Godzilla DOOM ISLAND Spacegodzilla (and carded figures) Trendmasters, 1997

 

I recently added this beauty to my collection, completing my set of carded DOOM ISLAND action figures (which is what Trendmasters referred to as "6-inch action figures," even though they are really closer to 5).  

If you don't know the story, DOOM ISLAND was the third and final Godzilla line made by Trendmasters, which unfortunately was cancelled before it could be completely realized. What was finished was never officially sold in the United States, as retailers like Wal-Mart simply passed on the line, signaling that the Trendmasters Godzilla line had run its course.  It's too bad, because the premise of the line was incredible: Godzilla and friends fighting dinosaurs!

Six carded figures were produced and packaged, which was good and bad--on the one hand, they were the sculpts we had seen previously,  in the KING OF THE MONSTERS and GODZILLA WARS lines...and now with no option for sound...but on the other, all of them were now improved with different paint, and accentuated by a dark wash, which made them look super-cool. (The two Godzillas still retained their battery-powered "Atomic Plasma Eyes," though.)

Here is a high-resolution scan of the backing card, which shows lots of amazing entries in this line, both made and unmade (some of these exist only as prototypes):

We have taken in-depth looks at the four "Battle Armor" figures on this site before, which you can view here:

Battle Armor Godzilla

Battle Armor Kumonga

Battle Armor Mecha King Ghidorah

Battle Armor Anguirus

Back to the six carded figures, they were: Godzilla, Supercharged Godzilla, Baragon, Megalon, Varan, and Spacegodzilla.  For some reason, you will see an occasional Doom Island Godzilla appear for sale, but the others are very hard to come by--especially Varan and SpaceG!

I had custom acrylic cases built for mine, so I could hang them on the wall:

If you want to know lots more about the DOOM ISLAND line, check out our Guide to Trendmasters Godzilla Products 1994-97, where you can see concept art, prototypes, and much more!

A Journey To The Center Of The Earth (Leo The Lion Records, 19xx) Rare LP!

 

Here is A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, with no Rick Wakeman to be found anywhere.  This is another classic from Leo the Lion Records, which was MGM's kid record label from the mid-60's until the mid-70's.  Among the usual kiddie fare in their library are some real gems, including "The Official Adventures Of..." records, which include Superman, Batman (x2), The Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, and more, as well as the super-cool DINOSAURS! LP with Basil Rathbone that you can enjoy at this post. 

This LP is actually much more than the title implies, containing dramatic condensations of 4 different classics, rounded out with THE TIME MACHINE, THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, and WAR OF THE WORLDS....oddly enough, despite Jules Verne getting the title of the entire record, 75 percent of the stories were by H.G. Wells! All four of the books had been turned into movies by this point, too, so why elevate one above the others? You'd think the LP would've had a generic title like "THE GREATEST STORIES OF SCI-FI" or something...well, it was the 60's, so maybe THE GROOVIEST STORIES OF SCI-FI? ...No? Okay.

Apparently this is a rare one, because it's not on the YouTubes, or even on Ebay in the last seeable months.  I found this while out of state at a flea market, and luckily picked it up.  Enjoy!

LINK:  A JOURNEY TO THE (not Rick Wakeman) CENTER OF THE EARTH

Sphinx GODZILLA GUIDES - Massive Updates Completed

One of my goals before the end of the year was to get all of the Sphinx Godzilla guides updated, and this is at last completed.

Some updates were small, but some were major.  The Godzilla Trendmasters guide is a completely different book, now packed with behind-the-scenes info, unreleased concept art, prototypes, and stuff that you will see nowhere else! If you are the least bit interested in this chapter of Godzilla history, you will want this!

Lastly, the volume on Godzilla comics received a large update, simply because they will not stop cranking these things out. This is the only place on the entire internets that has this complete information (but that's true for every volume)!

Everything is completely caught up to date, so stay tuned for some amazing things the new year will bring (such as volume 5, still in progress!

Go to the Sphinx Godzilla Guides Page to download all the fancy PDFs!

Trendmasters 1996 Catalog, Price List & Sales Letter!

 

Today we will look at a motherlode of history from the once-mighty Trendmasters, who holds such a large and important place in Godzilla history, they get their own volume in our series of Godzilla guides.

First off, we will look at the Trendmasters dealer catalog for 1996. This hefty book is printed on very thick, glossy paper, and looks like a million bucks.  It's squarebound and glued, and will not allow me to scan the pages without destroying the book, so I'll do my best to get decent photos as we go through it.

Upon opening it, you can see all of the different product lines that Trendmasters was making that year, including Independence Day, Tarzan, and Gumby!

Oh, and the incredible GODZILLA WARS line as well (sequel to their extensive KING OF THE MONSTERS line).  Each section of the catalog begins with a really cool vellum page, which has its own artwork on it, combining transparently with the page below, to produce a very lavish and downright swanky effect.  Like this:

Here, the awesome GODZILLA WARS logo artwork of Godzilla & Spacegodzilla shows through to the page below, which is a close-up of the Power-Up Mechagodzilla's Gun Arm (below). Kudos to the art designer for this book. What could've been boring squares on the page, showing product, is instead a joy to look at.

You'll notice there are crystals everywhere, further developing the Spacegodzilla theme--and the film was a complete unknown in the USA at the time!

And now, on to the 10-inch giant action figures.  One thing of interest about this catalog is that it lists several items that never ended up being produced.  For example, there were only 6 giant action figures sold in the GODZILLA WARS packaging, and Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan were never sold that way!

The next two pages show off the new Power-Up figures, which were super-cool kaiju with added armor and firing missiles.....Godzilla wearing armor? Sign me up.

Next we have the "6-inch" action figures, either boxed with sound, or carded without.  There are lots of discrepancies here, too.  There were 13 boxed figures with sound produced, and 11 carded without sound. I always love seeing the paint job on the prototype Biollante, which is awesome. Former Trendmasters designer Jeff Bergeron told me that he thought Toho would be mad that he added feet to Biollante, but they didn't say anything! Which is awesome, because they are RAD.

The "Godzilla 2-Pack"s (or as the figures' card ended up saying, "2 in 1 Battle Collectors Edition 2-Packs") are a difficult subject, because the later ones in this group ended up being farmed out to discount stores, which were a pretty new concept at the time, and most people couldn't find them.  All in all, there were a whopping 11 produced, and some contained unique Godzilla sculpts--and therefore unique trading cards--which are the very rarest of the Godzilla Trendmasters trading cards. The unique sculpts are shown here on these pages.

The next two pages show us even more rarities.  The "Micro Mountain Figures" were similar to the "Hatched" series, and instead of an egg, a "Mountain Case" was included (a similar thing was done in the Tarzan line at the time).  I haven't yet solved the mystery of why these figures are uber-rare, but they certainly are.  Six were made, and the catalog lists some that weren't:  Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Rodan. The Godzilla Bendables line was brought forward from KING OF THE MONSTERS, and are also very hard to find.  The catalog also lists 9 figures being made, and there are 6 by my count.

One of the crown jewels of a line full of treasures are the Micro Battle Playsets.  New for 1996 were the Biollante in Washington, D.C., Mecha-King Ghidorah Central Command, Mecha-Godzilla Defense Base, and the infamously rare Spacegodzilla in Tokyo. If you want to see in-depth reviews of loose examples, there is such a series of  articles on this very blog!

Another masterpiece is the "Godzilla Destroys N.Y. Giant Playset," which is also reviewed on this site in great detail. Strangely, it wasn't sold in GODZILLA WARS packaging that I have ever seen.  Likewise, there was no Spacegodzilla in the line of Giant Walking figures (although Bandai made one in Japan).

The back page of the GODZILLA WARS section shows some examples of packaging for the line.

But, we aren't quite done yet! Inside of the catalog was a sheaf of papers, which turned out to be a sales letter, as well as a price list for all of the toy lines in the catalog! 

And here you have it, a genuine sales letter, on real Trendmasters stationery! I guess lots of folks wouldn't think papers like this were too exciting, but they are pure gold to me! (Come to think of it, I guess we even know who owned this material before me, since we have a letter made out to them!) So what did GODZILLA WARS items cost the retailer in 1996?

Like the catalog, I am only featuring the Godzilla-related pages here.  This first page is for foreign-shipped orders (note the "FOB Hong Kong") in the letter, meaning the buyer had to be responsible for shipping from there.  The "L/C" means "Letter of Credit," which is commonly needed in placing overseas orders.  

And here is the page for what was available in the United States--note that the "Novelties" section is the main difference here.  Also note that there is a "PLUSH" category, for even more items that did not end up being produced: a series of animated plushes (which, interestingly enough, are not featured in the 1996 catalog):

I hope you have enjoyed examining this piece of Godzilla history with me.  I am currently updating the Trendmasters Volume of our Godzilla Guides, so keep an eye out for that in the near future (the link will be the same)!

Trendmasters Godzilla Unproduced Doom Island Resin Recast Figure!

 

I'm so excited about this one, I don't know where to begin, so let's take a historical perspective, and begin at the beginning!

The existence of this Godzilla figure has puzzled fans for years.  We all know Doom Island ended up as a cancelled line, but at Toy Fair that year, the Trendmasters display looked like this:

You'll see this page cropped and shared all over the place, but its origin is TOMART'S ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #38, and the full page is presented here, above. There's a prominent photo in the middle of this montage that caught the eye of many a fan.  What was this cool-looking Godzilla figure? To further add to the mystery, it got a full page in the Trendmasters Doom Island catalog:

What in the world was this figure, and why did we never see it?

Well, now it can be told!

Enter Jeff Bergeron.  Jeff is an artist and designer, and worked at Trendmasters from day one of their Godzilla license! He has now shared the long-lost details, and the facts are: this wasn't a Godzilla figure...it was TWO Godzilla figures!

Shockingly, there was to be both a 4-inch and a 6-inch figure of this Godzilla for the Doom Island line.  As Jeff relates on his Etsy listing (which we will get to momentarily), they were designed by Bill Bronson at Trendmaster's request to take the line in a new direction, and to make Godzilla more "edgy." The 6-inch figure was never tooled (therefore what was seen at Toy Fair was a painted prototype, which is not an unusual practice), but the 4-inch figure was, and only somewhere around 12 were produced! So, what happened to those? How many survived?

Well...who knows, but what's important here is, Jeff owns one, and now you can own one too! On his Etsy page, Jeff is offering high-quality recasts of this Godzilla, professionally made in the exact same way that they would've been back in the day, using high-quality resin and dowel rod joints for articulation.  Each piece is custom-cast and all edges are sanded off.  He will even give one a Trendmasters paint job for you, if you so desire!

For me personally, I chose unpainted, because I want it to look like the unproduced figure that it is.  As you can see, the casting job is excellent, and loses no details (I recommend that you view these photos at full size to take it all in).  He looks great.

I forgot to mention, the figure bears the date of 1997!

Interestingly, you can see that this figure would've had lights and sounds.  There are small vent marks on the front, but directly above them is a square cut-away that would've held (or been) a button! Take a look at the photo of Jeff's disassembled figure on his Etsy listing, and you can see that some of the pieces are transparent (not just fins, but also hands)! This would've been an interesting figure indeed.  On the underside, you can also see where the battery compartment would be, which looks similar in design to other Trendmasters figures.

Another thing that's cool about this figure is that its design doesn't shorten the tail, like they had to do with their earlier Godzilla figures:

In fact, as you can see above, the tail would've had an extra joint for added articulation! 

I can't say enough good things about this figure.  It's a piece of history, and it's an incredible feeling to be one of the lucky collectors to own one.  It's in a place of honor in my collection, and will be a bragging point to friends from here on out!

You can buy one for yourself right here:

Trendmasters Unproduced Doom Island Godzilla Resin Recast

Not only will you receive the figure, but Jeff also includes a personalized Godzilla drawing with his orders! An original Godzilla drawing, from an original Trendmasters artisan? It doesn't get any better than that!

BATTLE ARMOR MECHA KING GHIDORAH (Godzilla Doom Island, Trendmasters, 1997)

 

Today we get into the last figure of the Doom Island BATTLE ARMOR series! Trendmasters varied a bit on what they called him exactly, but here (on the back of the box that is) it's "Battle Armor Mecha King Ghidorah" (with no hyphen; on some earlier Trendmasters toys he's just "Mecha Ghidorah").

Just like the Godzilla we looked at last time, this figure began life in the previous GODZILLA WARS series, as "Power-Up Mecha-King Ghidorah" (with hyphen):

Of the four "Power-Up" figures, this one is one of the coolest.  Once again, the figure was given the black Doom Island wash, which really accentuates the sculpt here.  Now, let's get inside the box...

When you look at the packaged figure straight on, it almost appears his tail(s) and wings aren't separate, but they are, as you can see below:

And here is a better view of the heads...I didn't stop to see if the backpack-type piece connected to the middle head was removable like the "Power-Up" figure, but I'm willing to bet that it still is.

The body of the figure also benefits greatly from the extra black paint:

And, just like the other figures, a packet of weapons and missiles can be found under the cardboard base:

Here is something else that you won't see anywhere, well, else.  While the Godzilla figure included a Mechagodzilla card, this figure actually includes the right one.  This card is so rare, I couldn't even find any trace to include it in the Trendmasters Guide (please see our Sphinx Godzilla Guides page for free PDF downloads, updated constantly), but it's there now!

Interestingly, all of the Doom Island cards I've been able to see the backs of are unnumbered, and this one is no exception. For the curious, I count 10 different ones that you can see in the guide!

I hope you've enjoyed not only getting to see these rare figures, but actually being able to see what's inside of the box! It's sad that there were only four in this group, but it's also sad that Doom Island never had the chance to really take off. At least we have a handful of items that made it past the prototype stage!

BATTLE ARMOR GODZILLA (Godzilla Doom Island, Trendmasters, 1997)

We need to conclude our inside look at the four BATTLE ARMOR figures from the ill-fated DOOM ISLAND Trendmasters series!

To get a run-down on the line, as well as see the first two figures we looked at, see the previous posts about Battle Armor Kumonga and Battle Armor Anguirus! Both are completely awesome figures.

Those figures were brand new sculpts; the remaining half of the line were really re-painted re-packs, though, that you have probably even seen before.  Today's Battle Armor Godzilla began in the previous GODZILLA WARS line as "Power-Up Godzilla."

The "Power-Up" Godzillas came in two colors: Trendmasters Green and the blacker "Supercharged," which you see above.  These are the famous (infamous?) figures that included armor and weapons, and as they have aged, have taught the initial 90's doubters (of which I was one) that they are nothing short of sweeeeeeeet.

As you can see above, the box for my figure has encountered a bit of moisture some time between 1997 and now, but the tape on these usually falls off anyway, so let's look inside!

The Doom Island figures benfitted--and not--from a black paint wash that they were all given, which makes the details of their sculpts really stand out.  Everything looks better, down to teeth and claws.  I say "and not" because some people have complained about this black wash breaking down and getting gummy over the years.  So let's hope for the best.

Unlike "Power Up" Godzilla, this one comes with his largest pieces of armor already in place.  They don't want you to wonder what all of those other vac-metalized pieces are, I guess.

You may have noticed that, like many Doom Island figures, the trading card is completely wrong.  This is very common in this line, and speaks to the rushed way in which they were disposed of.  A Godzilla (as well as Supercharged Godzilla) card does indeed exist.

One more angle, while we are in here.  This gives you a better look at his back and tail.

As with Kumonga and Anguirus, a packet of armor and missiles is found beneath his cardboard stand.  It looks like to me that they match the "Power-Up Godzilla" perfectly.  (He even has a little helmet!)

Next time, we conclude with the fourth and last BATTLE ARMOR figure, Mecha-King Ghidorah! Be there or be square.

Action Figure Spotlight: Varan (Trendmasters, 1996)

 

Today we take a closer look at the last of the 3 hardest-to-find Trendmasters Godzilla action figures [any time you talk about Trendmasters Godzilla figures, you have to add "I mean ones that were sold in the United States from a line that wasn't cancelled"].  As I mentioned last time, after preparing for these posts, I realized that this is really the best figure of the three, and probably the most accurate...which was a surprise.

Varan is a strange creature in Toho's cosmos, and a weird design.  If it wasn't for his quick cameo in DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, I'd say he was forgotten about.  Especially in the United States.  His movie is unusual too (both versions, in fact, with the English dub being all but eradicated these days, which is unfortunate).  It began as a co-production for television, which Toho ended up expanding to a theatrical film.  Basically, Varan comes out of a lake, causes a bit of trouble, and gets straight up murdered.  Perhaps his 1968 cameo was just to show us that none of these guys (like celluloid heroes*) ever really die.  

There are really two poses that you normally see him moving around in [not counting "flying squirrel mode," which was a model anyhow]:

Crawling, and...

...standing.  This figure can't crawl of course, but they pretty much nailed the second one:

As you can see, they added unnecessary spikes on the sides of his arms and legs, and his muzzle should be a lot shorter, but otherwise pretty faithful.  Adding the webbed "wings" was a nice touch.

The back is probably too purple.  It at least transitions well though;  obviously accomplished by overspray, but it works.

It's easy to judge this from the era of super-articulated SH Monsterarts-type figures, but it does share one thing in common with those:  this figure is prone to breaking quite easily.  It's not uncommon to see one with broken limbs--especially arms--and especially the one that was hanging out of the package (they shouldn't have placed him completely sideways).  This of course inflates his rarity and value.

All in all, a solid 7/10.  I'd remove the spikes, thicken then arms slightly to prevent breakage, shorten his snout, and tone down the purple slightly.  This and some swivel & knee joints would elevate it to a solid 10.  Honestly, I'd never given this figure enough attention, and after comparing and contrasting, I firmly believe he's the best of the three, and that's said even though I'm a huge Baragon fan.  If you are still hunting for him, keep searching, because he's out there! Maybe in a lake!

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*for any Kinks fans out there