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/

So Pharoid, So Good..

'They came from Innerspace' read the strapline on the adverts for the Micronauts toys and the initial line of vehicles and figures were good, but not necessarily inspirational. A tractor, a space rocket, a motorbike and a tank-like vehicle, plus a robot or two, all piloted by the ubiquitous transparent Time Traveller figures. At first, I found it easy to resist the draw of the toys, having limited funds and being at that funny age when I was compelled to 'put away childish things', but when Star Wars arrived and made it cool to own toys again, I succumbed.

What really tipped my balance was the curious appearance of something so completely unusual in the line and apparently unrelated to the 'space' theme, that I was fascinated. On a routine visit to my fave toys shop 'Hobbies' in Liverpool on the way back from college, I spotted a new figure on the racks of Micronaut toys and was amazed to find that this new toy included what appeared to be an Egyptian Mummy Case. The blurb on the cards was always minimal, but the case was described as a 'time chamber' and the figure sat inside. The figure was a more stylised version of the standard micronaut with a boots and small egyptianate 'wings' to clip on his legs. His head was also sporting a fashionable 'mullet' and a big Hawaii Five-O style quiff!

I couldnt divine what the significance of the egyptian case was and the concept didn't appear in the comic strip for a long time later, but as I had always loved ancient art, I was hooked.

Part of my college course involved a Foundation Art element which included a pottery class. We were encouraged to get creative with clay in whatever way we felt happy with and one of the methods we employed was 'slip casting'. This involved making a mold from an item and then using that to create copies of the item using a thin coating of clay. Shortly after buying the toy, I took the 'mummy case' as I referred to it, into class and used it as the basis of my mold. The tutor was seriously impressed with the toy too and soon after I was churning out clay copies of the original!

The casting was slightly smaller than the original toy, but an almost exact replica - even down to the mock hieroglyphics on the front.

Unfortunately, my artistic enthusiasm meant that these toys were given the treatment too and I decided to decorate the time chamber a bit as I thought it was sadly lacking..  The red one was the very first one I bought and the grey one was bought by my mate and given over to the Wotan Archive much later. The blue is a much more recent and unadulterated edition!

Broad SWORD: the Complete Century 21 SWORD Toy Fleet

This took me ages! Again my photoshop 'Paint' programme leaves much to be desired but it was fun to do. The entire Century 21's Project SWORD fleet in one class of '67 school piccy! Collated from pics already on the blog, alas it's NOT to scale. I've accidentally missed something out but I've also added an extra sneaky 'toy' in there as well. Which ones mi hearties?

Postscript: You guys are right, it's the TF1. I've added it in now along with a bunch of LP 'Moon Base' Spacemen. They look rowdy and must be on shore leave!

And yep, Toad, you got the extra one - the Imai Beetle on the far right. Well done! Century 21 should have issued it in their own right and not just left it to Imai, whom they licensed.

Gotham Express Straight to Arkham

I love this old Gotham Express! If Batman had a Moon Bus methinks! It's over 20 inches long. On Fleabay. What on earth is it from?

Ebay Watch

A sucker for a space Dozer, here's a rare and amazing Sears special on Fleabay. Now that is a bulldozer! Straight out of the Anderverse! I'd love to see the box art! Also on Fleabay is issue 19 of the comic SOLO, which features the beginning of Project SWORD no less! [cover shown here is my own and NOT the seller's on Ebay]. PS. I do not know the sellers and cannot vouch for them!

The Invaders

Aah! I remember these opening titles as if it were yesterday! We really were completely immersed in space and science fiction in the Sixties. Is there anything like this on TV now at all? Despite NASA's Shuttle and the International Space Station, is this a totally non-'Spaced' generation?

Small Things Bemuse Small Minds

I'm sure we're all familiar with Chaos Theory. It was a big thing in the eighties when Mitchell Feigenbaums' work on theoretical mathematics revealed that a tiny change in a complex system could produce an imbalance which would ultimately disrupt the workings of the system and produce chaotic results. It was also termed the 'Butterfly Effect' whereby an insect fluttering its wings in Brazil might cause tiny atmospheric change which could theoretically disrupt weather patterns and lead to a storm across the other side of the globe. Now at this point i'm sure you're probably thinking i've had a little too much caffeine or i'm on a sugar rush, but the point here is that a small thing introduced into an organised system can have a disruptive effect.

Here then, is that small thing. I admit, he doesn't look like much and indeed, the whole basis of his existence was intended to emerge from the subatomic. This little guy is a Micronaut - a Time Traveller to be exact and he had one of the single most disruptive influences on my collecting habits than any other toy.

So aside from being a 'space-themed' toy and causing mayhem within the emergent Wotan Archive, what business does he have here ? What is the relationship between Micronauts and SWORD you wonder ?

In order to answer this and other questions we need to set the wayback machine for 1977 and that seminal period when toys changed forever and the previous 'Golden Age' of simple rockets and spaceships gave way to a new generation of play in the form of 'Action Figures'.

In this year, Star Wars fever gripped the world and the first clumsy and simple figures emerged. Chewbacca looked like a deformed chocolate flake and Luke looked like he was permanently tripping on acid with a plastic, stupefied expression and stiff limbs. Merchandising took off and among the onslaught was a new british Marvel comic based on Star Wars and 100% reprint. As the american version of the comic was monthly and the british version had to be meted out weekly, the comic needed filler so was always backed up by some lesser story. At some point during its run, a new black and white back up story appeared - The Micronauts. The basic premise followed the exploits of a hero making his way through a subatomic universe and trying to defeat a despotic vaderesque villain. Pretty standard stuff with plenty of Lucasian parallels and good artwork by Michael Golden. As I read through it, I realised that it was actually based around a series of newly released toys, made by none other than Airfix. The toys were interchangeable vehicles which connected with a standardised 5mm plug, so you could swap parts around to suit. What made it stand out from the crowd however where the figures - the standard Micronaut was the same size as a Star Wars figure, but nimble and having 14 points of articulation. At the time I was at college and only had a meagre grant to support me, but I dived in headfirst and bought my first (expensive) Micronaut, a Pharoid. This little figure was basically a slightly modified figure which came with an Egyptian styled 'mummy case' or Time Chamber. As I was taken with mythology even then, mixing two of my favourite themes seemed like manna from heaven and I soon added to my collection of toys.

Trouble was, the toys were expensive and there were a lot of them. My grant would only extend so far and I was keen to extend the range. So I decided to scratchbuild my own accessories. I began by cannibalising bits of broken materials and using old kits and toys, but as I went on and I discovered the authentic Micronauts comic on a monthly basis, my demand for parts knew no bounds. The colour comic showed all kinds of fabulous vehicles and figures, most of which hadn't reached the UK as they were produced by Mego and licensed to Airfix. As it transpired, the line was actually a rebrand of existing Microman toys from japanese giant Takara. So, faced with a huge variety of comparatively unobtainable toys and having run out of options on the new toy side, I began to recycle my old toys and to my lasting regret, started to take apart my old spacex and Matt Mason stuff.

So as a consequence of this small act - I ended up tearing apart classic toys which I assumed at the time had had their day and would never be seen again to use for parts on the newcomers. Had I been a Time Traveller myself and had the ability to zip forward a couple of decades and discover the internet and ebay, it would have been a different story indeed..

Venutian Minds

Found googling. Inspired by Andy B. Who's Adamski?