News · 2026-08-05
You Always Wanted Both. Soap Studio Is Finally Making the Sword and the Glove.
In collaboration with @bigbadtoystore. Some links on this page are affiliate links that support thundercats.org.
Think back to being eight years old and drawing the Sword of Omens on the back of an exercise book. You never drew it on its own. You drew the fist around it, the three studs across the knuckles, the claws. The sword was only ever half the picture.
Forty years of ThunderCats merchandise has mostly forgotten that. You can buy the Sword of Omens at five different price points, in foam, in cast metal, in full-tang stainless steel. The Claw Shield turns up as a 6-inch desk ornament with the sword clipped into it, and that is about it.
Soap Studio has finally built the other half at a size that matters.
What it is
An 82cm Sword of Omens and a 36cm Claw Shield gauntlet, sold together, both moulded in soft vinyl. $128.99 at BigBadToyStore, listed as a pre-order with an estimated arrival of the first quarter of 2027.
The colours are the cartoon’s, not a prop house’s. Flat saturated orange on the gauntlet, white claw tips, three silver studded discs across the knuckles, and the Eye of Thundera set into the hilt as a red cabochon with the black cat crest cut into it. Nobody has tried to make this look like a weapon that survived a war. It looks like the thing on the model sheet, which for a shelf piece is the right call.
At 82cm the sword is not a full-size costume piece and it is not a desk toy either. It sits in the gap: long enough to read as the real thing on a wall or a shelf, short enough that soft vinyl can carry it without sagging. The gauntlet at 36cm tall is close to hand scale.
Four things to know before you pre-order
The clear stand is not included. This is the one that will catch people. Every image Soap Studio has released shows the sword balanced on a transparent A-frame and the gauntlet propped on a riser, and their own artwork carries the line “This product does not include the transparent stand” in the corner. You are buying two vinyl pieces. Display is your problem.
These are prototype renders, not photographs of a finished product. The art states “Prototype shown, not final. Final product will subject to licensor’s approval,” and adds that part of the product is hand made, so exact details may vary. Judge the sculpt, not the paint.
Soft vinyl behaves like soft vinyl. Soap Studio notes the material can deform slightly with temperature changes and can be reshaped with a hair dryer on a low setting. That is normal for the material and it is also a fair warning about a sunny window.
The tariff surcharge follows the item, not the destination. The $128.99 already includes a US tariff surcharge. BBTS is the importer of record and pays that when the goods land in the United States, so shipping the box onward to Canada or the UK does not remove it, and you will still owe your own country’s duties on arrival. The one piece of good news: BBTS confirms the final price before charging your card and their current policy reduces the surcharge if the tariff they actually pay comes in lower, which given the Supreme Court ruling on the emergency toy tariffs is a live possibility between now and Q1 2027. You can cancel at that point and get the deposit back.
How the reveal landed
Soap Studio’s own announcement is not the only place this has been seen. The fan page ThunderCatsNOW posted the reveal video on 22 July, where it has picked up around 1,700 views. Watch it here:
Reveal video posted by ThunderCatsNOW on Facebook.
The reaction is not uniformly warm, and the criticism is specific. The two most visible comments on that video both go at the gauntlet rather than the sword: “That claw is awful” and “That claw needs work.” It is a small sample, five comments in total on a filtered thread, so treat it as a signal rather than a verdict.
It is a fair signal though, and you can see the argument in the renders above. The sword is all hard edges and clean symmetry, and it holds up under a close crop. The gauntlet is doing something harder: sculpted fur in soft vinyl, at a scale where every strand is visible, and it reads flatter and more toy-like than the piece next to it. Whether that bothers you probably depends on whether the set is going on a shelf at arm’s length or a wall across the room.
Worth remembering that this is prototype art with licensor approval still outstanding, so the sculpt has time to change before Q1 2027. Worth equally remembering that it might not.
Where it lands on the replica shelf
We keep a running Merchandise and Prop Replicas section, and this is now the sixth entry. The ladder, cheapest first:
- Sword of Omens Scaled Prop Replica, Factory Entertainment, $37.99
- Sword of Omens Prop Replica, light-up, Trick or Treat Studios, $59.99
- Sword of Omens & Claw Shield Scaled Prop Replica, Factory Entertainment, $64.99
- Sword of Omens LARP Stunt Prop Replica, Factory Entertainment, $74.99
- Sword of Omens & Claw Shield Collectible Replica Set, Soap Studio, $128.99
- Sword of Omens Limited Edition Prop Replica, Factory Entertainment, $659.99
Factory Entertainment’s $64.99 piece is the only other one that includes the Claw Shield, and it is a 6-inch desk object. The $659.99 limited edition is 41 inches of full-tang stainless steel with a numbered wall mount and a certificate, and it is a different kind of purchase entirely.
Soap Studio’s set is the one that answers the question an eight-year-old was actually asking. Both pieces, big enough to mean something, for the price of a decent Ultimates two-pack.
The sword itself came to Lion-O in Exodus, and it has been the single most requested piece of ThunderCats merchandise ever since. It is quietly remarkable that it took until 2027 for someone to put the glove with it.
Sources
- ThunderCats Lion-O’s Sword of Omens and Glove Collectible Replica Set, BigBadToyStore
- FAQ on Tariffs, BigBadToyStore
- International Shipping, BigBadToyStore
- Soap Studio Claw Shield and Sword of Omens reveal video, ThunderCatsNOW on Facebook
- Product imagery: official Soap Studio releases via BigBadToyStore
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