Toy Fair Flashback: 1994 Star Brigade
Today’s Toy Fair catalog page comes from Hasbro’s 1994 catalog. The new items for the final year of RAH Joe included the Power Fighters, a pair of Joe and Cobra mechs. I find this interesting because mechs later became something of a focus in the 2000s and modern years. These two are chunky and limited in mobility, but both came with unique repainted figures as drivers.
The alternate figs in these are neat. The mechs are not. Sad that this is the last vintage Joe toy fair catalog. It’s just not that exciting.
”1993 Star Brigade Armor Bot w/ Hawk-AWESOME!”
That top photo actually makes the Power Fighters look kinda cool. They should’ve done a similar set-up with the Armor Bot rampaging across the Moon.
Original power fighters were meant to powered back packs that would activate features on small vehicles. You can see the vehicles in the 1993 pack-in catalog. IIRC, someone who used to work for Hasbro said they just never got them to work right, so they abandoned the idea.
I can’t state it more plainly: that Armor-Bot sucked.
Why am I reminded of Robojox?
The original power fighters might’ve been a cool concept, these ended up seeming like after thoughts and copying the Exo-squad toyline of the time.