I wrote a guest blog post about Sammy Steel for the awesome Little Weirdos blog about collecting odd little toys and figures. Check it out here!
I give a basic overview of the toy line and summarize each of its three series. The article uses an assortment of photos from my Sammy Steel articles.
I really, REALLY hope this thing is legit: that a toy company repurposed the mold for Vicious Volcano when the Flintstones movie came out in 1994 (one year before Sammy Steel was a thing), and made this cute little playset thing.
Presumably if it IS real, there were two, and half the figures are from the other set.
Even if it’s a custom job, it’s pretty badass. Haven’t been able to find the figures anywhere on their own, and I don’t know yet if I want to shell out what the seller is asking for it without knowing for sure where it came from (he WAS nice enough to let me use his photos, though).
EDIT: THEY’RE REAL! Just found a listing with carded sets being sold in France! Apparently Flintstones were extremely popular there.
There are a number of Mighty Max toy variants that collectors will want to be aware of, some much rarer than others. I don’t have a single one, so I had to borrow photos from ebay and other places once again in order to archive them here. Excuse the occasional bad photo, since I didn’t take these, and due to Photobucket deciding to flush itself down the crapper and yank away everyone’s off-site hosted pics, I had to borrow thumbnails in some cases.
Corpus (Series 2) got a pastel makeover to make it less scary, I guess. Now it looks like the worst easter egg ever.
Battle Conqueror got a weird death metal repaint, making him look strangely modern.
Ice Alien (Series 1) has a rarely seen cousin, the Fire Alien. I’m not sure if that’s what it said on the card, too, or if that’s just the nickname for this odd variant, which may have come with one of the UK multi-packs.
Wolfship 7 (Series 1) gets another gaudy color scheme that makes the original toys look positively subtle. Either that or these variant aliens are colorblind.
This is an official variant of Scorpion (Series 2), made to resemble as closely as possible a shitty custom paint job by a mong on the internet.
I hope to find better pics of this one: the red variant of Kronosaur (Series 1), which still looks ridiculous, but not quite as bad as the others.
Aurore graciously donated these beautiful photos of the rare blue Lockjaw (Series 2). Guess Big Blue smothered to death in his pretty pink coffin.
There’s also a super rare periwinkle Rhesus variant apparently, which I’ve never seen apart from this photo.
I’ve also seen variants listed of Arachnoid, Skull Dungeon, and Doom Dragon (Series 1). The Arachnoid variant has a near-imperceptibly browner case, and with the latter two I failed to see any difference from the originals. As far as I know, these are all the official variants. Anything else is probably a knockoff or a shit custom repaint.
I put this together after I started pondering which of the Mighty Max toys were objectively the best and worst as far as design, aesthetic, and functionality goes.
The highlight of the toy line definitely got off to a great start with Series 1. There are a lot of creative designs and very distinct locales, with a good balance of spooky, colorful, and endearing to introduce young kids to a toy line that would get progressively more gruesome as they got older. The compact designs weren’t as outrageous as Series 3, but none of the Series 1 entries are forgettable, whether or not you like the cutesy design aesthetic. The whole thing has a 50s cult monster movie vibe, with tributes to Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Fly, and the countless cult and alien films of the era. Each set also has one or two cool gimmicks to make it stand out from the others, like moving machinery, giant monsters that are part of the inerior AND exterior, and tightrope acts to name a few.
Series 2 isn’t “bad” by any stretch. It just isn’t as inspired as 1’s distinct locales or Series 3’s amazing compositions. Where it falls short is how half of them have bland exteriors, strange color choices for interiors, and/or general lack of anything going on inside, almost like oversized horror heads.
Not only does it feature the badass setting of ancient Egypt, it has the most creative design of Series 1 that can depict a dig site with or without a giant snake shrine protruding from the sand, or an elaborate tomb with a tightrope act. The color scheme is unmisakably sandy and the whole thing gives a great Indiana Jones vibe. Every area is interactive and pitting sweet little Max against a giant scorpion for the amusement of a dehydrated despot is truly magical.
A great color scheme is wasted on a rather dull interior, foreshadowing half of the Series 2 sets. It’s extremely pretty and has a wonderfully detailed exterior, but inside it’s just kinda bland, and the big monster is sort of amorphous and not terribly memorable (though it is neat that it features one complete ice alien and two more still forming out of the glacier). The main baddie is pretty cool at least, and didn’t use the awkward-looking hinged waist mechanic.
Awesomely detailed tribute to Frankenstein. When you mention Mighty Max, this is immediately what I think of. A shining example of what the toy line was capable of, and never fails to impress: every time I show this one off, I get a gasp of delight. Bonus points for the awesome jawbridge that makes a rare use of a playset’s interior AND exterior.
An attack sub designed as a giant shark is amazing all on its own, and allows Max to fight on the inside AND outside, which is rare for a doom zone. The details are exquisite and the colors and overall aesthetic are a perfect balance of flesh, tech, and treasure. It also splits into various layers: from giant shark, to attack sub in a cavernous bay, to an undersea treasure trove or biomech ship interior. Top it off with a cool squidman, two squid minions, and a cyber-manta jetski, and you’ve got a winner.
Worst was initially a tie among Ape King, Scorpion, and Battlecat given the lack of interesting interior design, among other problems. Originally I picked Battle Cat because it lacks a titular cat and has a gaudy Polly Pocket palette, but after some deliberation I realized Scorpion was the biggest offender. For all their faults, the other two can at least stand on their own. Scorpion is basically two vehicles, one of them totally impractical, the other only interesting when combined with other sets.
Shades of Skull Dungeon, but much more macabre. There’s a ton of interactivity in this dungeon, a very cool giant eyeball monster, and a compact that screams Ray Harryhausen. A great layout as well, with the twin stairs leading up the horn and onto the upper landing. It’s easy to fall in love with this one, and it’s my personal favorite of Series 2.
An awesomely detailed giant fly compact hatches into a Cronenberg-esque nightmare filled with giant maneating bugs and squirming human hosts for their parasitic young, with a little mad science thrown in via the man-fly villain and his cyber-bug forklift thing. The compact’s eyes double as sliding windows in a very cool clockwork touch. Color choice is perfect here, screaming “alien bug” and other general unpleasantness. Cool setting and very cool goodies inside, most of which contribute to the overall presentation whether the set is closed or open.
Nothing in this set resembles much of anything. It’s a random mix of bone and computer guts. Yawn.
I really wish more of the playsets went with the vertical split gimmick seen here — some of the less interesting playsets might have benefitted from it. It’s an awesome two-part bisection of a biomechanical submarine lair, but hurts from the gaudy Polly Pocket colorscheme. I guess parents were getting angry about the macabre atmosphere of these toys and felt goofy pastels would tone it down sufficiently to placate them. With a more macabre palette this might have had a shot at my #1 spot for Series 3.
Whereas most horror heads were glorified figure carrying cases, the Series 2 ‘Heads did it right by establishing a tangible and interactive environment inside. The overall designs were also the most fearless of the whole toy line, with lots of gore and gross fleshtones. Fantastic work.
Series 3 was the first sign of the toy line’s downward spiral. Like Series 1, the interiors were a bit lazy and uninspired, but they also didn’t include the featured bad guy! It’s nothing but shit vehicles and henchmen here, and just about all of these designs had lots of room for improvement before final production.
It’s almost impossible to pick a best from the series that started bringing out Mighty Max’s more gruesome side: each of the original Horror Heads had a tangible environment but figures that were lacking, or lazy environments with really great figures and accessories, with exterior designs that were okay on average. I settled on this one because it has the best balance of all three. A beautifully lush colorscheme, an interior with bloody and mechanical highlights, a wonderfully mean-looking caveman villain, and an excellently designed exterior complete with the compact clasp being incorporated as the kronosaur’s incisors, all makes this one a winner. It looks good in your collection and has neat stuff on the inside. Best of all, it’s really easy to find on ebay.
The monsters are awkwardly posed and the interior has a lot of clutter. They put more thought into the looks than the functionality for this one. As I said, most of the Series 1 ‘Heads are aesthetically beautiful, but limited play-wise; this one is the extreme in both. Really pretty pattern on the serpent’s skin, and a lovely undersea motif overall, just bettter suited to making your collection look good than actually playing with.
It’s so wonderfully icky I can’t ignore it. Disgusting interior of a giant rotting human, with the abcessed brain as the villain and a giant centipede sidekick. What’s not to like?
Takes a note from Maneater by providing a shifting environment: the action takes place at an open grave or inside a spooky catacomb. Either way, it’s a great idea with some spooky-ass bad guys, grim Poe-esque detail, and a palette so disturbing they had to make a “safer” pastel-colored re-release.
It gets points for great presentation, but lacks the titular Werewolf, thus the set has a lack of overall direction. Honestly not that bad for a “worst” pick, further demonstrating the expert design of Series 2.
This one has the most fun interactive feature: a giant swiveling guillotine for disemboweling Max. Co-starring gruesome maniac with a chainsaw!
This is as close as the awful Series 3 comes to including the featured villain in the set, unlike the other three, and the showdown basically boils down to a jousting contest: Max riding a giant tick, versus the beetle borg riding a space jetski. The color scheme has some nice stark contrasts, the interior features hapless astronauts being eaten alive by parasites, and when the set is closed up, all of the components contribute to a rather fearsome space bug mug. The theme is the least abstract — people being fed to alien parasites by a scooter-riding bug-bot — and there’s plenty of goodies to fool around with. Too bad it’s impossible to find on ebay, probably the rarest of the entire toy line.
A “planet of the apes” setting is perfect for Mighty Max, but they bungle it pretty badly here. Half the pieces form the worst vehicle in toy history, and again the (ridiculous looking) main villain is strangely absent. There was plenty of room for both Hydron and his lackey and a smaller, more sensible mount for Max. All the good designers must’ve left the company by this point.
Freako is the black sheep of this series: the only one to lack both a vehicle AND the “removable jaws” aesthetic of the other three sets. It also has a great exterior design with a striking color scheme that really grabs your eye, and everything inside does a nice job conveying “circus freakshow”. Unfortunately the compact’s interior, while awesomely psychadelic, is useless except as a carrying case, and again the featured villain is absent. Why not a retractable highwire and a Freako figure?
Everything about this screams “awesome”. Undead ED209 with a variety of killer missiles/extending arms, a flying vehicle for Max or Cyberskull, and a command post inside the big guy’s head. Battle Masters / Battle Max / Whatever the hell you call this particular branch of the line was never better than this.
It seems when the designers didn’t know what to do, they defaulted to lava, and the result is always dull. A nice minimalist colorscheme, and the big guy can eat the little guys and puke them back up. There’s nothing interesting inside, and the accessories are all bland.
Easily one of the best in this series: a giant lion-man with giant weapons that he OR Norman can use, plus a dragon-jet with a ballista for finishing him off. Only gripe is the Conquerer’s crappy “side kick” leg pose. Handsome metallic color palette as well. A great medieval counterpart to the sci-fi Cybot — if you only own one from this series, and it’s not Cybot, make it this one.
The pictures speak for themselves. If this were a GI Joe playset, it would be six feet tall. It’s the biggest set in the toy line, and filled with tons of goodies and features: skelevator, dragon lair, two retracting bridges, a face-changing villain, projctile weapons, a guillotine, a submarine bay…Skull Mountain has it all.
A giant horror head with lots of figures. The only intersting part is the wall-face throne that opens and closes it jaws and moves its eyes around. This coulda been two more doom zones. Utter crap.
Like Skull Mountain, every inch of this set is a finely detailed environment, although there is only half as much to do. The bay areas are particularly spooky and delightful. One of the easiest MM toys to find on ebay, too.
As far as design, creativity, atmosphere, and playability, this set is the most consistent across the board. Every other collection has its ups and downs; here, even the downs have enough going for them to put the “worst” of the other collections to shame. Not only are these great looking and fun to play with, they attest to the creativity of the designers: look what they were able to do with such restrictions on space, size, and number of pieces. These are outstanding, and if you only own one collection, you could do a hell of a lot worse than this. Each one draws your attention and admiration.
I recently acquired FOUR Submarine Sandwich sets, all on the card, courtesy of a nice lady who found them at a Goodwill of all places. Now we can get a closer look at a Series 3 set in its original packaging, and the goofy comic that accompanied it.
Best of all, one of them still works! Here are the sounds this set came with:
This was an awesome find and I hope to find more carded sets in the future. Wishful thinking, I know.
I finally got my hands on some of the UK variants of Sammy Steel, and have put together a proper photo comparison. My UK variants are missing some pieces, including both Sammies.
For whatever reason, the Vicious Volcano exterior was given the Face Mountain interior in the UK. The paint is glossier inside and out, and makes the little valley seem lusher and possibly mossier, compared to the more barren valley of the US version. The UK caveman looks friendlier and has blonde hair, and is made of a much more flexible rubber than the second-gen US caveman (the first-gen caveman was of the same hard plastic as the playset itself, and painted badly). You can also see that the decals are much more cartoonish, and the lake features a goofy sea serpent for some reason.
UK Sinister Saucer is purple on the outside (the UK Dome of Doom is black) and once again has more cartoonish decals inside. The UK variant’s floor depicts a kind of star chart, which isn’t as cool as the US variant’s “transparent” floor showing off the passing galaxy outside. The villains appear to be bizarro twins with more-or-less opposite colorschemes. My UK ‘Saucer is missing the radar dish and the spaceship/landing pad setup.
Years ago I somehow ended up with two spare Sammy Steel figures from Series 3. They both have homes now.
I’m not sure how much different Series 2 and 3 were in the UK, since the only ones I’ve ever seen are possibly bootlegs:
When compared to mine, the only difference is the tiny boat in the playset to the left. But again, these lack the Imperial Toys logo, so they might not be official.
UPDATE: Here are photos of a Dome of Doom variant courtesy of generous donator Enrique.
A lot of ebay members have difficulty listing Mighty Max items, probably for good reason: each set comes with lots of small parts that can easily be lost by the average seven-year-old.
Still, if you’re going to list anything for sale on ebay, you need to do your research first — too many sellers lump pieces together without knowing what goes with what, and nobody wants to buy an incomplete set, or be forced to buy multiple lots just to get all the right pieces.
This article should serve you as a springboard for being sure of what you have, which parts go with it, and whether the item is complete or not. You can often use my photos for reference, since all of my toys are complete (except the Monster Heads toys, missing a single figure), but I don’t have every Mighty Max toy ever, so you’ll have to do some research yourself.
PLAYSETS BY TYPE
First, know what items you have. If you have the name of the item, you can do an image search for that item, and almost always find photos of the complete item with all its parts. Mighty Max toys came in the following forms:
DOOM ZONES – the typical playsets, hand-sized compacts slightly larger in diameter than a drink coaster. They seem to average $10 to $20 depending on condition and availability. There were 3 separate series of these toys, listed above in order. Each came with a randomly distributed Max figure.
Series 1: Skull Dungeon, Doom Dragon, Arachnoid, Ice Alien, Palace of Poison, Wolfship 7.
Series 2: Cyclops, Maneater, Battlecat (Hellcat), Ape King, Dino Lab, Scorpion
Series 3: Nautilus, Rattus, Fly, Geela Guts (Lizard), The Hand, Cyber Skull
HORROR HEADS – Smaller playsets that fit in your palm, which usually only came with a couple of figures. Typically range from $8 to $15 if complete and not badly beaten up. There was also a trilogy of these toys, but Series 2 and 3 consisted of four playsets apiece, while Series 1 consisted of eight. Each came with a randomly distributed Max figure.
Series 1: Vamp Byter (Nightwing), Nuke Ranger, Robot Invader (Droid Invader), Zomboid, Kronosaur, Lava Beast, Sea Squirm, Skull Warrior
Series 2: Corpus, Axe Man (Spike), Lockjaw, Werewolf
Series 3: Talon (Clawber), Rhesus 4 (Hydron), Freako, Beetle Brow
SHRUNKEN HEADS – These were the size of a brooch, and came with one removable piece: an exclusive Max figure. Shrunken Heads came carded in pairs. There were two series, but I don’t have any photos of the second series. They’re nicely sculpted and painted, so you can probably get away with selling one for as much as $8. Series 2 Shrunken Heads go for as much as $50 a pop, but I advise against pricing them that high, especially since they’re ugly and badly designed.
Series 1: Insectoid, Brain Face, Head Case (Meltdown), Wraptile, Vampyre, Mummy, Rat Trap, Rock Monster
Series 2: Skullmaster, Fang, Dr. Zygote, Conquerer, Gargoyle, Necrosaur, Lava Lord, Doom
MONSTER HEADS – Cheapo toys that weren’t even playset compacts. It’s hard to tell if the Max figures were randomly distributed or unique to each set; most photos will show the same Max with each set, so best stick with it. The Max figure on the far left is from the Heroes & Villains series — I lost the figure that came with the gold dragon head.
GIANT PLAYSETS – These usually aren’t categoried in Mighty Max Playset Terminology, so I lump them together. Search for Skull Mountain, Dragon Island, Skullmaster Mega Head, Terror Talons / Dread Star, and Magus when researching Mighty Max toys to see examples of complete sets. Terror Talons was released in the UK as Dread Star, and came with an additional figure and vehicle — make sure you know which version you have before listing it.
BATTLE WARRIORS – Also known as Action Masters, these were action figures that opened into questionable playsets and came with oodles of loot. Pictured above with Magus to show the scale difference.
HEROES & VILLAINS – Bluebird released six 7-figure packs under this title. Half of them were repaints of previous Doom Zone and Horror Head figures, while the ones pictured above are from the sets based on the cartoon.
WRISTWATCHES – These photos are courtesy of the Toy Museum. Five of these adorable watches were produced, to my knowledge: based on Doom Dragon, Ice Alien, Wolfship 7, and Skull Dungeon (above) of Series 1, and a fifth based on Geela Guts of Series 3. Each came with a Max figure, which could stand in the diorama.
DREAD HEADS – Photo courtesy of Funkycosmic at ebay, a regular Mighty Max seller. These severed heads had troll hair and hinged jaws for gobbling the Max figure each came with. They must’ve made these in response to kids losing their Maxes all the time.
MULTI-PACKS – These count among the rarest of Mighty Max items, and new ones keep popping up. Photos are impossible to come by (thanks, Bram Brouwers!), but the better-known ones were titled “Triple Horror” and “Clash of the Titans” (the multilingual one pictured above is a recent discovery by Ideal). Clash is a two-pack including variants of Battle Conqueror and Scorpion. Triple Horror includes a Wolfship 7 variant and the Lava Beast and Kronosaur horror heads, but there’s another version that includes The Hand instead of Wolfship. These boxed sets are elusive to the point of legend, but you can find the variants on ebay by themselves with little trouble. There’s also the rare French carded two-pack.
WHICH MAX IS WHICH?
I wrote an article on the subject of identifying Max figures, to make sure you list your playsets with the correct one before calling it complete. It should be required reading for anyone selling Mighty Max toys: Max collectors will generally know if you’ve listed a Series 1 Max with a Series 3 playset. It may not affect whether they buy the item or not, but the more accurate your package, the more enticing it is, and the happier your buyer will be (because now they don’t have to find the right figure separately).
Do your research before you list. And make sure your prices (and shipping especially) are reasonable. It could be the difference between selling the item and relisting it over and over ’til doomsday.
I decided to give my Japanese Pokemon figures a home, and bought three mini-playsets on ebay for cheap. They were a lot tinier than I anticipated, which isn’t a bad thing: they’re pretty damned adorable.
I quite like the beach one. The city one is a bit crowded, although the pokemon hospital would make for some great mad science experiments.
I was playing around with Mighty Max as long as I had the toys out for updated photos, and tried to come up with as many interesting environmental combinations as I could, mostly by theme.
CYBORGS, ALIENS, and MINI-MAX
ADVENTURES in ANCIENT EGYPT
MAX GOES to HELL
GHOULS & GHOSTS & MAD SCIENCE
DEEP SEA & PREHISTERIA
Someone on ebay recently sold me a carded Sammy Steel for cheap. It’s nice to get to see one of the packaging cards again after all these years.
Face Mountain was apparently the most common set, because I’ve seen other people selling the same set on ebay before. It’s basically a more kid-friendly version of Mighty Max Grapples with Battlecat…except Sammy actually came with a cat! The sabretooth tiger figure is pretty neat, and with a bit of a repaint would make a good stand-in for the tiger in the Max set.
I noticed, too, that this Face Mountain uses different materials than the one I originally got. The fourth photo shows my original villain figures next to the new ones. The left caveman is badly painted in fleshtones and likely molded from the same brown plastic as the playset itself. The same goes for the tiger, which has a slightly better paintjob. The figures on the right were molded from fleshtone plastic and painted a bit less amateurishly. The titular face on top of the new playset’s outer lid is also more defined and a bit less faded. I’m guessing this was a later release with better materials.
This playset has never been opened ’til now (the packaging was falling apart when I bought it, and fell completely away in transit), so it’s in pristine condition. Hopefully I’ll come into more carded sets in the future.
One of the many cool things about Mighty Max was that each playset had a comic dramatizing the action on the back of the card. This very cool Flickr group has preserved most of these in digital form, as has the awesome French Mighty Max wiki. I’m posting them here partly to help preserve them (in case one of our sites goes offline someday), and partly because it’s a pain in the ass not being able to view all of these in one place.
Unfortunately, while the wiki does have almost all of the comics, it failed to keep the “The Story So Far” text box preceding each, which provided the context for the adventure. So the comics feel more like non-sequiturs than they normally would.
 DOOM ZONE COMICS
HORROR HEAD COMICS
BATTLE MAX COMICS
Sadly it seems no one preserved the comics from the big playsets. Shame.
This was a big surprise: apparently in the UK they made Sammy Steel variants. Information about the toy line itself is already pretty damned obscure, so to find out that there were variants is pretty incredible. These photos are courtesy of an ebay user who will hopefully confirm whether these are authentic or reproductions.
Compare to the original parts below:
Spaceman figure is in this pic. ^
The paint on the originals and the variants are both equally cheapo. The sticker placement could be achieved if the set was re-molded at home, and the outer casing appears to be molded from black plastic and not simply repainted. If anyone has photos of more variants, do send them my way so I can confirm if this is the real deal or not.
UPDATE 1/6/2016: Holy crap, they’re real. Someone else has been selling them, too! I stumbled upon her Dome of Doom variant below:
And when I asked her about the item, she kindly linked me to a previous sale, a Sinister Saucer variant!
The US version:
This is amazing to me. That this obscure-as-all-hell knockoff toy had regional variants. If anyone has a complete set, send me all your photos and ebay listings!
UPDATE 3/18/2016: Found something even more mind-blowing, courtesy of a very difficult-to-find UK ebay listing.
My first thoughts were along the lines of UK Sammy Steel being distributed under a different name, but upon closer inspection, Imperial’s brand name is entirely absent from the packaging. This leads me to believe that we are looking at a BOOTLEG of a knockoff of Mighty Max.
I tried to convince the seller to ship to the US, but they’ve been unresponsive, so it’s likely I’ll never get my hands on this one.
UPDATE 5/15/2020: Got a carded knockoff, so it seems they’re not just UK variants. Someone took the molds and made alternate playsets minus Sammy. Here’s a Dome of Doom comparison.
I like the idea of one playset for the bad guys and one for the good guys.
If you ever wanted to see how a Mighty Max playset was created from the ground up back in the 90’s, The Construction of Dr. Zygote thread (registration required) on the Mighty Max Archives is the place to see it. It’s truly magical seeing one of the original toy line designers making a brand new addition to the line from scratch, and all for the benefit of Mighty Max fans.
EDIT 6/21/18: The forum moved and is virtually dead, and I can’t find the thread anymore, so I uploaded all the sketches I salvaged from it.
This is how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. This is the last shitty gasp of the Mighty Max toy line.
Shrunken Heads were only an inch long and featured one solitary removable piece — a unique Max figure. As playsets they’re utterly useless.
But to be fair, they do have their good points. Most of them are really nicely detailed despite the limited space therein. The Max figures are actually pretty great: each one is unique, and you could use them as replacements for any of your normal Max figures. There’s a Max here for every conceivable situation, from exploring dark caverns and crypts to shooting it out with alien invaders. Pictured from left to right: Insectoid, Brain Face, Head Case (Meltdown), Wraptile, Vampyre, Mummy, Rat Trap, Rock Monster.
There were two Shrunken Heads series. I didn’t bother with Series 2 because they were based on the cartoon, badly designed, and ugly as hell. Series 1, the original designs, were all pretty damn cool in their own way, if you don’t mind them being glorified carrying cases.
The Heroes and Villains line of figures is a mixed bag. Some of them are pretty badass, especially the Norman, Virgil, and Cyber-Skull figures. Many of them are just drek, including the Max figures which don’t look all that great and are incompatible with the standard “Max sockets” in the playsets, which any other Max figures can stand in. Still, all of them are remarkably well-balanced and can stand up on their own, even the ones that look like they shouldn’t be able to.
Note: this comprises three of the six H&V sets; while these were based on the cartoon, the other three sets were reproductions of Doom Zone figures, usually recolored. I didn’t get those ‘cos I was usually responsible enough not to lose the toys I cared about (in the twenty-odd years I’ve been collecting these toys, I only ever lost 1 piece).
Less nice things can be said about Terror Talons, one of the last giant sets produced. Remember how bare the average Horror Head was as far as detail and interactivity were concerned? Take that, make it twice the size of a Doom Zone, and you get Terror Talons. It has a neat monster face in the side of the playset, with moving jaw and eyes. It has a cool alien leader dude. But nothing justifies the size nor price of this thing — at the very least it should’ve been a Doom Zone, for how little bang you get for your buck. Terror Talons just doesn’t compare to any of the other Super Doom Zones, although I guess I gotta give it credit for not using any tacky decals.
Which brings me to Exhibit C, and the most damning evidence of Bluebird’s lack of interest in Mighty Max: the Monster Heads.
I misplaced one of the Max figures that came with these, and substituted one from a figure collection. It’s only fitting that I put as much effort into the photos as went into the toys themselves.
This is enough plastic for two more Horror Heads, in which the two interesting figures (the purple dragon-panther and the red dude with the cape) could’ve been used.
What a waste of resources. Between these and the Dread Heads — ugly heads with Troll Doll hair and articulated jaws for holding a single Max figure, which I won’t even justify with a photo — you have the final nail in the coffin of Max’s adventures. Which is just as well, as that poor kid is probably resting in an asylum somewhere in Massachusetts.
Read about the knock-off toy line, Sammy Steel!
Wanna read more about Mighty Max? Check out the Retrojunk article and the Mighty Max Archives forum!
Thought I was done with Mighty Max, eh? I’m just gettin’ warmed up!
Okay, not really. I’m half done.
By this point Bluebird had already made one or two giant Mighty Max sets (which I’ll blog about later so as not to end my Mighty Max entries on a sour note): Series 1 gave birth to Skull Mountain, and Series 2 brought us the dreaded Dragon Isle. During Mighty Max’s second series they had a nifty idea: make a giant playset that doubled as an action figure. The result was MAGUS, and soon after, the Battle Max line of smaller figures/playsets that ranged from crap to awesome.
MAGUS is a walking battle-station. It introduced us to the Lava Lord, secondary recurring villain to the Skull Master. Ol’ Magus is literally bursting with goodies: open his arms, legs, and torso, and out spills a battle royale waiting to happen.
BATTLE WARRIORS
The Battle Warriors figures weren’t as big as Magus, but the stuff they contained was just as sweet. Usually. They’re called a number of other names such as Battle Max or Battle Masters or whatever. Wikipedia says Battle Warriors, so I’ll stick with that.
BATTLE CONQUEROR is one of my two favorites. He’s the ultimate badass, a twenty-foot lion man with a flail that could crush a house. It features a unique Norman figure (from the cartoon show) who can wield the Giant Sword of Badassitude.
DOUBLE-DEMON tends to be a pain in the ass to pack up, probably because Max and Skull Master don’t wanna be packed so closely together; I know I’d be fussy if I had to share a closet-sized apartment with my mortal enemy. The ‘Demon itself is pretty wicked-looking and stores a sleek flying platform in his belly. It also has three different weapons that it can spit from one of its two heads or wield in a melee.
LAVA BEAST looks like Sweetums the Muppet, and he’s about as lame. He comes with a not-so-cool Lava Lord figure, a fiery sword, an angry lava monster that rides on his head, and a fist projectile. The most interesting thing about him is the articulated jaw, which is connected to a catapult so he can puke up Max.
PHARAOH PHANG makes up for his lack of interesting features by being one beautiful sonofabitch, and coming with the most awesomely memorable villain in the entire toy line. Look at that pharaoh and tell me he isn’t the coolest thing you’ve ever seen.
This big ol’ gargoyle opens rather nicely into a dilapidated cathedral (or a gargoyle’s toilet if you leave the big red monster intact), and features the Bruce Lee of Lizardfolk as the star bad guy.
CYBOT is my other favorite of this line. It’s impossible to be a 90’s kid and not love this thing: an undead ED-209 controlled from the inside by another, smaller undead cyborg! The head opens to double as an ugly turret, and both Max and Cyberskull (recurring Mighty Max villain #3) can ride the Surfboard of Doom.
Beware! The Death of Mighty Max is next!
Read about the knock-off toy line, Sammy Steel!
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Mike's Toybox 