Mighty Max (toyline)

Mighty Max
Type Dolls
Company Bluebird Toys
Country United Kingdom
Availability 1992–

Mighty Max was a series of toys that were manufactured by Bluebird Toys PLC in the UK in 1992. The toys were similar to the earlier Polly Pocket toyline; however, these toys were marketed primarily towards young boys. In Canada and the USA, they were distributed by Irwin Toy Limited. and Mattel Inc. respectively.[1][2] The original toyline consisted mainly of "Doom Zones" and "Horror Heads." "Doom Zones" were small playsets with a horror theme and featured miniature figurines of menacing creatures and the hero Max, a young boy with blond hair, jeans, a white t-shirt with a red "M" on it, and a baseball cap (the color varied based on the playset purchased) which also always had an "M" on it. The "Horror Heads" were smaller-sized playsets, also shaped like the heads of creatures and contained miniature figures. It was later adapted as a TV series and in a Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive game.

Contents

Story

The background story of the toys was as follows:

Max's dad left him his old baseball cap. Trouble was, this was no ordinary baseball cap..."Gotta look the business" Max thought as he tweaked the cap's peak round to the side. "AAAARGH!" Suddenly, the world had gone weird and very unfriendly! The cap had changed colour! Something very strange was going on! He'd been caught in the Horror Zone. Stumbling from one terrifying adventure to another with only cryptic clues to help him escape...he was all alone. He was scared. But he was MIGHTY MAX, and he'd get back somehow!

Toys

This toyline is the father of all miniature boy-style playsets. Right now no company will make playsets that small anymore due to laws regarding children swallowing the figurines, and thus the companies being sued. If a collector wanted to start now, a complete collection of this line would be difficult and possibly expensive due to the scarcity of some of the sets (original 1994-1995 era Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle playsets are of the same rarity).

The toys featured a short comic on the back of the packaging summarizing Max's adventure in that zone.

Doom Zones (originally known as Doom Stones)

Horror Heads

Large-size playsets

Television series

Main article: Mighty Max (TV series)

In 1993, an American animated series was created based on the toys. After the series began to air, the characters Virgil and Norman and toys based on episodes of the series were added to the toyline to form a new series. The story on the packaging was revised accordingly, and a short-lived comic book series by Marvel UK was created as well. The appearance of Max changed considerably; he was no longer portrayed as a young boy but as a taller adolescent with longer hair and an untucked shirt, similar to his portrayal in the television series. The older Doom Zones, Horror Heads and playsets were re-released with the original story replaced with the revised one:

Max was bright and pretty good at getting in and out of trouble, but he'd never forget the day he broke his Mom's mysterious old statue and found the Cosmic Cap inside. How was he to know it made him 'the Mighty One', able to travel instantly from place to place by means of time Portals? And how were Max, his Cosmic Cap and his two friends and protectors, wise old Virgil and fearless Norman gonna' measure up against the ultimate evil of the Skull Master!!?

Toys

Doom Zones

Series 1:

Some of the renames:

Some more infos about the doom zones (Wrote by Himber from his playset webside spectrumisgreen):

Heroes & Villains

A total of six figure sets were released, each including Max, Norman, Virgil and various villains and monsters. The first three were simply repaints of pre-existing figures that came with recent Doom Zones and Horror Heads as well as from a few of the bigger playsets. The second three, however, were all-new figures done in the style of the cartoon.

Horror Heads

Series 2

Monster Heads

These were playsets considerably smaller than even the Horror Heads, and did not actually open up. They each came with one monster/villain figure and a Max figure unique to that playset.

NOTE: Recently there's a bronze colored phototype Monster Head which looks like a one-eyed wolf discovered on IDEAL toy catalog (in Mighty Max Archive forum), so there should be 7 monster head ever planned out there at the time.

Hairy Heads (also known as Dread Heads)

Hairy Heads were only released on single cardbacks in the UK and Europe (where they were known as Scalps). In the US, they were called Dread Heads and released as bonuses with Doom Zones.

Shrunken Heads

The smallest Mighty Max playsets ever, the Shrunken Heads had little play value because of both their tiny size and lack of a detachable monster or villain figure to pit Max against (the majority of the Shrunken Heads did have an embossed and separately coloured monster as part of the molding on the wall or floor of the open set). However, the Shrunken Heads did come with a Max figure, and, like the Monster Heads, it was unique to that set. The first eight sets were original, while the remaining eight were based on episodes of the cartoon. The first eight originally came packaged in sets of two but later were released on separate cards by themselves. They were also available as cereal box prizes in some regions.

(The next 8 are all SUPER RARE)

Battle Warriors

These were action figures which transformed into small playsets, based on the same principle as the Mighty Max Blasts Magus playset (see below) but on a much smaller scale.

Large-size playsets

It should be noted that Mighty Max Defies the Dread Star and Mighty Max Takes On Terror Talons are in fact the same playset, but came boxed differently and with different pieces. For instance, Dread Star featured a total of six alien villains, plus a "Skelemonster Robot" and a "Scavenger Vehicle." Terror Talons meanwhile had only five aliens, and no Scavenger Vehicle.

Mighty Max Assaults Skull Master was the only playset for a planned "Mega Heads" line. A second playset, based on Skull Master's minion Warmonger, was planned, but never produced despite being featured on a free poster depicting most of the later playsets.

McDonald's playsets

Watch Playsets

Official known released color Variants

Influence

On the trail of the popular Mighty Max, other companies would soon implement the miniature playset style into their merchandise for properties including Star Wars, Godzilla, and Batman Forever. Such toys would often feature a character's head as the unfolded playset and an environment familiar to the property at hand (i.e. Batman's head unfolding to reveal the Batcave). Galoob's popular Micro Machines line already bore a similar scale to Mighty Max and created a variety of miniature Star Wars "head" playsets ranging in size. Playmates also introduced mini Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles playsets in 1994 and continued producing them the following year.[5]

Mighty Max revival movement

A campaign has started to revive the Mighty Max toyline, which Mattel has acknowledged in an Infinite Hollywood interview.

References / External Links

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ Pope, Hammond 1998: 84
  4. ^ Pope, Hammond 1998: 169
  5. ^ 1994 Playmates Toys Catalog NinjaTurtles.com. Retrieved on 12-13-08.