The Eagle 1 has landed yet again. It was the space toy to have pre-Star Wars, clearly, and it’s still one of the coolest spaceships ever. I suspect many of the Eagle kids didn’t even watch Space: 1999, a frigid British series that moved about as fast as an ice shelf, but we dug anything that happened in space, and if we had some imagery and a prop or two, well, that was all we needed to riff on—for days, months, years.
The more I see the Micronauts line, the more I realize how influential and exceptional it was. I’ve talked before about the lack of a back story making them more exotic and attractive. In fact, they’re downright strange, as translucent beings from “the endless frontier” should be. The catalog describes them as “fanciful galactic travelers… fully jointed so they can cope with situations in any dimension.” I love it.
I had the Astro Station. These missiles, and Micronauts missiles in general, were the best (i.e. fastest, truest, heaviest) in the toy universe, and the launchers were detachable, so you could mix and match with other toys.
The Shogun Warriors never did much for me, but they were tall and their fists shot off. I guess that’s something.
(Catalog images via WishbookWeb)
2 Warps to Neptune 