Once again, it's 1987. Reagan's still president. The future of space exploration is still looking kinda iffy in light of the Challenger incident. But there's always hope for the future.
Enter Starcom.
The low-down: It's the not too distant future. Most of humanity has finally gotten it's shite together and thanks to advances in technology they've colonized a good deal of our solar system. But not everything's peachy on the newest frontier.
A megalo by the name of Darke has decided that life would be much improved if he were the king of the forest. Well Emperor of the Universe, to be more precise. To bring about this end he's assembled an officer corp of evil humans and an army of robot drones, equipped them with the latest weapons and technology, and sent those lil' war-puppies on their way.
To stave off the wholesale subjugation of humanity we've got Starcom: The US Space Force, a joint venture between several branches of the United States military of the future. The Astro Marines provided ground assault power, Starwing took care of air support, and Star Command helped coordinate the two. Armed with magna-lock and power-deploy tech, as well as conventional energy weapons and advanced vehicles, they stand ready to defend free humanity from the terror campaigns of Darke's Shadow Force.
Riveting yarn, wot? Yeah. But keep in mind, we're talking about toys here.
And as to the toys, clever lil' things Coleco had there.
The figs themselves were about an inch 'n three quarters tall and had little magnets implanted into their boots (a primary component of the toys' "magna-lock" feature). These magnets had quite a few useful applications. Other than allowing the figures to stand freely on metal plates that were attached to the vehicles and playsets, they were often used to trigger switches that activated other action features. For instance, on the Starbase Station playset the magnets would run an elevator and switch on a gun turret that swept side-to-side b/c of a wind-up motor (both of which would stop when you removed the figure).
The vehicles and playsets themselves had a special feature called "power-deploy". Power-Deploy used springs, latches, and/or simple friction motors (look ma, no batteries!) to allow the toys to change modes, deploy weapons, or open their doors without assistance. Example: most of the smaller 1 or 2 figure toys would fold up into a compact cargo mode that allowed them to be carried in the holds of the larger vehicles. But with the press of a button or slider switch they'd expand themselves into a battle-ready form.
Coleco also decided to go the expansion route by making individual Starcom figures available in blister packs. Much like the better-known GI Joe line, you could buy the Co-pilots to various vehicles and other personalities from the companion series to beef up your forces. Each fig included a backpack, personal weapon, and a "collectable" bio card on the back of the packaging that covered the character's history and specialties.
Since unlike the toys in my previous entry, Starcom had a cartoon, which bolstered it's market recognition. Unfortunately, it never seemed to really catch on here in the 'States (just a tad ironic, I think). I didn't even know there was a show until years later. Combined with a poor advertising campaign (among many faults, it didn't play the "no batteries" angle too well), the line was only moderately successful, lasting only 2 years here. However, it was pretty big in Europe where it lasted for a couple more years and saw the release of several more toys... which I would dearly love to own
Between me, my brother, and my best friend, we had every vehicle and playset that was released in the US. The figures were a different story, since they were never carried here in great numbers. I was the only one of us who had any, and I only had three. But many were the afternoons spent waging a glorious war against the forces of evil. Hoo-rah!
For further information more in-depth than sanity or good manners would allow you can check out this site
I'll be back Friday with the final installment in this series. No advanced warnings, however. I'm not even sure what it'll be yet.