Review – Captain Power Lord Dread

“As a half-human cyborg, Lord Dread is not programmable . . . His ultimate goal is to rule Earth and populate planet with Bio Dreads — mechanical life forms whom he believes are “perfect creations.”
— from the card back

Captain Power, Mattel’s super gimmick toy of 1987 in which some of the toys interacted with the TV; mostly through the videos that were packaged with some toys though there was a very short-lived Captain Power television show. Yeah, by 1987 the whole “can’t have shows that are pretty much nothing more than commercials for a toy line” was well and truly dead. Even though it would be fun to review one of the ships/video combos, today we’re going to look at the evil mastermind action figure, Lord Dread.

Packaging

Lord Dread’s card design is a beautiful piece of graphic design straight out of the hair metal days of 1987. With a bright, explosive red/orange color — and look at those fancy sparks — and a silver metallic foil outlining the logo, the front of Lord Dread’s card would leap off of any toy peg today and scream “Look at me!” And as cool as the card front is, the card back is even better. We get a bio, an illustration of the figure, and illustrations of the toys and even some kids sitting way too close to the TV and playing with their Captain Power spaceships. When did toy companies stop using artwork to sell toys and switch over to photos? I know the photos are more accurate, but the illustrations are cooler.

I wish they would use both illustrations and photos these days.

Lord Dread, an Evil Action Figure

Let me get this out of the way: Lord Dread is an ugly, poorly sculpted piece of work. Take a look at his face if you don’t believe me. What the hell did they use to sculpt that hideous mug, a spork or something? Man, Mattel sure pumped some crap onto the market in 1987. I remember G.I. Joe figures from that era and while they weren’t outstanding works of art they were better than this piece of junk.

That said, Lord Dread’s concept is cool enough to make up for his horrible sculpting. A cyborg killer with metallized body parts on his torso — ooooo, shiny — Lord Dread looks like an evil badass who is ready to take over the world. If only his articulation would let him make the right moves to actually succeed and achieve his goal.

Articulation

Considering when he was born, Lord Dread’s not doing too bad in the articulation department but the G.I. Joe action figures of the day — with their swivel-arm battlegrip — had him beat to hell. Lord Dread can turn his head side to side, his shoulders are on a hinged ball, his hips connect with simple ball on peg assembly, and his knees and elbows are hinged; and that’s all he’s got going for him. He can sit and stand okay, but any outrageous action poses are beyond his capabilities. And he doesn’t even have holes in his feet so you can’t cheat and use a stand to help him get into more active poses. The poor guy, he’s somewhere between a vintage Star Wars figure and a 1980s G.I. Joe figure in terms of articulation . . . and without the coolness of either.

Paint

Seriously? You really want me to talk about the paint job on an action figure from 1987? Damn, my brain sometimes makes ridiculous demands. Well, the best I can say is: Lord Dread has paint on him. Mostly he cast in the appropriate colors, but a little paint on his head, knees, torso, and arms give him just a little more depth than he would have had if Mattel had relied solely on the plastic to carry the figure. The good news is that the paint is pretty much where they wanted it. Can we really ask for any more than that?

Basically, it’s a painted figure but it’s not a work of art.

Accessories

Lord Dread comes with a weapon — identified as a zapblade on the card — and a cape. That is all, folks, a silly technosword and a cloth cape. Both are removable, though, so that’s something. A piece of wire inside the cape helps form it to his neck, so you can take Lord Dread’s bright cape and move it over to another 3.75-inch action figure in your collection. (I wonder what my T-700 would look like with this cape . . . )

The “zapblade” is a crude, weak chunk of plastic that broke within moments of coming out of the package. I’m not sure how much of the problem was an issue with the original toy and how much was simply the fact that it’s old, but the handle broke off as I tried to insert the sword into his hand. Disintegrated wouldn’t be too far from a valid description of what happened to the plastic. There’s no way in hell I’m taking one of these into a fight. One blow and snap, there goes your weapon.

Closing Thoughts

If Lord Dread is any indication of the quality of the rest of the Captain Power toy line then you’re better off ignoring this series. Though the prices on carded figures is actually pretty low, the quality is lower still. And since this was never the smash hit that other 80s toy lines were, anyone demanding high prices for these things is probably stuck with their toys for a while to come.

If you can find some of these cheap then grab them. Otherwise, I recommend sticking to looking at Captain Power toys on the web. Unless, of course, you can find a Phantom Striker “Evil Jet.” That thing just looks awesome and I want one. (And the day I do find one I know I’m going to say, “Now if I only had a VHS player to play the video.”)

Philip Reed never watched the Captain Power show when he was a kid but he does remember trying out the video/spaceship once. If his memory still works properly, Philip remembers that the firing gimmick didn’t work all that great.