The History of Starriors and the Lost Animated Series
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ต.ค. 2024
- Starriors was a robot toyline created by Tomy in association with Marvel Comics in 1984. They were based on Zoids, but had a new storyline that U.S. Zoids had not had at all. Six Marvel mini-comics were distributed with the toys. Marvel also produced a four-issue limited series written by Louise Simonson, with art by Michael Chen, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey, and covers painted by Bill Sienkiewicz.
There is much speculation about the existence of Starriors animated material. A 1984 trade advertisement released by Tomy stated "There is currently a Starriors television mini-series in production to air in Spring and Fall '85."
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The Starriors fanbase? I thought it was only composed of me, myself and I. I have purchased the full set of the Marvel comics mini series THREE times. Once when it came out, once in my twenties, and again Last Year. Still love it.
Me too
So *you're* the one who kept beating me on eBay auctions!
Me and zoids as well. My little kid brain thought it was really weird that there was some unsaid connection between those two. I had wondered if both brands were part of a bigger unseen universe of toys
I still have a few of the ones I had in storage somewhere. I love the comics from Marvel.
I thought I was the only one lol!!!
Oh my god. Dude, you do not even know how happy this video made me. Waaaaay back in the 80’s, a kid down the street from me had a bunch of these toys and loved playing with them but I no idea what they were actually called and neither did he, for whatever reason. Like we just called Armored Battlestation “The Big Snake Thing” and the others had names like “Drill Guy”.
I am 39 years old and I have been wondering what the hell these were for *decades* now but didn’t even know where to start looking. I’ve never seen them mentioned in other 80’s toy shows or articles. Thank you for making my day!
🤘
Ah, Starriors. Yet another toy line I was buying on my lunch hour in high school. I frequently ate alone.
Yall got an hour for lunch. What kinda country club high school did you go to?
Thank you! In Mexico they were called "LOS GUERREROS DEL FUTURO" so I never found information about these toys from my childhood!
Generic, but in my view a better name!
The comic was really entertaining and it's always interesting how half of Marvel's random toy/comic tie ins actually ended up with good writers, I'm guessing in part because it's easier to write a coherent story when you're not being asked to do crossovers or have a random tie-in to promote a completely different comic that's hot at the moment.
Very true, look at good old Rom, one crappy toy but 70 great issues,(okay maybe only about 40 of those issues were actually great but still)
@L Franco Yep, I've always firmly believed hes a big part of Rogue turning good she tried to use her powers on him but all she got was a big old dose of goodness
oh man, when I was a kid my dad got me Starriors issues 3 from a news stand. I loved the story but had to go with just that one part for years! It wasn't until 2008 that on a whim I found the original issues for sale for pretty cheap on Amazon... loose end tied!
Bravo. As obscure as this toyline was I somehow became obsessed with Crank around age 7. I routinely put my hands and arms together and moved them in such a way as to pretend I had a drill sticking out of my chest, and attempted to violently plow through groups of my classmates. Starriors got me in trouble, man.
Stay away from the crank!
You will be legend on your wedding night, though.
Fantastic!! The chart segment had me in tears, lol! I really loved this line as a kid, but the Marvel series was brilliant. The way the artist was able to convey strong emotions from the robots despite their just have face plates was astounding. Still a great read to this day! Starriors are from some of my happiest memories in life; thanks for helping us relive them SG crew!
Stariors was amazing, with an interesting story and well written comic. This video brought back some great memories for me, thank you toy galaxy, amazing. I’m a wasted retro destructor blaster
I'd forgotten all about Starriors! The toys were really cool, and the comics were pretty great.
I owned a few of these when I was young. May still have them. Oh and I remember the mini-comics too.
Loved this line of toys. Deadeye and Cricket were an awesome T-Rex and Pterodactyl team that hunted my Star Wars rebel figures during playtime. Wish this line would return in some form. It had so much potential.
I damaged the front of my Hall of Justice playset having Deadeye shoot at it. I was so disappointed. I didn't expect the discs to do anything. When I noticed it was doing real damage, I stopped. I didn't have many playsets, and the Hall of Justice was something I wanted long before it actually existed,
Yes! His discs could do some real damage. One of the few projectiles that could knock a figure over easily. This and the Micronaut Battle Cruiser missiles were always used in my battles (and the Star Defender). It took a lot of effort to take out Deadeye so everyone was terrified of him. Great memories.
Deadeye had a decent little part in the last season of “Stranger Things”.
I created an Amazon Marketplace page for Deadeye and Cricket a few months ago. I have 2 MISB sets to sell, but they took it down after a few days. They said it was a pesticide and I’d have to take an hour long online test in order to sell it. What a load of red tape nonsense.
@@DeanStrickson th-cam.com/video/zSB6ZRC-dyQ/w-d-xo.html
The Cobra Temple still guards my hallway.
Skot Nealey I had it when I was a kid and I have no idea what happened to it. I really miss that thing.
I finally know what the name is, I have the cobra battle Station. Never knew as a kid where it came from. I still have it to this day. I'm 42 years old
Just in case another man comes while your at work?
@@xBrabus76 yes
@@loganwolfpack The cobra is called Lazerram. The scorpion is called Stinger.
The Starriors got really tired of Cobra always hanging out in their Armoured Battle Station.
The Marvel mini-series is one of the best comics IMHO.
It has a lot of depth especially for a kids toy tie-in.
It was great. Too bad it was a mini-series :/
I whoeheartedly agree! The comic series was better than the toys, with a far more coherent story than the best majority of toy lines...or comic books, for that matter.
I loved these as a kid. I had so many. I've been trying to remember what they were called. I had no idea there was a cartoon but i had tiny comics . . . oh no cartoon aired and im not seeing any credible evidence of even a full cartoon episode. But there are rumors. i see why but i don't think their is a full 20-30 minute cartoon.
The most interesting part of this is the RATS line is clearly using TMNT vehicle molds, the Ninja Grappler and what appears to be a heavy retool to make it like the Pizza Thrower.
I LOVED these toys, and the comics with them. Very cool looking toys
Like Transformers, Zoids etc, this was another early taste of "Japanese cool" before anime etc was more accessible. I used to also think that Starriors were mecha requiring a pilot, (like Diaclone.) I only learned recently that even the original Zoids were meant to have basic animal "sentience" with the man being a "rider," & with Starriors the seemingly human pilot was meant to be a "brain" modelled after the image of man. Even as a kid I always preferred that a robot was "sentient," instead of merely a "suit."
I had a bunch of these as a kid. They were some of my favorite toys. Really well designed and love the interchangeability.
Remember walking to Kmart to get these on clearance.Loved em..
I can't believe I never heard of this. I would've been all over this as a kid. Great video and perhaps an even better, yet insane, chart.
I went through 3 different charts to get the right kind of chaos.
Even to don’t remember much about the mythology of it now, I do remember liking the Starriors only second to Transformers.
_"That said, we'll cover Zoids in-depth in a separate video"_ - Suddenly this Starriors vid becomes nothing more than a host for a Zoids trailer and I'm cast back to my youth when renting a movie and seeing a trailer at the start of the film for something that looks much cooler than what I'm about to watch!
No faulting Dan - he did a great job! But all I was hearing was _"Coming soon... Zoids!"_
I loved these as a kid. Dead Eye and that base were awesome.
I LOVED these when I was a kid. One of the last years I got more toys for Christmas than clothes. Pretty sure my mom just got every toy the store had left when they went on close-out. (single mom in the 80s was rough) I couldn't believe how many awesome toys I got that Christmas. The Cobra fort and the T-rex that shot disks out of his mouth were absolutely AMAZING! And if I remember right this had a super dark storyline where the bad guys already had killed all the humans. You don't see that much in kids toys.
The T-Rex was Deadeye, the blind poet who unleashed his devastor beam? with the help of his faithful companion Cricket (your remote control)
Omg, I’m so thankful I stumbled upon your channel and this video. When I was very young my cousin had one of these, “Vultor”. And it was my favorite toy, but I never knew what it was called. Fast forward years later, I found part of that same toy at an antique shop but wasn’t able to get it, or find anything out about it. I’ve hunted for the name of this thing for YEARS! I’d almost accepted I must have just imagined it. But thanks to this video I know what it is.
I was sitting here recognising these the whole way through but having no recollection of the Starriors name until that RATS reveal at the end. I remember them being about, specifically that vehicle with the disc launcher. Looking forward to the Zoids video. Those toys were rad. Hopefully that'll lead to covering Z-Knights too.
I didn't recognize either name, but seem to remember some of these toys... I think I always thought they were part of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.
Same thing here, I had a couple of RATS, and couldn't remember the name for the life of me until that reveal. I actually enjoyed the couple of those I had quite alot.
R.A.T.S. ! Not the first time this channel has reminded me of toys I had but had completely forgotten about.
This, this right here, is why I love your channel Sir! Not only do you cover almost every aspect of my childhood, but you dig up the minutiae of memories lost to the ether of phrenic time.
My brother and I had only a few of the Starriors toys. Nothing extravagant as the armored battle station, though. There were also Starriors Halloween costumes. However, they were nothing more than a mask with a printed plastic smock. Perfectly fine when you're 4 years old.
Loved Starriors, what a great presentation.
Oh man I owned a BUNCH of these as a kid. I loved the wind up weapons and modularity because I mean you basically got to build your own robot. The goal was always to get as many wind-up parts on a single robot as possible all running at once. Honestly there haven't been nearly enough toy lines focusing on mixing and matching robot parts.
I had a few, but my favorite was Deadeye & Cricket
I'm a huge fan of Starriors and have been from the day they were first released. I love all of the figures (with Sawtooth being my top favourite character) and Marvel mini-series had a great story and awesome artwork. The toys still hold up after all of these years, although their wind-up action can be the one thing to suffer due to striped gears. This line will always hold a special place in my heart and is right up there with the likes of Transformers, G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., and all the rest of the 80's classics.
Thanks for making this video and keep up the great work! ^_^
I loved the Armored Battle Station! And also Dead Eye and Cricket. And I read the mini comics over and over. They were so good.
That's unfortunate that they didn't have a cartoon. I liked the design of the characters and the mini comics that came with them.
I think it could have gone over well had it had an accompanying cartoon.
I had most of the 4-5 inch Starriors and my friend had the Armored Battle Station. Such a great toy line.
YES! Starriors! I had them all! There's still here, somewhere... but maybe missing some arms or legs lol
Nice vid! I was a Starriors collector as a child, myself. When discussing the mythology, while decluttering it, you forgot to mention the fact that the Armored Battle Station, as a Guardian, marked the entrance to the so-called "Forbidden Zone" where no Starriors could go, (presumably except for Guardians, which were all extinct but for the ABS). There, the humans were kept in stasis until the solar flares trail off. Also, fun fact! I tried, with my puny little hands, to crack open the cockpit of one or two of my Starriors to get at the little android inside each one. I didn't care that it was probably just a little useless figurine coated in metallized paint. I wanted them to be interchangeable. Never had any luck, nor any guts to take a screwdriver to the thing and just crack it open that way.
Thank you So much for doing this video on Starriors! I remember being four/ five years old and riding my power wheel around the neighborhood and pretending to be MotorMouth. Up until today I could not figure out what cartoon show or toy line that character was from! You have solved a decades old mystery. I clearly have “Mendela Effect”. Because I swear I watched an episode of Starriors, apparently it was just a commercial that left such an impression on my young consumer mind. Thanks again for educating me on this long forgotten toy line!
Damn! I thought nobody remembered the Starriors! I had them all with that Cobra base and a remote controlled Tyrannosaurus thing. Awesome!
I use to get these from the clearance aisle endcaps in Target for super cheap.
I had the "Cut-up" mech!! I had all kinds of Transformers but there was just something so cool about him... he had the little guy in his head and I would pretend use him to do surgery on Optimus Prime all the time, LOL. These were great and honestly I had no idea what show they were from! Thank you for making these history vids!
OMG I had a bunch of these as a kid, and forgot what they were called. In the back of my mind I always wanted to remember what they were called. Thank You!!!
Oh my God I love these toys you are taking me way back my man! Happy Thanksgiving gobble gobble!!
Oh wow, totally got a childhood flashback from seeing this. I never even knew what they were called before.
that page from the comic at 1:51 just gave me a huge nostalgia hit. i remember almost all of these characters after not having seen or thought about them for 30 odd years. i cant even remember what toy i had but i remember the comic quite well.
I loved these things growing up. I bet I had at least 10 of them. Great episode, happy holidays guys.
I loved this line. Two things hooked me. The mini-comic books had a compelling story line. As a Lego kid, I always liked the interchangeable toys where I could make my own characters/vehicles. I was just at that age where toys weren't supposed to be cool, but I had a little brother (10 years younger) that gave me the excuse to keep playing and needed me to read the comics to him.
Thank you Toy Galaxy, for reminding me of my childhood and the cherished toys I loved. Long Live Starriors and Zoids!!
Congratulations. You've actually found an 80s toy franchise I've never heard of. That's rare, and this was fun.
I too loved Starriors. I have the Marvel comic and I had most of the figures. I had loved Zoids, and these were like the evolution of those.
I was confident I plunged the depths of childhood memories and relived all of those nostalgic times over and over again. And then this came up...I probably haven't given one thought to this series because it was stored so deep in my subconscious. But as soon as I saw this video, I knew at one time that I had had Hotshot the toy and that part of Madonna's 87' tour outfit must have been influenced by him.
Thanks for making this. I been trying to remember a toy I had when I was 5. All I remember was he had a chest drill and a little silver man inside the head. I loved that toy to death!!! Glad people care about these awesome toy lines. Brings back great memories.
From reading the comments I see many people liked Crank. That’s the same one I had. I wonder why he was so popular.
Runabout was THE best toy of the 80s... Three modes including mammoth, dinosaur, and motorcycle. A wind-up motor to get the first two modes to walk and a ripcord to make the cycle move. Awesome, awesome toy.
I remember these were discounted on end caps or the spinning peg tree things. I was to young to read the mini comics but I remember them being modular where you could swap the arms? Someone was very creative in making them somewhat interesting and as cheap to manufacture as they could also you didnt need batteries. I was a transfomerless transformer fan so I made due with a few these.
I had a couple of the comics and a couple of the figs. Gawd, I loved this line.
Thank you for covering this!
I can't wait till you cover the Zoids IP. I just wonder how many vids it's gonna be?
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@@SecretGalaxyTV
One vid to cover the 3 or 4 different relaunches of the IP (including the relaunch in 2018)?
What those are cool. The armored base is amazing. I'm always impressed by big play sets and vehicles tho. Didn't have many growing up but the ones I did have got used by all my figures.
I remember first seeing the Starriors toy commercials, and thinking that they were cool, but you can’t put everything cool you see on in your letter to Santa, so I was sticking with the GI Joes and Transformers that I was the most invested in. Then I saw my older brother was wrapping a present of the T Rex Starrior, and it made a huge difference to actually see it and I wished it hadn’t seen been too late to put that on my last. This particular Starrior was going to my brother’s high school sponsored charity. Felt like whichever poor kid was getting something better than I was that year. Can’t complain.
Oh man, I loved these toys as a kid. I had that snake base and a bunch of the other robots. I had totally forgotten about them till now. Thanks for the memories :)
I loved these toys. I had the battle station but used it as a Cobra 'super-secret-side-base' when the Joes overran my Terror Drome. I think I was the only kid that loved Starriors and that other small scale line with magnetic pieces and mechanized play-actions... "Starcom?'
i can remember having a little storybook about Starriors that came with a little cassette audio book, and having never seen or heard of this series anywhere before. (granted, this was also the early 90s).
Can’t wait for the Zoids video, and always wondered what the connection between these two lines was. As a kid I was intrigued by the shared chrome people.
And those Sienkewicz covers were BADASS.
I had one of these toys second hand from a garage sale, had no idea what it was till now. Awesome channel.
I had the four smallest Starriors as a kid. I had forgotten that I had them, until I happened to see this video recommended. I remembered having a Zoid, but these guys were somehow lost in the void of decades.
Oh man, I'd forgotten all about these. I think I still have several of them in the same toy chest as my He-Man stuff.
Sweet! You listened to my suggestion! Another great video. Thankfully this will never be lost to the mists of time!
Yes! An episode I have waited for! I had hoped this toy series would have gone on a lot longer. This was not popular or known with a lot of my friends at all. But I always had the odd toy collections. Most kids would talk about He man, I would talk about Crystar. They had Transformers I got Converters, you see the pattern.
I was a very proud owner of these figures. Would love to see this get rebooted. Happy Thanksgiving to you guys at Toy Galaxy, your channel is as great and memorable as the toys you talk about.
Thank you for covering this! Currently looking for my childhood collection.
I saw this pop up and I was screaming YES, YES, YES! Being a Starriors collector for a couple of decades I was happy to see this. Also anyone have a Bolar MOC? Still missing that one.
I had about 4 or 5 of these as a kid. I liked them a lot.
I can't tell you how many years it took me to track the name of this toy line down. I vaguely remembered it from my childhood, I had the red T-Rex and a few other toys but could never track it down. Then I explained my search on an 80s cartoon forum since I was sure I remembered a cartoon but in hindsight it must have been the comics and somebody helped me track down the name, Starriors! I loved these as a kid.
Those toys seemed to go to the clearance aisles and discount stores almost as soon as they appeared, but I loved the compatibility with Zoids, and that Armored Battle Base was the best GI Joe playset that Hasbro never made.
Yet ANOTHER toy series I had completely forgotten that I used to have. I'm starting to think I must have hit my head pretty hard sometime around puberty. Thanks again, Dan!
I had Cut-Up once upon a time. I took the "pilot" out of the cabin and put him in the cockpit of the repair crane in Optimus Prime's trailer.
I like in the commercial when the robots walk into each other and start fighting.
"Watch where you're walkin there, pal" (a riot starts)
That Armored Battle Station is amazing! The multiple play points in that cobra head alone look worth the buy. We had a few of the standard figures back in the day; I just loved how the parts could be swapped and customized.
Thanks for making this! I collected them back in the day, and always wondered about the story behind them. I was doing Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and started on these because they were cheap (things were going on clearance left and right) and interesting. Even got the Armored Base! Loving your channel - this brought me here, but I've gone down the rabbit hole of so many of your other vids.
I always love your videos because you always educate fans such as myself about toylines, famous or obscure.
Oh my gosh I had the red one with the drill on it's chest. I was just telling someone the other day that was one of my favorite toys ever. Never knew what it was called so thank you very much. Lot of good memories. All I can say is wow what timing.
OMG I thought these were a ZOIDS line. I had these as a kid and never knew they were their own thing! I loved these!
Thanks for this episode. This line was due some shine. I’m two figures away from a complete Starriors collection.
These remind me of Zoids, and they look so awesome
I've always thought they came from Zoids the same way Transformers came from Diaclone and Microman
@@iampoch01 They did.
@@iampoch01 In fact the little silver guys in the Starriors were the same little silver guys that came with zoids. Literally same mold iirc.
Wow. I've never seen or even heard of this toy line before. Thank you for filling this part of my heart I never even knew existed.
Ahh, the nostalgia... My parents got me the character Crank when the toys first came out. Sadly, I lost him a part at a time. The modularity of the figures' limbs was cool and creative, but also made for smaller, easy to lose pieces, especially the head. Later I found one of the audiobooks on clearance in K-mart, and then in my teens I found the complete Marvel comic miniseries at an antique comic shop! The comics hold a special place in my collection, and tell one of the best kid-friendly yet intelligent sci-fi stories I've read! Thanks for the video, Dan and Toy Galaxy!
Oh man!!! Nostalgy at its finest! I was hoping for this episode for a long time!!! Thanks for the memories
I love that you did the Starriors they were an obscure toy line of my youth that I did enjoy, they were very cheap to get at Kay Bee Toys back in the day. I wish you had shown the complete line it would have been nice to see what I had had or what I had missed out on.
Those He-Man mini comics drawn by Mark Texiera were some of the most incredibly illustrated books of the 80’s, including regularly produced books. Between those, Atari game packaging and Trapper Keepers... that was a time period not just of great action figures, but AWESOME artwork and unlimited imagination! 🎨🌈😎👍
I had one of these as a kid! I had no idea what it was, it was just an incredibly basic figure with detachable arms, legs, and a head, but it had tons of little holes clearly designed to support more parts.
What I did notice, years later, were other lines of toys (potentially bootlegs, not even sure) that featured more vehicle based designs (a crane, a drilling machine, a small car with lots of guns, etc.) that had the same little holes and accessories which I could interchange with the original one I had.
Honestly, there was a lot of potential for these, kind of surprised they died out.
I always get a kick out of the "We'll be right back" TV, the segment itself but mostly just that classic TV.
I wish I knew about this before we said what we were thankful for at the table tonight. I would’ve said this random video on Starriors.
Always loved the obscure 80s toy/cartoon/comic lines that should've done a bit more.
Starriors, Robotix, Inhumanoids, Sectaurs, Visionaries and Crystar are the ones I can name off the top of my head.
Going back to check out any of the Toy Galaxy series I may have missed (Did you ever do C.O.P.S.?) - since picking up the great habit of catching this with my evening snack. Your chart floored me! (^ _^) -- That's so the kind of thing that I would do to clarify some facet of anything I need to clarify to someone else like a family member or wife who would look at me in the eyes and ask, "...do I know you and why are you talking to me?" I also use to catalogue my C64 games for trade at the time. So glad God had me find Toy Galaxy!
Say what you will, that Red T-Rex that shot orange disks was the absolute bomb. Until today though, I always thought he was a Go-Bot. I never even realized he was from a separate toy line.
Your videos make me miss the 80's.
I WANNA BE A KID AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was 13 years old in 1984 when this came out in the summer. I remember these robots with mechanical devices like saw blades, laser guns, screws, etc. and you wind them up, and let it run for a few seconds. You don't see these any more and you would have to search on ebay, amazon or at a specialty toy store. I only wish the animated series was on. However with Gobots and Transformers, it would have killed the competiton.
I grew up in the 80's & never even heard of Starriors. By 1984, I was steeped in He-Man, Transformers, & Star Wars toys.
Loved these as a kid! Had a bunch, and still own the Marvel miniseries. Good times...
I see now where Ubisoft got their Collectors edition charts from.
I think I remember the comics more fondly than anything. All these toy lines had pretty awesome miniseries
I loved the Starriors Marvel Comic. Hell, I *STILL* do. It may be the best written toy line adaptation of it's time. Way more entertaining than it should be! lol