This is a crazy one!
This was a short-lived line of action figures and vehicles produced by Hasbro. There was an animated television series by Sunbow Productions that ran for one season, thirteen episodes in total, in 1987 as well as a 6 issue comic book series by Star Comics that ran from from November 1987 to September 1988.
So, who were the Visionaries, I mean aside from being Knights of the Magical Light? Let’s look at the insanely deep backstory. It tells the story of the planet Prysmos, a world filled with technology that is sent crashing down when a rare celestial event causes all that technology to fail! With science gone, magic is ushered in to take its place. Now, the people of Prysmos are forced to rebuild and new Independent city-states emerge including the city of New Valarak under the leadership of Leoric, who is obviously our hero. There is also a domain ruled by his rival, Darkstorm who is obviously the bad guy. Pretty heavy stuff for kids eh! Might make an awesome television series now though.
Alright, so the ancient wizard Merklynn has been waiting for magic to return for thousands of years, and he decides to offer magical abilities to anyone who can survive a competition and reach his fortress at the top of Iron Mountain. A bunch of people try, but only fourteen make it and those 14 (nice even number) are granted powers based on their experiences. Those survivors become Knights, and each knight is given an animal totem that allows them to transform into that animal. Some knights had staffs which could be used for casting spells and others were given cool magical vehicles only they could power. These Knights split into two separate factions, the Spectral Knights under our hero, Leoric,
and the Darkling Lords led by Darkstorm.
We now have our basic back story, let’s talk characters!
Leoric had a most excellent 80’s mustache and he wielded the Lion totem, of course. Ectar had the fox totem and had the vehicle Capture Chariot. Feryl was the wolf and had the vehicle Sky Lancer. There was Arzon, eagle totem and the Power of Knowledge, Witterquick, power of Speed and totem of a cheetah, Galadria the dolphin and Cryotek the bear who held the power of strength.
On the Darkling side we had Darkstorm whose totem, and I cannot make this stuff up, was a mollusk (although it was a laser firing mutant mollusk). Darkling had the power of decay! There was Reekon, lizard totem with Sky Claw vehicle, Mortded and his Beetle totem and Dagger Assault vehicle, then there were the sort of slave knights, Cindarr the gorilla totem with destruction power, Cravex, power of fear whose totem was a made up creature from Prysmos, Phylot, the Armadillo totem and Lexor. Not to be outdone by the Spectral Knights who had their water based character they also had Virulina the shark.
Hasbro produced a set of figures but they were not released until after the cartoon ended in 1987. Visionaries were well constructed and articulated, similar to another Hasbro property, G.I. Joe. What made these guys stand out was the holographic chest emblem which displayed their totem animal!
The stickers looked awesome, but they also made these expensive to produce. That, along with the timing of the characters release, is likely the reason for the downfall of the toy line.
Only one series was released, although a second series was planned for 1988. There were twelve male characters produced and four vehicles packaged with an exclusive figure. We mentioned the two female characters that were introduced, one good, one bad, but action figures were never created… bummer really.
Of the second series there were prototype figures and vehicles made and catalog promos released (prototypes? Can we say collectors dream!) but the line never hit the market. There was also a reported Iron Mountain playset which would have been fantastic.
Alas, as cool as this story line was (and it was cool), it just didn’t catch on and the toys disappeared much like the technology of Prysmos.
The big question, how collectable are these guys? We’ll say fairly. How expensive? Not horrible. Toyworth.com has a pretty decent guide if you want to go check it out, but these GI Joe like figures, that ran around $5-6 in the late 80’s go for around $10-15 loose and $30 on card and the vehicles go for $30-40.
So there you have it, The Visionaries! Another forgotten line of action figures from the 80’s.
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