What makes this Remco villain so terrifying to collectors?

Beyond the sculpt, the character's rarity and the specific 'infernal' design choices—often pushing the boundaries of 1980s toy safety and aesthetics—make him a standout in the Warrior Beasts line.

Are there any rare variants of this Remco figure?

Yes, certain production runs featured slight paint application differences and varying plastic densities that have become 'infernal secrets' among high-end vintage collectors.

How does this figure compare to other 80s barbarian lines?

While sharing the MOTU-style 5.5-inch buck, Remco's villains often featured grittier, more 'horror-centric' designs compared to the more mainstream heroic fantasy of the era.

Devourer of Souls: Unlocking the Infernal Secrets of Remco’s Most Terrifying Villain

A Monstrous Birth in Plastic and Shadow (1984)

In 1984, Remco dropped its short-lived Conan the Barbarian action figure line — a gritty, 5.5-inch collection of five figures pulled more from the brutal, sword-and-sorcery pages of Marvel’s Conan comics than from the blockbuster Schwarzenegger films. The lineup included Conan the Warrior, Conan the King, the sinister sorcerer Thoth-Amon, the enigmatic Jewel Thief (a striking red translucent skeleton draped in a cape), and the line’s undisputed nightmare fuel: the Devourer of Souls, starkly branded on his blister card as “The Enemy.”

Young collectors tearing into those blister packs in toy aisles across America often froze when they reached him — a towering, gray-skinned horror whose very presence screamed cosmic doom. While the heroes flexed barbarian muscle and Thoth-Amon schemed with dark magic, the Devourer stood apart as Remco’s bold swing at pure, otherworldly terror. He wasn’t just another villain; he was the hulking promise of a world where even the strongest sword arm could be snuffed out forever.

Spawned from the Outer Black

Remco kept the Devourer of Souls’ backstory brutally concise—eschewing the lengthy, multi-panel comic-strip biographies found on rival toy packaging for the era. Instead, the character’s essence was captured in terse, chilling phrases that burned into young minds like a curse whispered in the dark. According to the sparse official lore etched onto the 1984 cardbacks, he emerged not from a traditional Hyborian crypt or a dusty Stygian temple, but from the Outer Dark: a boundless, extradimensional emptiness where light perishes and an eternal, ravenous hunger reigns supreme.

He was positioned as the Hyborian Age’s absolute apex predator: an abomination so dreadful that, as the packaging suggested, even the most arrogant sorcerers dared not speak his name without a shudder of dread. His sole purpose was consumption—not of mere blood or bone, but of the “vital essence” itself, the glowing spark that Remco’s flavor text identified simply as the soul.

Unlike the more grounded threats Conan faced in the Marvel comics or the films, the Devourer was a cosmic intruder. He existed to drag entire civilizations screaming into the oblivion of the void. This lack of a detailed, serialized history actually worked in the figure’s favor; without a cartoon or a specific comic issue to define his limits, the Devourer of Souls became whatever nightmare a child needed him to be. He remained the ultimate “Enemy,” a silent, gray-skinned herald of the end times who turned every plastic battlefield into a struggle for the very survival of the world.

The Face That Never Falls

Remco engineered the Devourer with deliberate permanence — his jagged, horned helmet is molded directly to his head, an immovable crown of terror that no child could ever strip away. Sweeping backward like frozen black flames, the helmet frames a snarling, fanged maw locked in eternal rage. His broad shoulders, scarred and textured like hide forged in abyssal fires, slope down to a massive torso crossed by a gray harness-like belt. One wrist and one ankle bear mismatched gauntlets, contributing to his signature limp — a forward-leaning, shuffling stance that drags as though weighed down by the accumulated agony of countless claimed spirits. At just 5.5 inches tall, he still dominated any playset battlefield, his fixed gaze seeming to pierce through plastic and imagination alike.

The Sickle-Like Axe — Sole Instrument of Doom

True to the 1984 release, every Devourer of Souls shipped with precisely one accessory: a long-handled, double-bladed axe rendered in menacing gray plastic. The blade’s wicked, crescent sweep — sharp on one side, hooked like a reaper’s tool — was built for ripping and harvesting, never for honorable duels. Card art depicted him hoisting the weapon aloft, poised to cleave souls from their mortal shells amid howls of the damned. No backup sword, no secondary flail, no dagger — Remco kept it ruthlessly simple, forcing every clash to revolve around that single, devastating implement. In the grip of an eight-year-old, it transformed ordinary backyard battles into rituals of apocalyptic dread.

The Line’s Dark Heart

Within Remco’s compact five-figure roster, the Devourer of Souls served as the unrelenting shadow to Conan’s blazing defiance. While the sinister sorcerer Thoth-Amon offered cunning, ancient magic and the translucent Jewel Thief brought the threat of stealthy treachery, only the Devourer delivered raw, existential horror—the looming promise of total erasure. He wasn’t merely a rival warlord; he was the line’s dark heart, a creature whose very existence suggested a scale of evil that transcended the mortal squabbles of the Hyborian Age.

The true, untapped potential of his threat was hidden on the reverse side of the blister card. While the front of the packaging focused on the individual “Enemy” at hand, the cardback art tantalized young fans with detailed cross-sell illustrations of “phantom” mounts: the War Dragon and the War Stallion. These legendary beasts were never actually released under the Conan branding, existing only as evocative line art on the packaging.

Collectors now know these were intended as strategic reuses of existing Remco molds—the War Dragon was a repurposed sculpt from the Crystar “Crystal Dragon,” while the War Stallion was a direct carry-over from the Warlord line. Despite their absence from store pegs, these illustrated shadows suggested a grander, never-realized campaign where this void-born colossus might have led legions of the damned from the back of a prehistoric terror. Even without those elusive allies, the Devourer’s presence alone elevated every living room skirmish from simple swordplay to a frantic, desperate fight against utter annihilation.

The “Phantom” Mounts

The cross-sell illustrations on the back of the Conan figure packaging featured two specific mounts that collectors have since confirmed were planned reuses of existing Remco molds—ghosts of a larger world that never quite materialized on store shelves:

The War Dragon: The illustration on the cardback is a direct match for the Crystal Dragon from the Saga of Crystar line. It was intended to be strategically repurposed as a prehistoric beast for the Conan universe, but it never officially reached production under the Conan branding.
The War Stallion: This mount was based on the “Mighty Stallion” mold, originally a staple of Remco’s Lost World of the Warlord line. Its inclusion in the artwork suggested a cavalry-driven scale of play that the line’s short life cycle ultimately couldn’t support.

Why They Weren’t Released

Although these beasts appeared in official Remco catalogs and as vivid line art on packaging, they remained “phantom” releases for several key reasons:

Line Longevity: The Conan line was unfortunately short-lived, consisting of only one primary wave of five figures before the fires of Cimmeria cooled at retail.
Strategic Repurposing: Remco frequently shared molds across its many “fantasy” lines—including Warrior Beasts, Warlord, and Galaxy Warriors—to mitigate production costs. While efficient, the window to cross-pollinate these specific mounts into the Conan brand closed too quickly.
Market Competition: By 1984, Mattel’s Masters of the Universe had achieved a stranglehold on the 5.5-inch figure market. This dominance made it increasingly difficult for Remco’s licensed lines to sustain the long-term retail interest required to launch larger boxed sets or creatures.

Even without these phantom allies to carry him into battle, the Devourer of Souls remains one of the most iconic figures of the era. His “raw, existential horror” aesthetic provided a stark, haunting contrast to the more traditional heroic fantasy of his contemporaries—a gray-skinned reminder that in the world of Remco’s Conan, some enemies couldn’t be conquered by steel alone.

Figure Name	Designation	Signature Accessories	Visual Distinctions
Conan the Warrior	The Hero	Broadsword, Shield, Dagger	Classic loincloth look; inspired by the John Buscema Marvel Art.
Conan the King	The Hero	Kingly Sword, Shield, Removable Crown	Features a more “regal” armored harness and a slightly different head sculpt.
Jewel Thief	The Enemy	Battle Axe	A fan-favorite translucent red skeleton; a clever “glow” effect without electronics.
Thoth-Amon	The Enemy	Sorcerer’s Staff, Goblet	The line’s primary spellcaster; robed body featured a sinister, horned facial sculpt.
Devourer of Souls	The Enemy	Sickle-Axe	The cosmic horror of the line; tanish skin, horned helmet, and tattered black cape.

Expanding the Lore: A Design Carved from Dread

The physical presence of the Devourer of Souls was meticulously crafted to intimidate even the hardiest plastic hero. While he utilized the same “swivel-arm” body mold shared by his heroic counterparts, the Devourer was distinguished by a sculpt that leaned into the grotesque:

The Visage: A skeletal, yet fleshy, face characterized by deep-set eye sockets and a permanent, jagged snarl visible through his helm.
The Horns: A crown of curved, antler-like horns that suggested a demonic lineage far older than the civilizations of man.
The Armament: He didn’t carry a soldier’s sword; he wielded a wicked, sickle-like axe, a tool designed less for honorable combat and more for the cold reaping of spirits.

A Collector’s Phantom, Still Feared

The Remco Conan line collapsed after its single 1984 wave, yet the Devourer of Souls lingers like a curse that refuses to lift. His extreme rarity — compounded by the fixed helmet, unique limp pose, and solitary sickle-like axe — has elevated him to grail status among 1980s fantasy collectors. Pristine examples fetch prices that would leave the kids who once unleashed his rampages on shag carpets utterly speechless. Decades on, he stands exactly as Remco intended: an immovable, hollow-eyed monument to dread, forever watching from the shelf — patient, insatiable, eternally hungry for the next soul to devour.