Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light was an action figure toy line released by Hasbro in 1987 which consisted of twelve figures and four vehicles. The franchise also comprised an animated TV series and a comic book run. Following poor sales of the toys the line was abandoned by Hasbro, leaving series two characters, vehicles, and an action playset unproduced. The comic fared equally as bad, being cancelled after just six issues and halfway through a four-part storyline. The animated TV series lasted thirteen episodes and was not given a second series.
Below is a 1988 page from the French Cora Christmas catalogue showing the Dagger Assault vehicle and Darkling Lord character Reekon.
‘Visionaries: entre dans le monde incroyable des chevaliers Ć la lueur magique.’ Roughly translated as ‘Visionaries: enter the incredible world of the magical, glowing knights’. France. Cora catalogue. 1988.
Sources –
Check out the excellent The Visionaries .net site
Visonaries Wikipedia
The Vintage Toy Advertiser 
The cartoon was pretty good; Peter Cullen voiced a “villain” who wasn’t particularly evil, just thick-headed. I wish I had laid hands on the toys.
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Ah yes, cool, Peter Cullen the voice of Optimus Prime. Will have to see if I can check out some episodes.
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LOVED VISIONARIES!
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Amazing! When I was wee I got a couple of these wee Visionary dudes from a stall in the Barrowlands market. Unboxed, right enough, but labelled Visionaries. Completely forgot about them!
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Ah yes, I vaguely remember these toys. The Visionaries were great articulated little action figures. I only had one of them, it was red, and had what looked like a lion on the holographic chest plate thingy. I never saw the cartoon, but I’m sure I’ve seen a couple of issues of the comics somewhere. Sadly I guess these toys never caught on, shame as they were very well made.
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Very similar to G.I. Joes apparently. The Dagger Assault vehicle in my ad was the biggest of the four they released, even bigger than the Joe vehicles. Each vehicle also came packed with a free figure, which was a great idea as on Christmas day or birthdays you had an instant pilot š
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That’s awesome, those vehicles look so cool š
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Thank you TVTA! You have just solved a mystery for me that I have pondered over for years. When I was a lot younger, I purchased a bag full of action figures from a charity/thrift store. There were G.I. Joes in it and Star Wars figures, a few Masters of the Universe which I recognised. The mystery toy was a figure that had a large screen in it’s chest that had a hologram displayed on it (similar to the security ones found on credit cards). As you moved the hologram the pictured changed to show a lions head or a knight’s helmet. To this day I never knew what franchise it was from and now you have solved the mystery! Thanks so much!
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That’s brilliant. Another mystery solved š I never knew about this line until I saw the catalogue page that I posted. Such a short-lived toy, but it looked cool. From what I read it seemed it was the cost of producing them with holograms that was a big factor in its demise.
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That would make sense as If I recall correctly the reason banks added the holographic security feature was because they were difficult and expensive to reproduce. Banks hoped counterfeiters wouldn’t be able to copy them. Now I know what the toy line was called I can research which figure I had. Thanks again.
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Yes, it was clever technology. I remember buying some hologram badges in the 80s and they were also expensive. Check the link I gave in my post for the site thevisionaries.net they have all the figures listed and pictured there š
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Hello again, yes I just checked and it was the Leoric figure I had with the Lion’s head hologram. I also discovered that I had the chest plate from Cindarr which featured a gorilla’s head. Sadly the rest of that figure was missing!
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