LoEB: Spacemen

OK! This is my first time partaking in a League of Extraordinary Bloggers assignment, and I'm looking forward to getting involved. This week's theme is Spacemen, and that made me immediately think of only one thing:

THIS IS SPACE, Y'ALL.

You would have thought that the majority of my space-faring childhood toy adventures would be Star Wars, but I was too young to properly enjoy the vintage line. Lego Space, on the other hand - I was exactly on time for that!

My Lego collection started off as hand-me-downs from my brother and sister, but grew exponentially every birthday and Christmas. When I was much younger Castle was my favourite theme, but by the start of the 90's I was getting into Space in a big way. The image above is from an ideas book catalogue, one of two my brother owned which kickstarted my love of the space sets. Look how richly detailed that station is! 

Intergalactic Engineers

Lego Space really came of age for me with M-Tron, however. The unified look of the line was great, and the magnets provided a fun play feature. The vehicles felt very rugged and real-world, with chunky tyres and actual storage space, and the catalogue displays that showcased them... Wow. I'm pretty sure this is where my diorama love came from.

Neon Nineties

M-Tron ran its course, and I was sad to see it absent from the upcoming Lego catalogue ('93/'94, can't recall which). However, this was pretty quickly dispelled by the new arrivals... Ice Planet 2002!

With the chainsaws, the new visors, the fluorescent orange parts, and minifigures with new facial designs, Ice Planet quickly took over as a favourite. Furthermore, it marked a point where several of my friends were also collecting Lego, and we would often take models into school for play - so Luke, Ben and Tom, this one's for you!

End of the Line

Exploriens and Spyrius were the last of the Lego Space lines I followed at all, as I was starting to get too old for toys by that point (hah!). Still, whilst I didn't really get into the line, Spyrius had some very cool features - I'm pretty sure it was the first Lego line to feature giant robot mechs at all, and the spy android with the clear helmet was a very cool minifigure. On that note, this line also provided my favourite-ever Lego minifig, which continued to pilot my favourite MOC spaceship long after I stopped playing with the stuff:

The Spyrius Astronaut!

So, that's Spacemen for me. Here's what some fellow Leaguers blogged on the subject:

Rich at Fortune and Glory (Days) picked another subject very close to my heart, E.T., and showcases some cool memorabilia.

Hobgoblin at Monster Cafe spotlights MPC Spacemen!

And Michael at Memories of Toymorrow sings the praises of Kiss' own 'Space Ace' Ace Frehley!

That's it for my first League of Extraordinary Bloggers contribution. Thanks for reading!