Dragon Walker from the Masters of the Universe 200x Modern Series toy line. The name of the toys share the same moniker as the Dragon Walker from the 1980’s but looks dramatically different. Aside from the obvious coloring differences, this Dragon Walker looks more like a smaller version of Tyrantisaurus from the defunct Power of Grayskull series and appears to be a cross between a dinosaur and a dragon.

Dragon Walkers made an appearance in the 2002 animated series with a very different design, becoming a fleet of massive, bipedal mobile weapons platforms built by Man-At-Arms to attack Beast Man’s Serpintaurs in the hopes of preventing them from assaulting the Royal Palace of Eternos. Their dragon-like appearance was intended to frighten the Serpintaurs, which were natural enemies of dragons in the wild; however, that plan met with limited success. Instead, the Dragon Walkers had to depend on their arsenal to combat the flying beasts. The mechanical dragons could project long streams of fire from their metal jaws while using their tails to slash at and pound their targets. They possessed wings (equipped with cannons) that were much smaller than those of live dragons, but they were not shown to be capable of flight. Their energy source was a power cell housed in the dragons’ heads, providing enough energy to allow the Dragon Walkers to sprint quickly across a battlefield. The energy stored in the power cell was so great that when He-Man destroyed one of them, it sent an explosive discharge that singed the evil Serpintaurs and sent them tumbling out of the sky. The Dragon Walkers proved formidable enough that they were later used to defend King Randor’s palace against the rampaging snake deity Serpos.

Toy Line

In 2002, Mattel launched a new Masters of the Universe toy line most commonly referred to today as the MOTU 200x or MOTU Modern Series. The figure sculpts featured the talented designs by the Four Horsemen who remained faithful to the original Masters of the Universe toy line. The figure design was a modern version of the classic figure that featured sharp angles and sculpts that were unique to each figure.

Animated Series

Accompanying the toy line was a new animated series that featured only 39 episodes in total from August 2002 to January 2004. This version of He-Man featured a young Prince Adam that was physically smaller in stature, height, and appearance and was part of a group called the protectors known as “The Masters.” Man-at-Arms headed up this team and consisted of He-Man/Adam, Battle Cat, Teela, Orko, Stratos, Ram-Man, Mekaneck, and Man-E-Faces. In later episodes, traditional with most animated series that have toy lines, later characters were added, which included Buzz-Off, Roboto, and Sy-Klone. King Randor, now a general, was pronounced ruler of Eternia by the Elders of the Hall of Wisdom, which have gone into hiding inside the depths of Castle Grayskull.

You see the transformation fans have been waiting for when Skeletor, now confirmed as Keldor, heads up the charge with his evil forces. Evil-Lynn, Beast-Man, Mer-Man, Trap-Jaw (now a cybernetically repaired henchman, formerly known as Kronis), Tri-Klops (now an inventor/scientist, somewhat akin to an evil Man-At-Arms), Claw-ful (now a very large and extremely dim-witted thug), and Whiplash (now also of larger size and of the subterranean Caligar race) are the main evil forces in the series until Skeletor is sidelined in favor of the leader of the Snake Men, King Hiss. The reptilians consist of Kobra-Kahn, General Rattlor, Tung-Lashor, Snake-Face, and Sssqueeze, with He-Man and many of the characters now bearing a new “Snake-Armor” look. Hordak and the Evil Horde were to be the main antagonists for the third season if the show had continued, but it was not renewed, unfortunately.