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Visionaries

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Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light is a single-wave, 12-set toyline that appeared near the peak of 1980s cartoon action figure marketing in 1987. Hasbro marketed these 5-inch action figures with a 13 episode half-season cartoon produced by previous Hasbro partner Sunbow Animations, as well as a 6-issue comic book mini-series published by Marvel's Star Comics imprint. The series pitted the heroic Spectral Knights against the evil Darkling Lords in setting with both magic and futuristic technology, but where magic is more powerful.

Visionaries figures were based on a scaled-up version of Hasbro's 1983 G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero figure architecture, with a rubber o-ring holding the hips and legs to the torso to allow flexibility and poseability, as well as simple assembly by sandwiching the torso halves with a single screw. Visionaries figures have the screw inserted from the front, however, where its socket is covered by a clip-on chest shield featuring a holographic sticker. Holograms were the primary play feature of the line, with each figure featuring two: one on the chest depicting a spirit animal, and another, larger image atop a staff showing a magical spell associated with the character's abilities. Each figure also included a uniqe helmet accessory, and some sort of medieval melee weapon. Each figure's packaging had a biographic card on the back detailing their magical totems and abilities, meant to be cut out and saved like a Generation 1 Transformer Tech Spec or G.I. Joe Filecard.

Four vehicle sets were also produced, one large and one small for each faction. The vehicles included their own unique pilots (though these did not include the holographic banner staves), and featured large hologram stickers of their own, depicting creatures metaphoric to their own abilities such as horses at the front of the Capture Chariot. The vehicles had various play features such as parts that moved when rolled along the ground, or spring-loaded attacks. The vehicles also carried the only depictions of technological ranged weapons like guns and cannons. Like G.I. Joe vehicles of the time, they were almost entirely user-assembled to save production costs and keep the price points reasonable, and their hologram stickers were user-applied, usually into molded indents shaped to guide the sticker into the correct position. The vehicle boxes usually featured a window to view the included figure, as well as representations of some of the hologram stickers included.

Like Tonka's hologram-based action figure line Super Naturals, Visionaries was short-lived as the novelty of the holograms did not seem to justify the added cost of the action figures to consumers. Despite this, the impressively-articulated and colorfully decorated figures are quite popular among ‘80s toy collectors today, leading to Hasbro working in references to the line among collector-targeted toys in the modern era, as well as a brief reboot of the comic series published by IDW comics. Hasbro would use the scaled-up G.I. Joe figure design for one more new character-driven series in 1988 with COPS ‘n Crooks.

 

Basic Figures

Arzon

Cindarr

Cravex

Cryotek

Darkstorm

Leoric

Lexor

Witterquick

Vehicle and Driver Sets

Capture Chariot with Feryl

Dagger Assault Vehicle and Reekon

Lancer Cycle with Ectar

Sky Claw with Mortdred