This is the latest in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of blog posts memorializing cancelled toys. Our figure today is Stan Winston Creatures' Four Horsemen.
In the early 2000s, developer 3DO began on a videogame based around the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, since it was a name with brand recognition, yet wouldn't cost them anything to license. The story would have seen the fallen archangel Abaddon gathering three chosen mortals to help him counter the Horsemen's once-a-millennium attempt to bring about the end of the world. 3DO hired comic writers and religious scholars to work on the plot, and several artists to create the characters, including Simon Bisley, Dave DeVries, and (most relevant to this story) Stan Winston.
This was the same time Stan Winston was getting into the toy market, and so logically he decided to make the characters from this new game into to their own toyline.
The prototypes were displayed at a few shows, and Stan Winston Creatures had close-ups and wide shots on its website, so we have a decent idea of what they would have looked like.
Despite a promising premise, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was never completed, and got cancelled (though a comic adaptation of the story was published by Heavy Metal in 2012). The toyline also never saw release, meaning these Horsemen faced an apocalypse of their own.
