WizKids’ HeroClix Unleashes ‘ThunderCats’

Welcome to the table,

There is an armory full of fictional weapons from across the pop culture landscape that hold iconic status in the cultural zeitgeist. The Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda, Thor’s hammer Mjölnir, Captain America’s shield, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, Mega Man’s Mega Buster, the Krull … okay, I said that last one for the ten of you who will recognize what that is — but the point still stands. Sometimes the weapon itself is more iconic than the characters who wield them. I have a handful of these particular pop culture lore items I have been a super fan of over the years, but one of my all-time favorites is without a doubt the enigmatic Sword of Omens from ThunderCats.

For those not gifted with “sight beyond sight,” the Sword of Omens is the legendary blade wielded by the ruler of the feline-humanoid hybrid space refugees known as the ThunderCats. This blade can extend or retract, taking the form of a dagger, short sword, or long sword. It’s also practically indestructible and sharp enough to slice through stone, metal, and other wacky sword & sorcery/weird fiction materials like a hot knife through butter. The thing can shoot beams when it wants, turn into a light bridge, make a force field sometimes. It can summon the various ThunderCats like a planet-wide Bat-signal of sorts. It’s the semi-sentient Swiss-army-knife swung, for the majority of the time we see it, by the old-before-he-had-a-chance to be young man known as Lion-O.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m a big fan of ThunderCats. There is something so chaotically creative about the world-building and lore that was tacked onto this 1980s cartoon, which keeps it relevant 40 years after its launch; seeing multiple animated series, lines of toys, and even a blockbuster Dynamite Entertainment series that does so well it warranted spin-offs.

My pals at WizKids seem to agree with me that ThunderCats is rad because they have announced they are adding the ThunderCats to their extensive lineup of HeroClix Iconix, made specifically for superfans of the series. Let’s get into it!

This is the very first time that the ThunderCats and one of the best villains of all time, the ever-living Mumm-Ra, have made it into HeroClix form.

The set includes 5 HeroClix figures, including the leader of the ThunderCats, pictured above, Lion-O, and the seemingly omnipotent (unless the plot demands otherwise) Sword of Omens.

Next up is the staff-wielding speedster, Cheetara. I can’t wait to see how her stats are going to affect gameplay at the table.

Tygra, architect of the ThunderCats and bolo-whip-wielding illusionist, looks rad in the above Clix form render. I always get a kick out of the Bolo Whip as much as the iconic Sword of Omens, it’s something that is very uniquely ThunderCats-coded.

The “thunder-chuck” wielding Panthro rounds out the roster for this set, showing the ThunderCats mechanic in a battle-ready stance. I’m stoked to see how the spinning element of this HeroClix is going to come across in physical form. From the render above, I speculate that it will be a disc of semi-transparent plastic with the red, blue, and grey elements of the chain being suspended in the disc of plastic to give it a really eye-catching element at the table.

The set rounds out with Mumm-Ra the Ever-Living, a mummy-sorcerer-eternal-demon-priest who wants to take the Sword of Omens from the ThunderCats because … well, honestly, when you really dig down into, it’s because they showed up on his planet and made too much noise. Now, he wants the Eye of Thundera from the Sword of Omens because it’s powerful and he just wants it. That’s his motivation. He’s not trying to open a portal to some other dimension. He’s not trying to topple a kingdom. Mumm-Ra is already easily the most powerful entity on the planet. He wants the Sword of Omens and the magic stone it contains because he thinks it’s cool.

The amount of love I have for this kind of “villain” motivation is boundless. Skinny-mummy-in-red-cloak-man calls upon ancient forces of evil to turn into this Hulking-mummy-in-red-cloak-but-now-with-abs-man to fight a bunch of homeless cat aliens so he can take their laser pointer. This is the core of the reason I love ThunderCats: the main antagonist is just trying to play with the main protagonist’s toy.

This HeroClix set is also going to come with 6 cardboard bystanders. I have not seen them yet, but I’m hopeful they are Berbils, those are semi-robotic teddy bear creatures,  or something randomly unique to the ThunderCats setting.

You can pre-order this set at the link right now!

Until next time, I really hope we get a second set with mummy-form Mumm-Ra, Snarf — annoying but necessary — the Thunder-Kittens Wilykit and Wilykat, and the ghost of Jaga or a chase form of Jaga that is semi-transparent blue.

Let’s get real here, we could get the Mutants, there are quite a few of them, the expanded lineup of ThunderCats with Bengali, Lynx-O, and Pumyra. Grune would be amazing as well. WizKids could seriously put together a 22 or 44 figure set with a few transparent chase figures and just give us a whole HeroClix/minatures collectables set of ThunderCats … and then let’s move on to Master of the Universe.

They have the power!