And The Horse You Rode In On

Every good melodrama needs a baddie. Vader brought the evil presence of black masked villains to prominence and the concept has become something of a benchmark in fiction even today. At the time Micronauts burst onto the scene, Vader was new and up for plagiarism. Mego picked up straight away on the idea of goodies and baddies in their figure line and created their own version - Baron Karza. Superficially, an armoured, masked figure, its not made clear as to whether he's intended to be a robot or a cyborg or a heavily suited humanoid. The fact that his limbs and head are removeable and fully interchangeable with other figures might suggest a mechanical background. The really unusual things about Karza are the fact that he's twice the height of the standard 3 " figure and heavy. The weight comes from the steel joints and a large magnetic core in the body holding the limbs and head in place and allowing free movement. On the back are a pair of 'mach drills' which connect to standard Micronaut tech via the standard 5 mm plug. Karza came with a rather anachronistic and odd accessory/partner - a horse. Andromeda was an articulated horse with interchangeable wheels and removeable head.
This allowed Karza to transform into a rather impressive Centaur. Besides having removable limbs, his fists fire off and he has a belly missile which is really very powerful!

Naturally, the balance of order must be kept and the apparent champion of good was Force Commander, a white 'stormtrooper' like figure with attendant white horse, Oberon.

Until the advent of user friendly internet access and the coming of the demon ebay, I laboured under the apprehension that the figures I had seen on the card and leaflets for the Airfix/Mego european releases were the sum total of the line. Not so. The toys had also appeared as other branded lines, Lords of Light, Cosmonauti and others. Early researches revealed the presence of other figures in the ranges, which had appeared in the following years.

Above are Green Baron and King Atlas, from an italian release of the series. Extremely rare, these two chaps arrived courtesy of a very late night snipe across the atlantic and easily the most expensive purchase I ever made on ebay. Nuff said. As an aside, the horse versions for these babies were the single most ugly creations ive ever seen.

Shortly after I managed to acquire the bulk of the Lord of Light Emperor figure, sans cape and sword. The emperor is basically a Karza repaint with a very uninspired rubber head. In the same lot came a very odd grey Karza with a  partially complete grey horse made of inferior plastic.

 

As is usually the way with cans of worms like this, what appears to be a straightforward search for more toys, reveals further connections to other lines. After finding the more obvious variants on the established figures, I discovered a character called 'Geeg' from japanese anime and toys. Geeg also came with the horse, but was styled in a much more classic anime style - especially in colouration.

 

The transparent body of this figure shows the magnetic core and the removable Mach Drills and optional adapters so they can be swapped about with his arms etc.

The 'magnepower' concept was also used a little later in Black Hole figures of Vincent, Maximillian and Captain S.T.A.R, these met with limited release in Italy and Europe and are very difficult to come by.

Takara updated the large magnepower figure line in the 90's with three even taller figures based on a more modern style. They kept the same size joints so they are technically interchangeable, but look radically different.

For more on the micronauts range, see here: http://www.micro-outpost.com/