Rogues Roundup: Archer space people!

 

It's the Tuesday after a week off, and I was genuinely debating what to do for this. As it happens, I just got a new acquisition today that might turn into something bigger. I've been looking through stuff I either already have or had considered getting for a story based on the Marx space guys (see, of all things, my latest and kind-of last installment of Chelsea the social worker). One of several things that brought to mind was the Archer line of space guys, which I had exactly one of, previously featured in my sort-of research post on the space guy-to-astronaut evolution. One thing that had come to my attention was that Archer, unlike Marx, had made several female figures. So, I looked around and found a deal on a space guy and space lady. Here's the pair on the Couch Mark 2.

As you can see, the space guy is a copper-colored with an unambiguous gun, as opposed to the hair dryer/ vacuum/ massager thingy the previously featured figure was apparently arrested for carrying. I'm satisfied that he is or at least could be an original. The metallic tint matches the one I already had, and they make the same ceramic clinking when tapped or knocked over. I wasn't so sure about the lady. She has a different coloration, and the plastic definitely seems different, perhaps intermediate between the very hard plastic of the Archer space guys. On further investigation, however, I concluded that the copper guy was the one that was definitely a latter-day copy, based mainly on a prominent bit of flash I just confirmed is visible in the photo above. (My sometimes-correspondent at Space Trucks has been on this for a while.) I remain skeptical whether the other two are entirely of common origin, but I'm satisfied that they are at least of comparable vintage. Here's more pics; one more thing I'll mention is that I had a lot of trouble getting the lady to stand up on the book.

Now this is where she's just mocking me...

I am so smarter than an inanimate piece of plastic!

"Did you prepare my nuclear curling iron?"

Of course, the real question is how well these play with the Marx space guys. A major consideration is that these are all 3.75 inches, which along with the obvious style differences aren't a good match for either size of the Marx figures. (See the 4-inch evil space guys, part 1 and 2 on the 70mm space guys, and the Mexican fluorescent figures while you're at it.) Still, they're close enough to pass as human/ humanoid natives for the explorers to interact with. (Ironically, they are the right size to mix with Star Wars figures as long as they don't have to fit in a cockpit.) My pictures still don't nearly do justice to how preposterous the space lady is both in garments and endowment. You might get a better look at the air tanks in back, which someone was making a joke about; they are in fact identical to what you will see on the guys. Here's a few shots with the 4-inch evil space guys.

"I swear, I'm holding it for a friend... and I have no idea what it is."

"No worries, these things are bulletproof."

"So you have an orbital nuclear weapons platform; you still pay for your own beer."

And here's a few more experiments. First, the 70mm space guys with the large Tomy Rascal robot, ironically the most authentic 1950s-style bot I have. It's clearly descended from Robby the Robot (see also the giant W@lmart version), a great, innovative non-anthropomorphic design that I would happily use if I thought I could both afford a scaled copy and get away with using it.

And here's the tall Tomy bot and regular-sized Rascal with the Galaxy Laser Team lady. Now this looks promising scale-wise...

And how about the turtle-crab alien? I'm conflicted, because I already had an awesome alien design from an unmade stop-motion movie. (Heck, here's the only surviving clip.)

And here's the space lady with Sidekick Carl and a new version I got recently. The new guy needed a little touching up after his backside broke off. Awesome!

Ad for a little more random, here's the mid-size space guys with an amphibious troop carrier I don't believe I ever blogged about before. Hey, cheap, lazy and random was what Marx was all about.

And that covers everything I wanted to get to. Needless to say, things are brewing that could waste a lot more of my time, though I hope to bring a few other things to an end before I get a lot further. That's all for now, more to come!