The 90’s were a great time for almost everything nerd culture. Comic books were peeling crisply off the presses weekly. More licensed toys than there were actual intellectual properties. With the genius of marketing through cartoons like "GI Joe”, "He-Man", “She-Ra”, and “Transformers” that the 80’s had borrowed from the commercial success of “Star Wars” action figures were unstoppable. The 90’s were no different if not more vicious and ambiguous. “Sell a Luke Skywalker the kid will need a land-speeder to reenact the first film. Sell the land-speeder the kid will eventually see ‘Empire’ and will need a snow-speeder and an AT-AT to play the battle of Hoth. You can still find this set on Amazon!
After watching ‘Return of the Jedi’ the same kid will see his ill-equipped hero struggle to take down a massive drooling behemoth without a lightsaber and then need the Rancor.” That was toy giant Kenner’s marketing strategy. With the “Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition” came an updated version of the “Power of the Force” toy-line and the force was very powerful in the detail. I remember being younger and seeing the “Luke VS Rancor” playset at Toys "R" Us around the holidays I must have done something right that year because not only did I get it I also got a neatly designed Malakili to cry in the corner as a chubby puddle of mush as Boba Fett swooped in on the jetpack of his amazingly awesome arsenal knocking Luke into the rabid beasts mouth as he ferociously fired a zipping rocket off into its crotch bulge just to show off to the dancing girls of Jabba’s Palace watching above.
The massive beast bested, crumpling with tooth and claw, to the ground. No one gets over on Fett. This Rancor though, it was a mean menace the face of a vapid tarantula and claws filed as sharp as a gnarly sharpened mechanical bone saw that you would find in meat cutting room. The pure detail on this figure screamed primal hate deep seeded and made of forceful fear. Occasionally I would stub my toe on the Rancor and want to retaliate with a swift curse and kick but thought otherwise not out of fear of damaging the sturdy hulking hunk of plastic but out of fear of its own inanimate retaliation. This was by far the scariest figure in my collection and I used to collect McFarlane “SPAWN” sets. I know by far the mid 90’s are not necessarily retro but this “Bots+Monsters” after all.
Mr. Benjamin Torres (the designer behind this Ravenous raging hell-beast) should be proud. I know that this monster maintains the title of the nastiest nightmare in my collection of hideous horror and nerd memorabilia. Not even a tornado of twisted revenants and severed remains can out scare the spook-factor of the 90’s Rancor Remake with the leathery skin and dreadful beaded eyes of malice incarnate. This is the toy that would eat the others with ease if only it were as real as it looks. Now my son Erik owns it to terrorize whatever and whoever he sees fit with it.
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