Some of the coolest toy lines ever made can trace their origins – or at least a prevailing influence – back to the popular culture of their era. Masters of the Universe owes an almost self-evident debt to Conan the Barbarian. Mattel’s Pulsar was their attempt to capitalize on the popularity of The Six Million Dollar Man and Kenner’s tie-in toyline. Even G.I. Joe featured the Mad Max-inspired Dreadnok faction. Another company took the Mad Max template much further: Tonka, whose 1986 Steel Monsters action figures are some of the coolest, most creative, and craziest toys of the eighties.
Tonka is best known for manufacturing toy trucks and construction vehicles, but in the eighties, the arrival of former Mattel executives at Tonka saw new corporate goals. This new management was interested in diversifying, beginning with the Transformers knock-off Go-Bots. Many of Tonka’s off-beat entries into the action figure arena, like Go-Bots follow-up Rock Lords, weren’t popular at the time of release, but have become cult classics with collectors for their inventive action features, unique designs, and charming weirdness. Of these, Steel Monsters has a unique claim to fame: it integrated Tonka’s classic trucks and vehicles into the line, turning them into the weaponized, post-apocalyptic “Steel Monsters” that earns the line its name.
Tonka’s former head of research and development Doug Miller alleges that the concept for Steel Monsters started as an officially-licensed Mad Max line. However, when Tonka approached the franchise rightsholders, they found the asking price for license too high, and instead went ahead with an unlicensed line that would be inspired by the films without using its characters or designs directly – although in some cases, it came pretty close.
Tonka’s designers created an initial wave of five vehicles and four figures for the line’s 1986 launch, with all five vehicles built off of existing Tonka items. These would be modified with newly-tooled plastic canopies and weapons, and supplemented with printed, faux-graffiti designs to give them more personality.
The enemy faction were designated the “Marauders,” and were given color-coded black and red vehicles, while the heroic “Survivors” drove grey vehicles. For this first wave, the four figures (two Survivors and two Maurauders) were only available packaged with their designated vehicle.
Although sales on the first wave were mediocre, a second wave followed in 1987 with four new characters. This included two new members of the Marauders, and two new Survivors. As with the first wave, the intent was for each character to be given a corresponding vehicle, but none of this second wave saw manufacturing due to low order numbers and high costs. Instead, the figures were released individually, alongside single-carded reissues of the wave one characters. The second wave characters saw limited production, ultimately the last items produced for the line before it was cancelled later in 1987.
The first wave’s two hero “Survivors” were Wheel Boss and Half-Trak, with Wheel-Boss serving as the line’s Max Rockatansky and the defacto leader of the good guys. Curiously, despite the transparent Mad Max influence, Wheel Boss’s design eschews the leather jacket of the Road Warrior for a futuristic sci-fi jumpsuit and a (fairly dorky-looking) helmet. Though the hero, Wheel Boss is the least interesting figure in the line. His sidekick Half-Trak fares better, sporting a colorful blue and yellow costume adorned with a bandelier of ammunition across his chest, as well as some post-apocalyptic muttonchops.
Wheel Boss and Half Trak were joined in the second wave by Viking and Tigress. Viking is the most interesting of the good-guy designs, a man who has decided to wear a viking helmet in the aftermath of the world’s end. He anticipates the off-kilter factions of later post-apolcalyptic media, and would look perfectly at home in the world of Fallout. Tigress’s blue and brown one-piece costume and boots also fails to really evoke Mad Max in their design, leaving her looking generically “futuristic” in the same way as Wheel Boss.
The two produced “Survivor” vehicles were “the Enforcer” and “the Destroyer.” The Enforcer is a modified 4×4 driven by Wheel Boss, outfitted with an armored canopy and machine guns. The Destroy is Half Trak’s modified dump truck, its back wheels replaced with (what else) a half-track. The unproduced wave two Survivor vehicles were an armored bulldozer called “the Wrecker” for Viking, and a big rig truck called the “Pulverizer” for Tigress.
As is endemic of eighties toylines, the bad guys were cooler than the good guys. The evil Marauders were led by Talon, clad in studded-metal armor and looking straight off the set of an Italian Road Warrior rip-off. His henchman was the aptly-named Metalface, who wore a steel mask over his head. Metalface is the most explicitly Mad Max inspired character in the line, bearing a strong resemblance to The Road Warrior’s main villain, Lord Humungus.
In wave two, they were joined by “Punk” and the awesomely-named “Retread.” Punk’s mohawked look and even head sculpt seem to be modeled at least in part on Wez, Vernon Wells’ memorably psychotic henchman to Lord Humungus. Retread gets his name from his decision to wear a pair of tires strapped across his chest.
Metalface is the only character to have been packaged with two vehicles: a road grader known as “the Masher,” and “the Bomber,” an armored truck that was also the line’s only motorized vehicle.His boss Talon drives “the Blaster,” a pick-up truck with a machine gun turret installed over its backseat, the third and final Marauders vehicle to see manufacture. Retread’s “Barbarian,” another road grader, this one turned into a missile-launching siege weapon, went unproduced. No photos survive of Punk’s intended vehicle, speculated from comments by Douglas Miller to have been a crane or even a schoolbus.
Over the decades, though remaining obscure, Steel Monsters has built a very dedicated cult following. Poor sales mean that all of the figures and vehicles are somewhat difficult to track down, though the characters from the first wave fetch a relatively low secondary market price. Metalface is the rarest of the first wave, his design making him the line’s “fan favorite.” He’s as close as Steel Monsters gets to a Boba Fett or a Snake Eyes. The second wave figures are trickier to locate, usually valued at $50-75 loose and a couple hundred dollars carded.
Vehicles are rare in loose, complete condition and rarer mint-in-box. Because of its electronic components, the Bomber is the most difficult to find in mint condition. For many collectors, the bigger challenge of Steel Monsters is finding the room: the vehicles are huge, and setting aside shelf-space for them is often a barrier for entry to collecting the line. Still, the unique theming (how many other post-apocalyptic toylines do you know?) and character designs make Steel Monsters stand out, and see many fans of eighties action figures making room for these oddities.
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