THATS NO MOON

Earlier this month, the Earth briefly acquired a second moon. Not anything like bright Luna, sailing nightly across the firmament, but a small rogue asteroid named 2024 PT5, roughly about the size of a bus. It was nudged into a partial orbit by the gravitational pull and will exit the Earth influence in November, to carry on its way through the heavens. Reading this, I was put in mind of the 1998 Michael Bay film 'Armageddon' , in which a trojan asteroid is headed on a collision course with Earth.  'Dottie' as it was named, was designated a planet killer and as NASA did not have the means to deflect or destroy it, it was left to Bruce Willis and his band of roughneck oilmen, to save the day. The premise was that a pair of super shuttlecraft would land on Dottie, traverse to a suitable drilling site, with a special rover and Bruce and the boys would use their expertise to punch a hole in the asteroids rocky core, slip in a nuclear device and get out of Dodge before the nuke split Dottie in half, avoiding Earth and the eponymous Armageddon.

Without spoiling the plot, I will fast forward to the great toys that arrived on the back of the promotional bandwagon - along with a great rock soundtrack headed by Aerosmith, with lead singer Steve Tyler's stunning daughter Liv in a starring role too. Mattel secured the contract and did a grand job of making toys and models to tie in with the gung-ho action of the film. The two super shuttles,  the  X-71 Independence and Freedom were boosted military hardware  carrying a pair of drilling vehicles, the Armadillo's. The X-71 Shuttle seems to bear a close resemblance to  heavy shuttle concept model, that was proposed in the late seventies.

Using the Hot Wheel's Mega Rig Shuttle as the basis of the toy, with various enhancements and two large rocket boosters strapped on the back, the large grey ship had a tilt up tail section and a ramp. Inside was a small version of the 12 wheeled rover and room for three astronauts figures, two in the cabin and one in the rover. Two other versions of the Armadillo model were available in separate packs, with accessories, a grey version with drill and a white one with a crane.

The little vehicles are very detailed and the green one has fold away wheels to allow it to fit neatly in the back of the X-71. The drill set comes with a piece of 'exploding' rock terrain and the crane version has a trailer with two nuclear payloads.

Besides these great toys, two large figures were made, both a little taller than Mattel's Matt Mason at around 8". One is modelled on Bruce Willis and the other a fair likeness of Ben Affleck. Ben gets to carry a clockwork exploding nuke and Bruce totes a serious rotary rocket launcher. Both are hard plastic, with removable helmets and reasonable articulation.

 Besides the X-71, another large vehicle was produced, the Armadillo itself, a big 12" model, at 1:24 scale with free rolling wheels, another large rotary rocket launcher and working drill. The only downside is that despite having two opening hatches, there were no figures included with it. The figure scale would be around 2.5" and fits Coleco Starcom astronauts neatly.

As is usually the case with Mattel and Hot Wheels playsets, there was another series 'Action Sites' which included a diecast shuttle and a plastic model of the russian space station. The station has a launcher to shoot the shuttle off into space, so that pushing a second button collapses the station, in  simulated destruction.

Hot Wheels 'Planet Micro', a Galoob Micro Machines competitor, also had two Armageddon themed sets with tiny versions of the vehicles.