Minifigure Week! Day 5: Intergalactic Girl (series 6, 2012)

After a few hitches at my end, Minifigure Week is back on. Sorry for the delay guys!

Minifigures are one of my favourite things about Lego – and series 12 is on the way (possibly even out in your country by the time you read this). So to celebrate this upcoming release, every day this week, we’ll be looking at a different minifigure from the series that have come before. This is by no means a comprehensive overview – nor even necessarily a look at my favourites – but it’s an example of some of the unusual figures the line has produced since it debuted back in 2010.  Today, we look at Intergalactic Girl from series 6.

“No thanks needed. I’m just doing my part to make the spaceways safe!”

The name of the Intergalactic Girl is cheered by life forms on every inhabited planet, moon, space station and asteroid in the cosmos. As an interstellar adventurer, she and her daring outer-space exploits are the stuff of legend throughout the known universe, and even a few of the unknown bits, too.

With nothing but a quasar zapper, a pair of antigravity boots and a can-do attitude, the Intergalactic Girl has single-handedly saved solar systems from black holes, rescued civilizations from cosmic conquerors and captured entire fleets of Blacktron battle cruisers. She never has time to stay for the celebrations afterwards, though, because there’s always another space crisis waiting just around the next nebula!

 

Since the blind-bagged minifigures debuted, there have been quite a few Space Police-esque and Blacktron figures released. Starting with the Spaceman in Series 1, similar characters have popped up every few series, just quietly lurking in the background.

While the Space theme yielded many great sets in the 1980s and 1990s, there hasn't been a lot going on in the last few years – a Space Police theme in 2009 and Galaxy Squad in 2013 seem to have been about it. Galaxy Squad had some cool ideas and some exceptional higher-end sets, but I can’t help but feel that it never quite lived up to its full potential.

Intergalactic Girl wears a pink spacesuit and helmet. I’ve got mixed feelings about this; I probably would have liked her a lot more if she was wearing a more generic colour such as grey or blue, but I can appreciate that realistically this figure is being pushed at little girls more than it is at 29-year old male toy collectors.

Paint is minimal -- she's got all of the standard modern Space trappings, like the logo and little detailings on her suit. Her face has been done with the standard "sassy" expression, with the main difference being that she has silver lipstick rather than the traditional red. Her sleeves are both cast in slightly darker colours than the torso piece, matching the printed detailing on edges of the torso and legs.

Her ray gun ("quasar zapper") is the same as the Classic Alien, but with a blue laser blast instead of a green one. This accessory has been reused multiple times throughout the minifigure sets, and I’m sure we’ll see it again in future series too.

Her main distinguishing feature from other Space figures is her hair – while all of the male figures have removable helmets, she is the only one with an interchangeable hair piece. So I think we can safely conclude that all men in Space Police are bald, or shave their heads. I didn’t plan to turn this into “Jane Fonda week” in addition to “Minifigure Week", but though Intergalactic Girl is sufficiently generic that you could probably point to a few different sources, she becomes a bit of a toned-down Barbarella once her helmet is removed and hair attached.

I probably don't sound all that enthused about this figure, and I think that would be fair -- I’m not really over the moon about Intergalactic Girl (HA!), but she’s not bad by any means. Her value for me is not really as part of the Space theme itself, but as some kind of conscious retro-futuristic throwback to 60s or 70s sci-fi. A fun, if non-essential addition to the collection.

 

 

Minifigure Week! Day 1: Classic Alien (Series 6, 2012)

Minifigures are one of my favourite things about Lego – and series 12 is on the way (possibly even out in your country by the time you read this). So to celebrate this upcoming release, every day this week, we’ll be looking at a different minifigure from the series that have come before. This is by no means a comprehensive overview – nor even necessarily a look at my favourites – but it’s an example of some of the unusual figures the line has produced since it debuted back in 2010.  Today, we look at a figure from series 6 -- the Classic Alien.

“The truth is around here somewhere!”

The pyramids? These guys built them. The microwave? They invented it. Elvis? Got him right up there on the mothership. All of those totally out-there conspiracy theories about little gray men from outer space are absolutely 100% true – or at least, that’s what the Classic Alien believes.

You see, he’s been out of communication with the home planet for a while (thanks to that whole Area 51 thing), and all of his recent news has come from what he’s read in supermarket tabloids and seen on the internet. Those reporters and bloggers really seem to know their stuff, so he figures they must have the real scoop. After all, if it’s not all true, then what’s he even doing here?

-- Lego.com biography

The Grey (or "the Gray", for my American readers. Possibly the most ubiquitous image of a possible extra-terrestrial doing the rounds today, thanks in no small part to Whitley Strieber’s Communion.

Fortunately, this particular alien is a little less disturbing, and more on the cutesy end of the spectrum. Considering my youthful (and partially ongoing) obsession with UFOs and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, it was a given that I’d pick this guy up. Indeed, I would like to pick up several, and build a miniature invading force of them. Also, I need a Lego Pyramid and Lego Stonehenge built, so they’d be helpful for that too. But nowadays they’re a wee bit more expensive than when they were first released (though not much more!), so I’d best restrain myself.  

The figure itself is pretty basic. He's cast in grey, and seems to be wearing a slightly darker grey loincloth -- which is the same grey his hands are cast in, too. He's also got some grey detailing printed on his chest to him that emaciated look that seems to be common in their depction. Presumably he doesn't need to wear clothes, or they just haven't given him any at Area 51. That's not being a good host at all!

The Classic Alien comes with one accessory, which can be split into two – a ray gun with a glowing green “shot”. He’ll overbalance when the shot is inserted into the gun unless he’s on his stand, but I tend to display him without weapons. As with all other minifigures, he also comes with a basic black stand.



Minifigures with non-standard heads are a bit of a mixed bag. Most of The Simpsons series look fine, but the simplicity of the Lego look is something that’s a big draw for me – how much can you do with such a simple aesthetic? A whole buttload, it turns out. I guess Lego fans were all collecting designer toys well before the concept had even been developed. But I digress. In this particular instance, a modified head was the right way to go. One of my co-workers described it as looking “a little bit bootleg”, but I don’t think that diminishes its charm at all.

The Classic Alien is a great addition to the range, and a strong personal favourite. Hopefully we see more UFOlogy-related figures in future series!