Holy Grail item secured: ZOLTAN THE TERRIBLE, the evil android villain from Tootsie Toys' 1978 "Star Base Zeus" playset. Utterly absolutely had to have one the instant I first came upon his tyrannical countenance in April. Major Mars is cool in a bubble-helmeted kind of way, but somebody hit a home run with Zoltan that flew right out of the park to go bouncing down the freeway out front. Hard plastic, far chunkier & bigger than he looks (US quarter for scale) and even more badass in person.
Transparent Brain Cases = Winning
Steampunk science fiction all the way.
With a helmeted Major Mars, and while I dig his design and all you know your toy line is potentially in trouble from the get-go if your evil alien death-borg menace is cooler than your hero.
With one of the otherwise marvelous vehicles from the "Star Base Zeus" set, curiously resembling a "Space: 1999" vehicle but I digress. As the three together outline one of the terminal shortcomings of the set: The figures are way out of scale for the vehicles which accompany. There's also no Major Marcia and what fun is it to go off into space to battle evil without some girls around? The set was surely made to try and cash-in on the "Star Wars" toys Kenner had just introduced, which had vehicles designed to accommodate the character figures and a girl. Guess which line persevered.
Because it flopped the set was quickly discontinued, disappeared from shelves once original stocks became depleted and surviving examples are now must-have collector's pieces for hopeless 50 year old nerds who never even heard of them before. I'll never part with my childhood "Star Wars" figure collection, but contemporary toys from that franchise have the collective soul of a stack of plastic cafeteria trays. The original stuff is OK but you won't catch me dead buying any new "Star Wars" toys when there's stuff like this waiting to be scored. A complete boxed "Star Base Zeus" set will set you back $175 so I'm collecting them piecemeal. I believe I have the five original vehicles (plus a couple extras) and am short one "Captain Lazer" figure, Major Mars' alien sidekick. Easily done.
