LEGO Space: because you can’t spell “asteroids” without “steroids!”
Above is a composite image of two photos: the top image is six retro space minifigs, and the bottom is their custom magnfigure counterparts. I’ve never created a magnifigure of a Space Police II minifig, due to the lack of green-colored hinge plates and modified tiles at the time. Seen below are individual photos of the magnifigures alone with descriptions:
Classic Space: where it all began. Although I intended to use an authentic Classic Space helmet without the visor, the shape of the chin piece prevented me from having the helmet on the shoulders securely. Thus, I chose to use a Futuron dark blue visor, which makes this nifty astronaut magnifigure a hybrid of both vintage LEGO Space sub-themes!
Back in Blacktron! Unfortunately, LEGO Group never produced official printed tiles with the iconic lime green Blacktron II “B” logo, thus I was unable to create those figures for now. However, I made a first generation Blacktron figure instead, and the inverted Triforce logo wedge fit directly on the chest! Although the actual Blacktron visors were solid black, I substituted it with transparent yellow to give it some more ascetic edge.
M:Tron — the future is magnets!
Ice Planet 2002: ORANGE TRANSPARENT CHAINSAW!
For some of you newer fans, I’ll re-tell my tale of when I first discovered this glorious erstwhile LEGO theme. It was early 1993 when I was 8 years old: my stepfather and I were on a routine mission to the Toys ‘Я’ Us off Harrisburg Pike in Lancaster. When I wandered down to the LEGO section in the store, I was in complete awe at the sight of the newly-released Space sets. With LEGO Space being one of my oldest, favorite themes, it was intriguing to see the new space models set in a specific location — a frozen planet — as opposed to previous sets which merely depicted the models/minfigs in arbitrary locations in outer space. What really got my attention was the focal piece of the entire Ice Planet 2002 theme: the iconic orange transparent chainsaw!
Spyrius: another great 1990s Space theme. I was 9 years old when Spyrius was first launched; my first set of this series was the small Saucer Scout spaceship. Although it was a short-lived theme with a handful of sets, these space scoundrels were intended to be successors to the villainous Blacktron factions from the late ‘80s and early ’90s. Some of the notable highlights of this theme were the large robot vehicles, as well as the introduction of an android minifigure.
Exploriens: a mid-1990s LEGO Space theme of scientists, intended to be successors to Ice Planet and M:Tron. While those two previous themes were mainly space miners and engineers, the Exploriens were a faction of space paleontologists whose purpose was to scour the astros for alien fossils. A key feature of the Exploriens was their inclusion of special decoder discs made from transparent dishes, which would reveal designs of printed tiles; the tiles contained artwork of fossilized alien bones and eggs. I was a huge fan of these sets, as their vehicle design and color schemes were similar to the 1980s Futurons. And since this theme predated LEGO Group’s usage of licensed brands such as Star Wars, I would use Explorien elements to construct replicas of Imperial Star Destroyers and AT-ST walkers!