery version of Tony the Tiger) and Anubi (a wolf/dog creature). From the Galaxy Fighters, there is Iguana (a reptilian monster warrior). From the Combo Heroes, I spot Unicorna (warrior with a unicorn head), Satanas (guy with a half-human and half-skull face and a batwing head dress, just in case there’s any doubt that he’s evil) and The Evil (green-skinned guy with mad eyes, assymetrically cut blonde hair and a long coat/vest, who looks more like a coked up 1980s pop star or a demented Ninja Turtle than actually evil). One of the Galaxy Adventure Girls shows up as well as well as Yondara and the evil magician Oskuro from Legends of Dragonore. And yes, I had to look up which character comes from which knock-off line and what their official names are. Though I wouldn’t be at all unhappy if all of those wonderful weirdos were eventually released. And indeed, Ygg and Spikes are supposed to come out in Wave 2 of Warriors of the Galaxy, which means that poor Magnon will have his hands full, because all the other Warriors of the Galaxy are villains, except for possibly Huk whom I still don’t see as a villain. But then, the villains have much cooler designs.

And here are my three Galaxy Warriors – pardon, Warriors of the Galaxy – out of the packaging.

And just for fun, my two Legends of Dragonore ladies Yondara and Pantera joined in as well.

I really like these figures. They’re not cheap, but the quality is great and they’re so much fun. In fact, I like them so much that I ordered the remaining four Legends of Dragonore figures of Wave 1 as well (which will also allow me to assemble the divine armour of power, which is currently a torso and head without limbs). And once Wave 2 of Legends of Dragonore and Warriors of the Galaxy comes out, they will certainly join my collection. Expect photos and maybe even a toy photo story.

Close Encounter with a Legend and More Con Adventures

At the table next to the Formo Toys booth, there was a lady with long white hair sitting at a table with a beautiful model of a concept art Castle Grayskull (this version). I initially assumed she was a regular con goer who’d sat down at an empty table (well, except for that Castle Grayskull) to rest for a moment, since places to sit down were somewhat short in supply at Stadthalle Neuss, which is sadly a common issue in Germany and elsewhere.

But then the lady got up and came over to the Formo Toys table, while I was chatting with Peer Brauner and asked me in English, if I could take a photo of her and Peer together. So I took a photo of the two of them with her phone. She said thank you, I said “No problem” and the lady returned to the table with the Castle Grayskull model.

Later I learned that this lady was Rebecca Taylor, widow of Mark Taylor who designed most of the early Masters of the Universe figures as well as Castle Grayskull. The model on the table was actually based on his original concept design. Rebecca Taylor also worked on Masters of the Universe herself and designed various stickers and cardboard inserts of the original Castle Grayskull playset. She was also the guest of honour at the con. Here is an interview with her and her late husband at the Battle Ram Blog.

As for why she asked me to take a photo of her and Peer Brauner, Mark Taylor was apparently involved in the Legends of Dragonore toyline before his death in December 2021, so Rebecca Taylor and Peer Brauner know each other quite well. They also did a panel together with artist Axel Gimenez later that day.

I continued making my round of the glass-enclosed lobby of Stadthalle Neuss. The displays and the stalls of the various artists and customisers were all in the lobby, while the programming and dealers room were in the auditorium at the center of the building.

Next, I stopped at the stall of the Retro Fabrik to buy episodes 5 and 6 of their new Masters of the Universe audio dramas on CD. Masters of the Universe audio dramas have a long history in Germany, because the vintage audio dramas by Europa were the entry point into the world of Masters of the Universe for many German kids in the 1980s, since the Filmation cartoon didn’t start airing in Germany until the late 1980s, unless you were lucky enough to have cable TV and access to Sky Channel. I was one of the lucky few and saw the Filmation cartoon via Sky Channel in the Netherlands and also spoke English, so I could actually understand it, so the cartoon was my primary Masters of the Universe influence. However, I was also familiar with the audio dramas.

The vintage audio dramas by Europa are long out of print and cannot be reissued either because of rights issues, though you can listen to them on YouTube. So Retro Fabrik issued a series of brand-new audio dramas with their own storyline and continuity. For the Los Amigos con, they’d also brought along David M. Schulze, the voice actor who plays He-Man and Prince Adam in the new audio dramas. Here’s a panel and Q&A session with the Retro Fabrik guys and David M. Schulze at the Los Amigos con. I actually saw this panel happening live on stage, while I was browsing the dealers room.

Various artists were also displaying and offering their work in the lobby of Stadthalle Neuss, including Ken Coleman, Raul Barrero, who takes the amazing product photos of the Mondo figures, Axel Gimenez, who does much of the packaging artwork for the Origins line and also designed many of newer Snake People, and Simon Eckert, who does most of the packaging artwork for the Masterverse line. I chatted a bit with Simon and bought some art prints from him.

There were also some very cool custom figures on display (and for sale) in the lobby.

There was also am exhibition of original animation cels from the Filmation He-Man and She-Ra cartoons, courtesy of Pierre, an animation art collector from Düsseldorf. See him interviewed on the bumo TV YouTube channel here.

There was also a custom display for Altaya‘s Masters of the Universe figures. These are non-articulated figures with a base and they were only sold in France by Altaya, a company that specialises in selling collectible figures, vehicles, etc… with magazines. What makes them notable is that Altaya made several characters like the royal archaeologist Melaktha or Horde Admiral Scurvy that never had a figure in any other line, though it’s also notable that a lot of Great Rebellion members are missing.

Inside the air-conditioned auditorium at the center of Stadthalle Neuss, there was the stage where the programming took place and the dealers room/flea market in what is normally the audience seating area, though the seating had been removed.

The Dealers Room and My Haul

The dealers room was a mix of professional vendors and private collectors. It seemed to me as if the dealers room was a little emptier and less busy than last year, though that might also have been because I arrived late. With regard to offerings, there were a lot of fairly recent Masters of the Universe Origins, Masterverse and CGI figures. I already have most of those, though I purchased a Masterverse New Eternia Skelcon.

Now I already have one Skelcon, but I wanted at least two to flank Skeletor’s throne, because the Skelcons are Skeletor’s army of minions and one Skelcon isn’t much of an army (for comparison, I have five Eternian Palace Guards).  Unfortunately, the Masterverse Skelcon was never released in Germany. This happens occasionally, e.g. the figures based on the 1987 are also difficult to find. But for some reason, it’s always the army builders that are hard to find here in Germany, see also the Origins Horde Trooper. So when I saw a Skelcon for a reasonable price for sale at Los Amigos, I snapped it up.

You can’t really make it out in the photo, but inside the mouth of the Skelcon, there are lots of little screaming faces to represent the souls consumed by these creatures. This is a reference to Masters of the Universe Revelation, where the Skelcons were revealed to be Eternian citizens who had been turned into monsters by some kind of corrosive mist and had their souls ripped out by Skeletor. Yes, Masters of the Universe can get very dark on occasion.

***

The throne room of Eternos Palace, shortly after Skeletor stole the Sword of Power and became Skelegod:

“Be careful. These monsters are really just transformed citizens. We don’t want to hurt them.”

“Adam, I’m pretty sure these things don’t remember who or what they used to be. And in case you hadn’t noticed, they’re trying to kill us. And now grab that axe properly and start chopping.”

***

There also was a sizeable number of vintage Masters of the Universe figures and accessories on offer, both loose and in varying states of completeness and mint on card.  One vendor had a whole table of vintage mint on card figures, which were on sale for three to four figures, even though several of the blisters had yellowed and sometimes the cards were faded and beaten up, too. The whole display looked as if someone had broken into a toy shop or department store that closed sometime in the 1980s (there was a creepy store like that in the town of Berne, which had been closed for ages, allagedly because the owner was murdered, yet the mannequins and merchandise were still inside the shop, unchanged since the 1970s, though increasingly faded from exposure to sunlight through the display windows) and found those poor figures still on the shelves, exposed to the elements. And to be fair, that’s usually where  mint on card or in box toys come from these days – they’re warehouse finds. Though one dealer showed off one of those warehouse finds – a whole box of mint on card vintage Dragon Blaster Skeletor figures – at the con and the packaging of those figures looked absolutey pristine, as if they’d come through a time portal straight from 1985. There is one of those Dragon Blaster Skeletors on offer on the website of the vendor and for the low price of 1399.99 EUR he can be yours. But with toys that old, the condition of both toy and packaging is always a gamble, even when mint, which is probably also why I don’t even consider buying vintage figures on card, even if the pristine examples occasionally trigger a little pang of nostalgia of seeing these figures in a store back in the day.

That said, I was sorely tempted by a vintage Slime Pit and would probably have inquired what it costs, if it hadn’t sold right before my eyes. But since we are getting the Fright Zone in Origins, I suspect that we will eventually get the Slime Pit as well. The other vintage toy that tempted was a Dragon Walker – my favourite Masters of the Universe vehicle. But if I ever get a Dragon Walker, I want a functioning one, because the bizarre movement pattern is half the fun about this one.

But while the vintage and modern era of Masters of the Universe were well represented, everything inbetween – Princess of Power, New Adventures, 200X and Classics – were less well represented, which was quite different from last year. I saw a handful of New Adventures figures, but the only vintage Princess of Power toy I spotted was a mint-in-box Clawdeen. If she’d been loose and in good condition, I might have bought her for my vintage Catra, but not in box.

As for 200X, there was one stall which had quite a lot of 200X figures, both mint-on-card and loose. I don’t systematically collect 200X figures, but I have been picking up figures and characters I like here and there. And this particular stall had a 200X Evil-Lyn figure and I bought her. She is beautiful – and still the only proper 200X Evil-Lyn ever made. Both Classics and Origins made an Evil-Lyn figure in 200X colours, but just repainted the regular body (which is also Teela’s body) rather than give her her 200X gown.

Poor Duncan and Prince Adam are vastly outnumbered faced with five Evil Warriors (six, if you count Keldor and Skeletor separately). I came close to buying a loose 200X Mekaneck at Los Amigos to bolster the ranks of the Heroic Warriors, but one of his arms had fallen off.

I do have a 200X Teela (purchased at Marchè Noir), but she is a carded and I have been debating whether to take her out – it is twenty-year-old carded figure after all. Though the 200X packaging isn’t as iconic as the vintage packaging and I don’t collect packaged toys anyway, so I should just go ahead and open her. After all, it’s my figure and my money

That said, I do not have a 200X He-Man, even though there were umpteen He-Man variants, including really bizarre ones like Snake Hunter He-Man, Samurai He-Man or Jungle Attack He-Man, in the 200X line. And I have seen 200X He-Man figures for sale, but for some reason I never saw one I liked. I should probably remedy that eventually.

The 200X cartoon actually shows us Keldor’s and Lyn’s first meeting. They’re both trying to steal the same artefact – or rather Keldor sends his minions to steal the artefact and only reveals himself, after Lyn makes short work of them.

Here is my take on that scene:

“Oh, you’re on trouble now, girly. Give it to her, boss! Show her that no one misses with the Evil Warriors.”

“Evil? I thought we were the Outcast Warriors?”

“Evil Warriors sounds cooler and scarier.”

“Keep away from me! I just kicked the butts of your minions and I can kick yours, too.”

“I doubt that. But where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Keldor, future King of Eternia. And your name is…?”

“Lyn of Zalesia. Now Evil-Lyn, sorceress, thief and apparently the person who will beat up the future King of Eternia, if you don’t let me go right now.”

“But why so fast, my pretty? You impressed me, when you dealt with my minions…”

“Uhm, boss, you’re supposed to zap her, not flirt with her.”

“…and I am not easily impressed. I could use someone with your talents. Join me and I will give you riches and power beyond imagination. For every king needs a queen…”

“Hmm, join a gang called the Evil Warriors….”

“The Outcast Warriors, the Disinherited, those unfairly ignored and persecuted by the ruling class.”

“You know, Keldor, I’ve heard of you. The Gar halfblood, the first-born prince denied the throne and cruelly banished from the palace, come to take back what should have been his in the first place. I like what I’ve heard, for I have no love for the House of Miro and the Council of Elders myself. But I like what I see even more. For none of the stories about Keldor, the outcast prince, mentioned how handsome you are. So yes, I will join you and then we shall rule Eternia side by side, together.”

“Uhm, why does she get to be queen and not one of us?”

“Because she’s a girl and we’re not, idiot.”

“Keldor could still pick one of us. Who says the consort needs to be a girl?”

***

Keldor is canonically bisexual, BTW – as mentioned in the Masters of the Multiverse comic mini-series. Though he tends to prefer women – most notably Lyn and Crita from New Adventures, where Skeletor is positively charming, when flirting with her. With Lyn, he’s mostly just abusive.

However, the romantic bliss of Keldor and Lyn is short-lived, because Keldor manages to get his face burned off, when the acid he throws at Randor backfires on himself. Lyn takes the mortally injured Keldor to Hordak, so Hordak can heal him. However, in the process Keldor becomes Skeletor and the change affects not just his body, but also his mind. And the newly born Skeletor is not only his usual terrible self, but also seems to have no affection for Lyn in this incarnation, so Lyn falls out of love with him and proceeds to try to betray him by freeing first the Snake Men from the void and then trying to free Hordak from Despondos, because the 200X Evil-Lyn has a thing for freeing terrible monsters from their imprisonment to stick it to Skeletor.

The 200X Evil-Lyn never shows any sexual interest in Duncan, neither on screen nor in the comics, but I still thought it would be fun to have them flirt.

“In the name of the King, you’re under arrest, Lyn of Zalesia. And now put down that staff and the dagger.”

“I don’t think so, Duncan.”

ZAP!

“Can’t move.”

“That’s paralysis spell. Love the new armour, by the way, Duncan. It suits you. But why so grim, when we could have so much fun together?”

“Because I’m the royal Man-at-Arms and you’re a criminal and Skeletor’s lover besides.”

“Skeletor’s lover? Pah, that’s long over. Well, Keldor, he was devilishly handsome, smart, ambitious and he was going to make me queen of Eternia. But Skeletor isn’t Keldor, not anymore. He’s rude, cruel and besides, he lost all interest in me.”

“Lyn, check out my new blood armour. Isn’t it great? Oh, you’ve captured Duncan. Good job. Throw him in the dungeon. We’ll torture him later.”

“See what I mean? He’s an idiot. That’s his third new armour this month. And trust me, you don’t want to see what his Mecha Blade, Serpent Crush and Disco armours look like. Honestly, why on Eternia does anybody need Disco armour?”

“If I’m your prisoner, Lyn, could you just lock me up already, because I don’t want to listen to your domestic disputes with Skeletor.”

“Really, Duncan, you’d chose a dark, damp cell over my soft, warm bed? Cause I could make you my personal sex slave. Skeletor wouldn’t even notice. He’s way too obsessed with breaking into that blasted castle. So, what will it be, Duncan?”

***

Lyn actually does make Duncan her personal sex slave in the six-issue mini-series, which started off the DC Comics Masters of the Universe run in 2011. In that series, Skeletor has won and conquered Eternia and instead of killing the heroes, which would have been the smart thing to do, he steals their memories and brainwashes them into forgetting who they are. But then their memories start coming back…

Duncan – wearing very few clothes – ends up as Lyn’s right-hand man on some tropical island which she rules. We never see anything happen between them, but it’s strongly impied that they’re lovers or rather that Duncan is Lyn’s personal sex slave, since he clearly didn’t consent to any of this. As mentioned above, Masters of the Universe can be quite dark on occasion.

There were a number of Classics figures of offer, but there were only a handful I was interested in. But then, my Classics collection has grown a lot in the past year.  In the end, it came down to a choice between two figures – both quite expensive. One was Hordak in his Filmation colours, who comes packagd with Imp. The other was a Classics Battle Cat, for while I have a Masterverse Battle Cat and he looks great, the Classics He-Man cannot ride on him, because he’s too big. This is time where the slight size difference between the Classics and Masterverse – about half an inch – becomes a problem.

In the end, I went with Battle Cat, because I’ve seen the Filmation style Hordak on eBay for cheaper and he will eventually come up again. Besides, the Classics Battle Cat looks amazing and is probably the best version of Battle Cat. So my Classics He-Man now has his best friend:

Of course, there were other vintage toys on offer as well in addition to the various Masters of the Universe lines, though fewer than at Toyplosion. I spotted a number of Star Wars figures, some Bravestarr, MASK, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Real Ghostbusters toys as well as Playmobil. There also were quite a lot of modern DC Comics and Marvel Legends figures. Meanwhile, there were almost no examples of girl-aimed toys like Barbie, Jem, My Little Pony, Care Bears, etc…

I also came across a stall which had a remarkable number of toys based on the rtaher obscure Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon (not to be confused with The Real Ghostbusters), including the two female figures Futura and Jessica. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon, even if it was overshadowed by The Real Ghostbusters, and secretly hoped that we’d get a crossover (which was never going to happen), because the US is clearly big enough for two teams of Ghostbusters, cause double busting makes you deel twice as good. The toys based on the Real Ghostbusters were easy to find even in Europe, but as a kid I only ever saw toys based on the Filmation Ghostbusters once in – yes, you guessed it – one of those messy toystores in Italy. So seeing these very obscure toys twice in the space of less than a year (first at Toyplosion and now at Los Amigos) makes me wonder whether the universe is trying to tell me something.

And that was it for my pretty epic Los Amigos haul:

Other People’s Con Reports

Of course, there are also plenty of other reports about the 2025 Los Amigos con.

Rudolf Barnholt reports about the con for the local paper Neuß-Grevenbroicher Zeitung. Fun fact: Hape Kerkeling, the German comedian from the Ruhrgebiet region who was mentioned in part 1, frequently portrays one Horst Schlämmer, a fictional reporter working for this very newspaper.

The local news site Rhein-Wied News also has a report about the Los Amigos convention, sadly uncredited and illustrated with what appaears to be AI images. Honestly, how hard can it be to find official images of He-Man?

German toy collectors in general and Masters of the Universe fandom in particular are concentrated on YouTube, so there are a lot of YouTube videos about the con.

Goreminister shares a documentary about the 2025 Los Amigos with lots of footage and interviews and also mentions the torrential rain.

Customiser Master Ölli shares his impressions of the 20215 Los Amigos.

Toy Collector NRW shares a video with footage and impressions of the 2025 Los Amigos, as does Infoxicating Coffee Break.

There also are a lot of haul videos: Der Movie Picker shares some impressions of the con as well as his haul (and I’m so jealous of that Disco Skeletor). The two hosts of Tales From the Fright Zone share their impressions of the 2025 Los Amigos and their haul. Der Sitti shares his and his wife’s haul and some impressions of the con. The highlight is a vintage Slime Pit – quite possibly the same one I had my eye on. DJ Shifrocs shares his haul at the VTS Experience YouTube channel. It Waits TV also shares his haul as well as a some footage of the con.

Chriss Tainment, who is one of the organisers and also moderated the panels, shares his haul and he did buy several of those Filmation Ghostbusters figures I had my eye on. Silent Mike also shares his haul and he also bought those Filmation Ghostbusters figures. Amazing how many people remember loving the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon, especially since it is often considered the lesser of the two Ghostbusters cartoons. Which is wrong, both Ghostbusters cartoons are great in their own way.

The Quest for Lunch Revisited

By the time I’d finished my Los Amigos rounds and taken my haul to the car and relocated my car to the actual carpark, which had emptied out a little by now, it was shortly before two PM, i.e. high time for lunch.

Now last year, the food options at Los Amigos were rather limited. The Los Amigos organisers had promised that there would be more food options on site this year, but in practice it was still just burgers, sausages (particularly the ever popular Currywurst, fries, crepes and drinks. The lines for these rather underwhelming food offerings were also pretty long.

I did got myself a bottle of water at the drinks stall – and the operator had to go hunting for one, because the drinks stall mostly seemed to be focussed on selling beer. But otherwise, I decided to go looking for food outside the con.

Unfortunately, there were no dining options in the immediate surroundings of Stadthalle Neuss. There were dining options in the city center, but the city center of Neuss is pedestrianised and there are few parking options in this area. Of course, I could have tried walking from the Stadthalle to the city center, but I wasn’t sure how far it was, plus I’d been walking around the con for several hours and wasn’t in the mood for spending more hours walking around Neuss, especially given the weather.

However, Google Maps showed my a street in the suburb of Furth with several restaurants and a public parking lot near-by, which looked promising. So I programmed Else for the address and parked my car on the public parking lot (which was even free). The parking lot turned out to be next to a small park, which was flanked by two post-war churches – one Catholic and the other Lutheran – on each side.

Once I’d parked my car, I went in search of the restaurants. Alas, the first restaurant – a Japanese place – turned out to be closed. The next one turned out to be a pizza delivery service. Then an Indian restaurant, also closed. Another pizza delivery service. A Thai restaurant, closed. And finally a café, also – you guessed it – closed.

As I’ve mentioned before, ever since the pandemic it has been getting increasingly difficult even in bigger cities to find a place to have lunch, especially if you avoid fast food chains like McDonald’s or Burger King. Pre-2020 I don’t recall ever having serious problems finding a place to have lunch anywhere. That is, when I was a teenager, we were on holiday in Northern Bavaria and had problems finding places to eat, but that was because all the restaurants were German country inns (which ironically are an endangered species by now), which had zero vegetarian options at the time. Nowadays, however, the only option is often döner kebap and while I don’t mind döner once in a while, I don’t want to eat it all the time.

Besides, there wasn’t even a döner shop in this part of Neuss, at least none that was open. The only place that was open was a bakery with a small café – a branch of Bakery Büsch, a chain from Kamp-Lintfort with branches all over the Ruhrgebiet – attached to an Edeka supermarket.  So I headed to the bakery, only to find that their food options were highly limited – it is a small bakery café attached to a supermarket, after all. I finally ordered a tomato and mozzarella sandwich. It wasn’t bad at all, just not what I would consider a proper lunch.

Germany is currently experiencing a wave of restaurants closing and going bankrupt as reported here, here and here. The reasons are high inflation – particularly food and energy costs have risen disproportionately – as well as rising wages and lack of personel. And since the high inflation is hitting the entire country, people are cutting back on non-vital expenses like eating out. It’s all very frustrating. I don’t eat out all that often, but when I’m away from home I need to eat something. And yes, in retrospect I should have gone into the city center, but the problem of finding a place to eat is still pervasive.

While I was munching on my tomato and mozzarella sandwich, it started to rain again. I considered ordering another coffee, allowing me to linger for longer and wait out the rain. However, this was only a brief shower and by the time I finished my sandwich, the rain had stopped.

So I made my way back to my car. By now, it was three forty-five in the afternoon, so still time enough to explore the area before heading to my hotel. But that’s a tale for part 3.