This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of blog posts memorializing cancelled toys.
If you remember back when Mattel had the DC license, you may also recall they did a series of DC Universe vs. Masters of the Universe two-packs. The line began with Superman vs. He-Man and Lex Luthor vs. Skeletor, and was well-received enough to continue through several others:
- Aquaman vs. Mer-Man
- Bizarro vs. Faker
- Green Lantern vs. Zodac
- Hawkman vs. Stratos
- Supergirl vs. She-Ra
However, there was an eighth set planned, though never even announced.
Comic artist Bob McLeod was commissioned to do the character art for all the sets, and he was inked by Walden Wong. Though a Red Tornado vs. Sy-Klone set never made it to production, the fact that Mattel paid money to these artists to create the figures for the mini-poster and packaging proves that it was fairly far along in production before it was decided to drop the idea.
Since both figures would have been existing molds with minorly different paint apps, there are no prototypes specifically for the Red Tornado/Sy-Klone set, but the art proves it did at one point exist.
Wait, isn't MOTU Classics a 7" line and DC Universe Classics 6"? He-Man looks bulkier than Superman, but he doesn't look significantly taller. (I know that Hasbro's supposedly 6"/1:12 figures have been experiencing inflation in more ways than one, but did Mattel have scale lies/discrepancies too 10+ years ago?)
Semi-related: because Mattel owns MOTU (despite the claims from a certain toy guru) and had the DC license at the time, I had always assumed that the DC Primal Age figures that I kept seeing at Walmart a few years ago were produced by Mattel. Imagine my surprise and confusion when I discovered much later that they were made by Funko. What the heck happened there?
They're "not quite" seven inches. More like a 6 3/4" scale, which is why I, personally, couldn't get into them: too big to mix with Marvel, too small to mix with NECA. Draw a straight line across and you can see how the DC figures' eyes are about level with the MOTU figures' mouths; just enough of a difference to look wrong...