Outer Space Men Onell Design Special Edition Crossover with the Outer Space Men
Item No.: No. n/a Manufacturer:Onell Design Includes:2 ray guns, 4 spare limbs, chest armor, backpack, four pieces of limb armor, alternate Noboto head, collar, belt Action Feature:Pops apart Retail:$12.00 Availability: December 8, 2016 Other: Not bad at all
A companion piece for a matching The Outer Space Men Gemini figure, this Quallerran Ulstriax has been sitting around in my living room waiting to be reviewed for nearly five years. What took me so long? I have no idea - but this figure came out with two Gremlins-themed Quallerrans and some other choice figures, and we had so many great new releases from Onell Design that I've got a bit of a backlog. I like this one - and he comes with red clear Cyclops accessories from The Outer Space Men as a bonus.
For the uninitiated, since I don't write as many reviews: Glyos action figures from Onell Design are a series of customizable indie action figures whipped up mostly through the efforts of Matt Doughty. Releases used to be roughly every couple of months, then monthly, and now we're looking at three per year. 2021 has only had one "drop" so far, so I am hoping to summon another one by writing this review. Each figure can pop apart at its joints - this is the Glyos System - so you can swap heads, limbs, and other elements between figures. As a bonus, figures like this one include extra heads or alternate parts so you can customize the figure to some extent. The line used to have a fun series of games and comics that served as marketing/storytelling, but those have largely been discontinued. Crossover items can be sold a number of places, but most figures like this one are sold via Onell.store.
When Onell Design does a big drop, I used to recommend spending at least $20 on figures just to mix and match parts to try them out. Due to inflation, you could probably stand to drop $40-$50 before shipping these days if you want a good feel for what these figures can do.
This figure is based on the Noboto, first released as clear or white way back in June of 2013. The shorter figure can stand, sit, and enjoy a number of poses thanks to the many swivels in each arm letting the limb be pushed out a tiny bit. The big fists can hold Glyos pegs, or many other accessories like the included blasters. A Quallerran uses the base Noboto but adds a different alternate head with very large ears as the default build. This particular Quallerran was given even more bonus parts with Glyarmor - which means you get a piece that clips over the torso plus four extra arms. You get way, way too many parts in the bag. The original Noboto includes a backpack - but the figure can't use the armor and the backpack all at the same time. The Glyarmor releases usually include a bonus bird head too - this one lacks it.
It's an embarrassment of riches, and fans who open their figures are likely to misplace parts over time. Most releases (back when we could dig up this info) were 300 or under, so precious few of them were left packaged and some are likely customized and arguably destroyed. For future figure fanatics, actually putting together a complete set of Onell Design Glyos figures is likely to be an impossibility thanks to information being hard to get and there being so, so, so many extra parts and promotional elements.
The Quallerran head has big red eyes and large ear-like pointed elements, and the included Noboto head is the same coloring with a head that looks like a Grey alien or a light bulb. The entire figure is molded in a light grey plastic with every color painted on - the factory does an amazing job applying thick, glossy paint so that the plastic color never shows through. It's pretty amazing. With the armor on the limbs, the figure looks more than a little bulky - but it works. If you're dealing with a creature surviving in space, it is reasonable that a Quallerran might want some sort of space suit or power armor to make the journey from one edge of space to another.
If you think you've seen this coloring before, his wave mate - The Fugitive from ALGOL - was colored similarly. That "crossover" figure used tooling from The Outer Space Men series (originally sold by The Four Horsemen) but with a really cool new paint job for the Onell Design store. Sadly, they haven't done a new one these crossovers since 2019. The original colorways are good, but Onell Design have a knack for mixing up colors in a way that really pushes some of their figure sculpts to the next level. I mean, they have to - of the 90 waves of Onell Design figures, there are only a couple dozen different figure molds.
Despite being designed to be taken apart, most Glyos figures are surprisingly sturdy. Their big feet ensure they stay standing, and you can toss them across a room and they won't break when they hit a wall. You can really see how they drew inspiration from 1970s, 1980s, and some 1990s toys - they're survivors. Your high-end collector figures will shatter if dropped from the wrong height, while I assume you could bury these in the yard and other than the paint, they'd probably be perfectly happy to keep serving as your favorite toy decades later.
The Onell Design crew have fewer and fewer releases and there are also surprisingly few of these guys on eBay - as such, I can't say "oh, just go buy one on eBay." You can't get one. They only made a small number - usually low hundreds - of these guys most of the time, so odds are you won't find too many for sale until someone quits the hobby or dies. And I wouldn't expect anyone's next of kin to know the names of these guys - one of the reasons I keep menus around are so I have something to reference. I love the coloring and the configuration, and it's neat to have a "teammate" for an especially good crossover figure. I also like the weapons. For $12 back in the day, this was a good figure - maybe not a steal, but certainly worth the asking price. If you can get one for that these days, you should do so.
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