2010-2012 The Outer Space Men Shine With Cheap Black Light Strips

Your local Walmart is loaded with dirt-cheap USB LED light strips.  On Saturday, I picked up the LEDeez Black Light LED Light Strip for under $6.  I hooked it up to a power bank and waltzed around with it to see how it did - it's good! It's not as bright as a good UV Light Flashlight, but it certainly gets the job done.

Here it is near some 2010-2012 The Outer Space Men Alpha, Beta, and Holiday Phase figures as well as some of the Onell Design crossovers.  (Remember those? Man Onell Design did some gorgeous colorways and I hope we see a few more.)  Way in front are some of the Sucklord's glow-in-the-dark S.U.C.K.L.E. figures and October Toys' O.T.M.F.G. figures.

The bright orange Xodiac that looks like he's glowing is just the SDCC Alpha Phase edition, which, to this day, is still an absolutely beautiful action figure. (And it was $10! That was even a pretty cheap price back then.)

On this shelf, you can see Cosmic Radiation (glow green) figures, White Star figures, and the only four Bluestar figures I have so far.  The blue glow Bluestar figures don't react well to this particular black light strip, and while they do OK with a UV flashlight, they really do best after being exposed to sunlight. And by "do best" I mean "can glow for over 8 hours after a good Sun charge."  The Whitestar figures do shine quite nicely under the light too.

Despite some work being done on the line, there hasn't been much news - most if not all of the Bluestar figures have come out (and some have sold out once or twice), and we've seen no news on the new giant vinyl Astro-Nautilus in some time.  New painted colorways were mentioned/teased/winked about for the line's 50th anniversary, but that has come and gone.  I don't know if The Outer Space Men have much of a future beyond customs and the recent NFT releases, but I'm crossing my fingers for at least a few more painted editions - or unpainted solid color editions - before the molds are retired. (Can I just buy a run? Can I afford it?  You know where to reach me, Gary and Mel and/or Matt.)