The Outer Space Men, LLC Outer Space Men Cosmic Radiation Xodiac Action Figure The Outer Space Men, LLC, 2018
Day #1,915: March 7, 2018
Cosmic Radiation Xodiac The Man from Saturn
Outer Space Men Cosmic Radiation Figures
Item No.: n/a Manufacturer:The Outer Space Men Includes:Alternate glow arms, helmet, Saturn staff, ray gun Action Feature:Glows in the dark, pops apart Retail:$20.00 Availability: February 2, 2018 Other: Brings the total to 9 Xodiac figures, 10 if you count weapon variants
For a toy line that has proven popular, The Outer Space Men captures the imagination with strange designs. Like this one. The Cosmic Radiation Xodiac is the second Xodiac figure to have a beard, so I reached out to series designer Mel Birnkrant to ask what the deal was with the beard - is it meat? Is it hair? "It's both!" He told me - hey, that works.
The first quartet of Glyos-compatible The Outer Space Men figures were sharp, uniform, lower-cost figures because they shared a ton of parts. They also made great simple 3 3/4-inch space figures, with the same humanoid arms and legs, with some shared bits in the bodies and unique heads and accessories. I'm pretty pleased to see that it worked so well then and still looks great today, with a wide set of arms gripping a staff, a blaster, and whatever else you feel like giving him instead. The back of the blaster has a Glyos peg on it, so you can plug that into his back if you really want. I don't know why you would, but you could. The clear bubble helmet fits right over the figure's head, and it holds pretty tightly too.
The Man from Saturn has a staff capped with his home planet, but it also looks like a silver UFO from the movies. Maybe he's a fan of Plan 9 from Outer Space? I can hope so. The figure is also covered in silver highlights, more or less matching Inferno and the other figures - accordion joints, belts, and soles are silver but so is his beard. The beard paint mask is different from Goldiac [FOTD #416], as this one has an open area for what I assume would be the mouth. It's fascinating and strange to look at a creature like this and contemplate it - he has ears, eyes, and what looks like a nose - but no obvious mouth. But there's a beard - with no hair. What is it? How does it eat? How can there be a molten man from Mercury? It's a different kind of organism, and it's hard to figure out if you can trust a man from a planet what's made of gas.
Articulation is similarly standard. Xodiac is 14 pieces of plastic, each of which is jointed and can be popped apart and swapped. He also has a gun, a helmet, a staff, and 2 bonus arms for 19 total parts. Functionally he behaves a lot like the old Kenner Star Wars figures, but with swivel wrists, waist, knees, and ankles. These aren't necessarily useful, but they're nice to have and are great for customizers. Are there any customizers left? I have no idea - but the figure is great in and of itself, what with the big Saturn logo on his chest reminding me of the original figure plus the classic LEGO space men of old.
You don't need me to tell you that the glow is great and with the paint job, it really works well. The beard and Saturn logo cut the glowing light down nicely, showing the designs brightly in a dark room. The glow PVC is second to none, and the glow ABS accessories are a little bit dimmer. The extra landmarks on the figure's face and body make the most out of the glowing plastic, making this one of the ideal figures to snag if you just want one glowing The Outer Space Men figure in your stash.
If you collect Glyos I don't need to tell you that there are no better figures on the market in terms of their ability to glow brightly. Seeing this entire collection grow over the past year has allowed me to really brighten up one of my closets, and I can't say enough good about the ridiculousness of re-collecting a line just so they look green and bright when I turn the lights out. I hope you got one - and if you didn't, you probably still can. They're a delight.
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