Since we're dubbing February "Old Toys Month" at OAFE, we've decided to take a look at the past of our hobby - specifically, the part of the past that doesn't exist. This is the first in a series (of indefinite length and regularity) of blog posts memorializing cancelled toys.
This figure was first shown in ToyFare #10, where it was identified as "Stargods Ra," with no further information.
The figure was going to be produced by Antarctic Press, the same people who eventually did the Flaming Carrot action figure. [Correction: they worked on the Flaming Carrot, but it was eventually released by Dark Horse Toys --ed.] Stargods was a comic that only ever managed to get two issues out before the creators lost interest. It had some minorly interesting designs, but the plot sounded like a Stargate knockoff - gods are secretly aliens, some want to conquer the galaxy, others are good guys, the whole deal. That may be why, years later, when someone wrote to ToyFare to ask what had ever become of this figure, whoever was answering letters that month confused the two, saying that Ra was just a Stargate figure that had been cancelled.
A March of '99 article on Raving Toy Maniac revealed that the tooling cost of the figure proved to be too great, and the comic wasn't shipping on time, so the support was withdrawn. And honestly, it's a shame. Looking at the figure now, he may not seem special - McFarlane Toys has released things that look similar, and the articulation is similar to Marvel Legends, but you have to remember that this was designed five years ago, before any of those things were true. Of course, it probably would have cost $20 back then, and no one would ever have paid that. We're sorry to have missed you, Ra.
The fault was on Antartic's end. They printed an unathorized "virgin" cover of the comic which led to some heated discussions with the creators, and I was told they hadn't paid the sculpter of the prototype and he destroyed the molds- which were supposed to go back to the creators of the comic if anything fell through. Had talked to several comics shops who had preordered cases of the figure. The Athena figure would have been the second figure released. It was fun while it lasted, but they had done an Alley Oop series of figures and that might have been a reason they were financially unable to go forward. Dave had gotten the Ra prototype back from Scott, I restored it, we gave it back to Scott in a new display, and have no idea what happened to it after Scott passed a few years back.