Anyways, it sparked a ponderings of what would be in our respective boxes, Action Man, Transformers? Well mine would be Micronauts. A big box of all the original Micronauts toys, and if I were to be granted complete ecstasy, the comics too.
I remember seeing Micronauts toys for the first time at the home of friends of my parents. There was this cool looking giant robot and a run of track and bubble domes that just blew what I guess must have been my six year old mind. There were all sorts of connectable bits and pieces that riffed on the build yourselves worlds of mechano and lego but with these strange translucent figures and all sorts of space vehicles. It spoke of an fully formed universe, of invention, of imagination (ok - I'm putting thoughts into that six year old mind) and it had an awesome logo.
That's how I knew what they were, the kid had kept the boxes.
A little later something awesome happened. My next door neighbour and best mate (as is the way when you're six and still have a coal bunker to climb over the fence on) got what to my mind might still be one of the best presents ever. Baron Karza, Force Commander and their respective steeds Andromeda and Oberon. These guys looked cool. They still look cool and they looked cool way before Darth and his Stormtroopers looked cool like they looked like BK and the FC cool. And Darth and the others never had horses that could be made into centaurs through the power of magnetic joints. And they fired rockets from their chests, and they fired their fists. We're talking massively awesome now. Did toys ever get better than this? NO. It took years before Star Wars figures ever had that kind of mobility. In all honesty SW figures sucked, and continue to do so against how much more you could do with the Micronauts.
Oh yeah, there was probably an Acroyear or two there, and who knows what else. But on that day I first set my eyes on them, I also set my heart on this quartet of interchangeable amazingness and it's never left. Not really.
I got my first Micronaut in a toy shop in Nottingham whilst on holiday with my grandparents. I got a Time Traveler that I still have (go me!) and Microtron who never made it through the moves, or the rough and tumble of childhood. I don't know why it was Microtron, it may have been all they had in the shop at the time. I seem also to remember that Star Wars had come out by then and I was also dreaming of the Millenium Falcon, but more of that maybe another time.
I don't remember exactly when I got Baron Karza, possibly also visiting granny and grandpa. That was a moment. And I don't remember when I lost him. Somewhere down the line in Canada I also picked up a Pharoid and Repto. The former survived, the latter didn't (unless of course, they're hiding in my parents' loft waiting for my squeals of delighted discovery). So FC and the horses never made it but my door is always open should they wish to show themselves.
Editor's note - I did pick up another Baron Karza at school, swapping him for a Scorpozoid which makes that one of the better deals I've pulled off. Baron 2 has been very carefully looked after since then!
So even though that makes five toys out of a stunning range of many - you count 'em - I never lost hope that one day I'd have 'em all. Even as they disappeared from my life, I never stopped loving them. Perhaps it was just a few early memories infused with childlike potential and amazement that have lingered on, imbuing the name with a contented Pavlovian response.
Or perhaps it was because years later they came to life again in the Marvel comics series, which I avidly collected over my teenage years, picking up all the back issues until I had both series complete. Or maybe I loved the comics because I'd loved the toys. Anyway, it had the most devastating ending that just brought me to my knees. And years later in a pique of poverty, I sold them all at a pittance to be able to pay for presents or sort out a bill. I'd prefer the latter given the choice. So perhaps I can't separate them from some quasi-romantic sense of loss that you get when you're spending way too much time being some geeky shy kid instead of getting out there and talking to women. That's the nightmares of bad poetry and emo bands and I'm happy to report I came through on that one. At least I think I did!
Or perhaps it was because they were genuinely an incredible toy range, providing scope to build cities, fight space battles or have good and evil clash in some manga infused cyberpunk Greek myth mash up. And no matter how clunky some of them look to 21st Century eyes, they maintain a wonderful sense of a toy that could both be a joy in creation and exploration as much as in acting out youthful games of destruction.
Or to put it another way, perhaps it was just because the ROCKED.
And to this day I still hope that this mythical box of Micronauts will one day appear on my doorstep.
