40+ years of ThunderCats action figures in one place.

ThunderCats toys have been made by at least a dozen companies on three continents since 1985, and almost none of them talk to each other. Different scales, different sculpts, different names for the same character. This archive currently holds 510 catalogued entries across every producer we have been able to verify, and the sections below are the short version of how they fit together.

LJN, 1985 to 1987

LJN held the original licence and put the first ThunderCats figures on shelves in 1985, ahead of the cartoon reaching syndication that September. We catalogue 95 LJN entries, split across three retail series (28, 31, 14 figures respectively) plus the vehicles, playsets and companion figures that were never assigned to a series at all.

The line's signature was Battle-Matic action: a lever on the figure's back that drove an arm swing or a body twist. It is also the thing that breaks. On a loose vintage figure, the spring is the first component to fail, so a working lever is worth checking before a working sword is. Full catalogue with year, series and variant notes at the LJN archive, and the printed catalogues LJN sent to retailers are scanned in the artwork catalogues feature.

Super7, 2018 to now

Super7 is the current collector licence and by volume it is now the largest single producer in the archive at 191 entries. It runs four parallel lines that are easy to confuse: ULTIMATES at 7 inches with full accessory loadouts and swappable heads, Deluxe sets, ReAction at 3.75 inches in the deliberately retro five-points-of-articulation style, and Vintage, which reissues the LJN sculpts on repro cardbacks.

The same licence also covers the sibling properties, so SilverHawks and TigerSharks ULTIMATES sit in this archive too. Waves are still shipping, and pre-orders typically open six to nine months before delivery, which is why the shelf at the top of this page separates pre-order from in stock.

Scale, and why a mixed shelf never lines up

This is the single most common thing collectors get wrong. The lines were never designed to share a shelf:

• 3.75 inch Super7 ReAction, and the Bandai 4 inch basic figures sit close to it.
• 5.5 inch the original LJN figures, and Mattel's 2016 Classics, which were sized to match them deliberately.
• 7 inch Super7 ULTIMATES, the modern collector standard.
• 14 inch Mezco Mega-Scale.
• 1/6 scale Mondo, which are display statues rather than play figures.

An LJN Lion-O and an ULTIMATES Lion-O are both correct and they will never look right next to each other. Most collections settle on one scale and treat the rest as separate displays.

Mattel, Mezco, Mondo and Funko

Between LJN ending and Super7 starting, the licence moved around. Mattel produced a Classics line in 2016 and later the MOTU x ThunderCats crossover figures, which put Lion-O and He-Man on shared tooling; 16 entries across Classics and the crossover. Mezco ran the 14 inch Mega-Scale figures from 2011 and announced a One:12 Collective line in 2026, 18 entries in total. Mondo makes 5 pieces at 1/6 scale, and Funko accounts for 19.

Bandai and the 2011 series

The 2011 Cartoon Network reboot got its own toy line from Bandai, mostly 4 inch basic figures with a handful of deluxe and vehicle releases. It is 49 entries here and it is the one line where the sculpts follow a completely different character design, so it is worth browsing separately rather than mixed into a search.

Vehicles, playsets and the Cats Lair

The vehicles are where the ThunderCats line got ambitious, and where the money is. LJN put out the Thundertank, the ThunderClaw, the Feliner and the Hovercat, plus the Cats Lair playset, which is the piece most collectors want and the hardest to find complete. The Lair shipped with a large number of small removable parts and almost nothing survives with all of them.

Super7 has since produced its own ULTIMATES Thundertank and a Cats Lair playset at 7 inch scale, and Funko covers both in the Pop! Rides and Pop! Town formats. The Brazilian and Argentine licensees made their own versions too, including a Glasslite Thundertanque and a Playful Thundertank that differ from the LJN tooling.

The Sword of Omens and prop replicas

The Sword of Omens is a category of its own. LJN made a child-scale roleplay sword in 1985 and Bandai made one for the 2011 series. What most people are searching for now is the adult collector replica, and there are several: Factory Entertainment produces a limited edition prop replica, a scaled Sword and Claw Shield pair and a LARP-safe stunt version, Soap Studio has a Sword and glove set, and there is a light-up version from Trick or Treat Studios. They differ enormously in size and price, so read the scale on each entry rather than the product name.

The Brazilian and Argentine lines

This is the part of the ThunderCats toy story that is barely documented anywhere, and it is the reason this archive exists. Licensees in South America produced their own figures with their own sculpts, colourways and packaging, and they are frequently mistaken for bootlegs. We catalogue 89 entries across Glasslite (17) and Bandeirante (6) in Brazil, Playful (21) in Argentina, and the Kidworks minis (45).

Actual unlicensed product is catalogued separately in the bootleg overview, which is the page to read before buying anything loose from an unfamiliar seller.

What to check before you buy

Four things account for most disappointing vintage purchases. The Battle-Matic lever, as above, is the mechanical weak point. Original accessories, especially the small weapons, are missing far more often than listings admit, and reproduction parts circulate freely without being labelled as such. Colour on the lighter figures, Cheetara in particular, yellows badly under sunlight and photographs can hide it. And the South American releases are routinely listed as bootlegs by sellers who do not know the difference, which cuts both ways: it means genuine licensed regional figures sometimes go cheap, and it means actual unlicensed product sometimes gets described as a rare variant. Our bootleg overview covers how to tell them apart.