Talkin Toys With Jeremy Sung of Spy Monkey Creations

I recently got a chance to chat with Jeremy Sung, the President and Director of Spy Monkey Creations, a new company that creates custom action figure accessories. In recent years, it has become increasingly common for small companies to offer accessories, playsets, stickers or other enhancements that the big toy companies are unwilling or unable to do. Spy Monkey Creations currently has a set of items on sale for “Your 7 Inch Fantasy Figures,” but which are clearly inspired by Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics line.

Custom Transformers G1 Ironhide, created by Jeremy Sung.

As a child of the 1980’s, Jeremy grew up collecting what he calls the “trinity” of ‘80’s toylines: G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Masters of the Universe. He has been a lifelong collector and began customizing at a young age, creating an unmasked version of the G.I. Joe figure Jinx as his first project. Over the years, he has honed his skills, adding levels of detail and articulation that these mass-produced kid’s toys did not come with out of the box. On top of his customization hobby, he studied sculpting in college and got a better understanding of the technical aspects of three dimensional design and production.

MOTUC Zodac holding Spy Monkey Creation's Classic Version of The Master Blade of Empyrean.

Spy Monkey Creations began as an attempt to create a sword for the MOTUC character Zodac, who was delivered rather light on accessories with only a pistol. Sung thought this Cosmic Enforcer would need a bit more weaponry so he created the Master Blade of Empyrean, a hefty sword inspired by Zodac’s color and deco. Fan reaction on the internet was incredibly positive, so Jeremy began selling these swords online at www.spymonkeycreations.com.


There are three versions of the sword available, each are nice and big and blend in well with the other figures and accessories in the MOTUC line. The black-painted version is meant to be used with the upcoming Wun-Dar figure (and presumably can be used to cut miniature loaves of bread). The resin in which the swords are cast is translucent and flecked with glitter to give a starry, cosmic character to the blades. The "W" symbol on each sword has been left unpainted and creates a nice window effect on the hilts. Unlike some of the recent "gummy" accessories from Mattel the swords all are sturdy and of high quality. Each batch of hand-painted swords takes about a day or so to complete in the Spy Monkey Creations workshop.




The newest piece from Spy Monkey Creations is the just-released Witching Axe of Ruination, which comes in purple and orange colors to compliment your most evil characters (and their robotic servants). These axes are wicked-looking counterparts to the famous He-Man axe, although they are a good bit larger. Their relative weight might overwhelm the loose joints that plagued some of the older figures. The axes are painted to match the two-toned power swords of Skeletor and Faker, with similar metallic purple and orange highlights.

MOTUC Skeletor, and both flavors of The Witching Axe of Ruination.

Part of the mission of Spy Monkey Creations is to produce accessories that are of original designs, loosely inspired by various toy lines. As for the future, Jeremy is also thinking about something bat-themed that would look good with Hordak and possibly a shield in the style of his favorite character, Tri-Klops. Since I had the opportunity, I had to make a case for the one Masters of the Universe Classics character who is the most accessory-challenged.

“I know that you have solicited input from the fandom,” I started, “and it seems to me that there is one MOTUC character who is really really hurting for some kind of weapon or something...Do you know where I’m going with this?”

“I've gotten a lot of requests for The Staff of Avion,” he eventually replied, referring to the staff carried by Stratos in classic MOTU lore.

This was originally going to be Spy Monkey Creation’s second project but the resin materials out of which he makes his accessories do not work well for staves and other long thin weapons. So unless, Jeremy gets around to creating a Mace of Avion, Stratos is going to have to make due with viciously pawing at his enemies…or stealing Tri-Klop’s sword.


Masters of the Universe has always been a very accessory-oriented line, with lots of great weapons, shields and armor. It was the rare toy series where the accessory packs were an important part of the line. Part of the fun of Masters of the Universe has always been swapping armor and weapons and kit-bashing unique versions of figures either between different Masters of the Universe characters or even other lines like Warrior Beasts, Pirates of the Galaxseas or Sectaurs other similarly scaled toys that augmented your figures with added parts and accessories. The new line is no different (or perhaps even more custom friendly due to the swappable heads). The items from Spy Monkey Creations are part of a long and rich tradition of MOTU kitbashing and they serve as original, high-quality supplements and expansions to Mattel’s new collector line.