Covering the modern era of the classic Colorforms Space Aliens action figures. Presented in association with 16bit.com. Not an official site. Visit TheOuterSpaceMen.com for more.
I'd say "this is a good one," but you know they're all good ones. The Outer Space Men Cosmic Radiation Inferno
the first time the mold has been sold as a glowing figure - that's
good! What stinks is that for whatever reason, there are no new glowing
red Glyos figures being made. If they jumped on it a few years
earlier we'd have flaming, glowing red men from Mercury, but it was not
meant to be. At least we got a glowing green one in a surprisingly
vast collection of figures.In addition to Inferno, packaged samples of Inferno and Xodiac were posted to the official Outer Space Men Instagram. For those keeping track at home, this means Metamorpho, Astrodite, Jack Asteroid, Terra Firma, Ohpromatem, Horroscope are the only figures not yet sold in the Cosmic Radiation style. According to Gary Schaeffer, a very limited number of carded figures - including a Signed Inferno to celebrate Mel Birnkrant's 80th Birthday - will be going up soon as well.
That's the stuff. In popular culture, The Outer Space Men
got this guy right the first time. He's a little green man, after all.
He's also been blue, bluegreen, a creamy color, and in vague Mickey
Mouse-esque cosplay. Cosmic Radiation Alpha 7 brings one of the
more famous toy martians not named Marvin and brings him back to the
best hue of the atomic age - atomic glow green. If ever there was a
more appropriate combination, I'd like to see it. (Actually, they're
all pretty appropriate as glowing figures given the fears of atomic
energy in sci-fi schlock of the era.)
It's
easy to forget, but from 2010 to 2013 each and every San Diego
Comic-Con and New York Comic Con had at least three exclusive The Outer Space Men
action figures. Now you might see some at a New York show here and
there, but the sets you could set your watch to are long gone. One of
the last sets to be sold at New York Comic Con included a White Star Ohpromatem,
at least sixteen convention exclusives in 2013 - easily one of the most
prolific years the line had ever had for this kind of thing. The
figure shares tooling with Terra Firma and Horrorscope, plus a few of
Metamorpho's parts for good measure. It's a nifty figure, combining
the cartoon proportions of Playboy's comic panels with nightmares from
outer space. It's also largely unpainted.
Going bright - not just white, the Outer Space Men continues the long march to the sea with White Star Orbitron.
I should be bored with the format, but I'm not - the unique body
types cast in white look worthwhile, so the unique space bug-esque parts
pop nicely when extruded in white with blue highlights.
As part of a wave of fantasy guys inspired by swords and magic and demons, the Outer Space Men refugee OSM Mystron Demonula
fits. Space-faring knights can do battle against a red being of evil
from another plane, who just happens to be from a popular compatible toy
line. By now you've had many shots at Mystron as a clear figure, a
glow figure, a plain white figure, a painted figure, with about 8
releases to date. It's not a lot by Glyos standards, but compared to
most other toy lines it's a ton. Thanks to new colors and new paint
masks, the results are pretty solid.
I know what you're saying - wasn't there already a glow in the dark version of Electron+? Yes. This new Outer Space Men Cosmic Radiation Electron+
is cast in a slightly different (and better) glow plastic with more
paint highlights and for the first time, bent arms. The original
release, for reasons not ever truly revealed, just had the straight arms
only. If you just need a glow Electron+, either version is great -
but if you want a matching glow set or the very best version you can
get, get this new one.
Was he sent here by the devil? No good sir, Cosmic Radiation Mystron's
on the level. The same figure mold is back for another go-round, this
time in glow plastic with silver highlights. Do we need this? No...
but yes. It glows, it's awesome.
One
of the recurring questions in any toy collecting game is, eventually,
the issue of "Do I want to buy another version of this character?"
Grumpy me says yes, because OSM Cyclops Zardurac is a different
and distinctive enough take on the man from beyond the Milky Way that it
becomes interesting. It also, surprisingly, had a larger production
run which had not sold out prior to arriving in my hands a mere 4 days
after placing my order. Not 4 business days, but I ordered Thursday and
got it Monday. That's bonkers fast. (As always, thank you Matt for the fast delivery and the bonus goodies. Oh, the bonus goodies.)
There are lots of glowing Outer Space Men now, some of which make more sense than others. Me, I want 'em all because I love glowing things. Cosmic Radiation Commander Comet
a sensible idea, given that an angel-looking thing could make sense as a
glowing, ethereal being. It's just like the other ones, but it glows.
And has silver paint. It's good.
I
don't know how many of you know how these reviews work, but to do one
every day I have to basically set them up like an assembly line and do
them weeks - sometimes months - in advance. This Outer Space Men Cosmic Radiation Astro-Nautilus
comes out tonight, and getting it shot, reviewed, and up this
quickly can be a trouble. (Heck, this intro? Wrote it when the figure
was still in the mail.) That's one of the good and bad things about
reviewing toys - on one hand, I know what kind of quality to expect from
this ongoing line as the actual manifestation rarely disappoints. It
also speaks of a certain homogeny that creeps in to even the best indie
line - eventually I can tell you what a figure will be before it even
arrives. The Astro-Nautilus mold is an awesome, creative design that is
one of my favorites. The glow plastic from the Glyos factory is second
to none, resulting in some of the brightest glowing figures you can buy
today. I haven't even held the figure in my hands yet, and I'm
perfectly comfortable telling you that fans of glow and this design are
going to want it and should buy it along with whatever other glow
figures are in the store that you don't have yet. Scary, eh? Anyway,
let's open the bag.
The curse of completism! The Outer Space Men
doesn't have a lot of subsets - there were a couple of "wave" repaints
of fancy recolors, but the only linewide uniform set up until White Star
figures were the Infinity Edition figures. All but three of the
figure molds came out in white with blue trim by 2014, with no indicaton
when - or if - the set would be completed. The concept was neat, but
I'd be lying if I said that White Star Cyclops was a gap in my
collection that I needed filled. He and his brothers look really cool,
with the while plastic doing a good job showing off some details that
weren't visible on some of the clear or painted figures. But did I need
another Cyclops?
Since I first saw Outer Space Men
in Tomart's Action Figure Digest when I was a wee lad, I thought to
myself "Dammit, I can never afford these things." Never in a million
years would I expect to be able to correspond with one of its inventors,
nor that the likes of Cosmic Radiation Gemini would exist. And
be affordable. It's almost unfathomable - a space race-era toy line
lost to history would come back as an indie toy line, ad then cranked
out in glow-in-the-dark plastic. Yet here we are. If 2017 was
anything, it was certainly an example of how you really can't predict
anything - and this figure was one of five new glowing The Outer Space Men. 
Since its debut, the Outer Space Men Man from Uranus has really grown on me as one of the best. Sure Cosmic Radiation Orbitron
looks like they just cast a Metaluna Mutant in glow plastic, but there
are a few differences - not the least of which is that this one is a
more convincing space alien thanks to it not wearing normal pants. Now
cast on glow with silver highlights, you're either going to totally
appreciate yet another Cold War-era monster in radioactive glow, or
you're over it. I can see it being too much of a good thing, but if
you're going to give me too much of anything I'm glad that it glows in
the dark.
Believe it or not, I expected the look at White Star Commander Comet
to be the obituary for this line - maybe I've said that before a few
times. By the end of 2013 and 2014, fan sentiment toward the Four
Horsemen's two Glyos properties seemed to straddle the fence between
adoration and loathing. On one hand, Power Lords and The Outer Space Men were amazingly well-crafted indie toys using familiar licenses to make
something for the discriminating action figure fan.