Mighty Max

Man I would love a return to toys like this. I still have nearly everything released under this line and the sheer imagination on display is impressive. It seems like any micro toy to come out in the last 15 years has been both few and far between and extremely cheap and lacking in detail when they do come around.

>>6209539
Also toys these days almost never have blood or anything too scary these days like MM did.
Apparently the stuff isn't 'kid-friendly'

>>6209539
I used to play with Mighty Max while my sister bought Polly Pocket. Some time ago, I found out that Mattel recently brought back Polly Pocket...as 3" dress-up dolls.

It's just not the same anymore...

>>6209519
just nostalgia'd
I remember having that green dragon base, I loved it as a kid because it had some pretty gory elements to it if I remember, do you have more pics?

>>6209539
I feel like MegaBloks is the perfect set-up of a revival, especially as Mattel owns the rights of both now. The articulated minifigs Mega Bloks does would add to the play pattern, and the building block style would add to the play value by letting them be connectable. You'd lose the "pocket" aspect of the sets but would keep it through the minifigs.

>>6209519
My collection is still rather small, but so far I have Skull Dungeon (a childhood favorite), the zombie hand, shark, Terror Talons/Dread Star, and Dragon Island.

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>>6216430
I somehow can't help but feel disinterested just imagining that on store shelves. I love Megabloks minifigs, sure, but the fact is, the figures/characters in MM where never the main draw. It was the fact that an entire tiny world existed inside this gruesome creature head that fit in your pocket. They were packed with intricate little sculpted details that made me conjure up many stories and adventures in my mind. Megabloks brick environments just wouldn't really do the same I feel. Also, my favorite ones were the ones where external features became internal ones--like how the Cyclops' eye was a giant crawling eyeball creature, or the shark's fin unfolded into a glider. It is REALLY damn tough to pick a favorite, but I know Palace of Poison ranked really high on my list due to that awesome chain that connected across the playset. Many high-flying escapes were had across that baby.

I'm much older now of course, and I can't honestly see myself carrying around Doom Zones in my pocket like I did when I was a kid. But that's not really the point. The point is to nail that crucial nostalgia. Turning them into plain ol' Megabloks playsets just makes me yawn and want to go to sleep.

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Still trying to complete this collection.
So close.

>>6216430
How retarded

>>6216950
god the sheer aesthetics on the outside are so well done, its fucking art

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>>6217039
Aren't they though? Mighty Max was so amazing and so much effort was put into it. Another part of why I loved this toyline was the fully painted cardback illustrations of monstrous hands holding the Doom Zones. Not to mention there were short comic strips for every individual set printed on the cardback. Simply incredible. It was like a perfect storm of toy engineering and marketing--they absolutely did everything right to make it exciting to a kid at that time.

>>6216954
I don't know why but I really, really loved these micro heads. The yellow brain evil doctor guy was my favorite, and even though they had 0 playability it was great fun having them around.

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I own the Nightwing and Sea Squirm Horror Heads along with Totally Not Jaws.

Mighty Max sets were pretty hardgore, something I think would be omitted if they did a revival of sorts along with paint apps. I wish Mighty Max at least had a comic revival because the cartoon ended in a loop of Max going back in time to the first episode to correct things.

I don't remember ever owning what of these sets, nor do I really remember the toyline being a thing other than knowing the name, but I had a little mastodon figure with bloody tusks that I inexplicably knew was from Mighty Max. Was there a Mighty Max set with a figure like that?

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>>6222099
Sup.

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>>6222155
>>6222099
Decided to look at more pictures of the set.

I fucking love Mighty Max. I need to get more of these playsets.

http://ditreasures.blogspot.com/2014/12/creepmas-day-1-mighty-max-grapples-with.html

it saddens me that while I still feel Secret Saturdays was a spiritual successor to Mighty Max, the playsets were horrible and cheap

>>6209539
this whole thread is giving me flashback whiplash

>tfw found the robot head for 1 £

>>6216950
I begged my grandma to get me the snake just because it had an articulated jaw, it doubled as a villain for my other figures to fight, besides being its own playset. Mighty Max sets are great.

>>6217095
Snake was the best.
>little sister gets 3-4 polly pocket sets for christmas
>We combine them with my micro machine playsets and MM dungeons to make an interactive adventure world

>>6227885
Fuck yeah, it was such a good time for micro-scale. My cousin got Polly Pocket and I got Mighty Max, so we'd pretend that the Polly Pocket sets were the "real world" and Polly and Max would regularly get sucked into alternate-universe Doom Zones that they'd need to escape from.

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Waiting for this to get delivered. I'm excited.

I had all of them except for the rat, hand and snail thing. I've also never seen that big skull. What's it like on the inside?

OP's picture is missing the lava guy that shot a missile. I also had the game.

>>6238185
Magus. The only one I have that's still complete.

I remember it being my first big "thing" as a toy collector as a kid. Poor growing up, saved up for over a year. Finally found it at a discount store.

I have the skull, snake, cyclops with no eye, triceratops and small bat. Maybe 1 or 2 others. Most missing their figs, though, I have a couple saved.

Only one I ever got new was the black spider, and of course somehow lost that over the years.

I've seen the new TMNT micro sets and I've been tempted to buy out the line, but everyone's right, there's no detail. All the sets are just smooth green everywhere, it's boring. They don't even has as much detail as the 90s Mini Mutants sets, even though they're self rip-offs of them!

>>6209519
Back in the day, I had the large spider, fly and ice alien (top row, second from left), along with the little bat (second left from fly). Those things were so damn cool. I also had an episode of the show on VHS that I got in kindergarten and my friend's mom thought it was too violent for us to be watching years later in 3rd grade.

>>6238185
>>6238305
Oh, damn. Yeah, I had that guy along with >>6238324, but I bought him from a yard sale and didn't have the sword or volcano topper.

>>6209519

Woah, what's that orange gecko, purple snail(?), and large skull to the right of the mountain?

I've never seen those sets before.

Dragon Island and that stealth bomber plane that was mutated by aliens were definitely my favorites!

I had most of these. When i was young we moved and my dad threw away my box of toys.

They were all neatly packed away too.

i hate seeing mighty max threads.

>>6238185
It's missing that entire subline of bipedal monsters, there was stuff like an Egyptian snake mummy and Magnus was the "big" set of those. As playsets they were not great but as colossal monster action figures to terrorize max they were great.

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>>6238182
There ya go.

never had maxes. is there a good gallery of them.

>>6239602
Not really, best site I found for minis was Spectrum is green or somesuch, but that's died last I checked.

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So I've had this bag of mighty max figures forever. Least I think most of them are mighty max. Any of you mighty max experts help identify ?

>>6242645
I actually backed up the entire Spectrumisgreen site a while ago because I'm kind of paranoid about big archives of stuff going down someday. I guess this is one of those cases where it paid off. I'm not sure where the files are right now though.

>>6242927
The fact someone did it at all is great, hope you find the files. It wasn't perfect, a lot of stock photos or similar, but then again it was a niche of information and that's always appreciated.

>>6242933
>>6242927

You can still use spectrum is green through archive.org and someone uploaded an archie on the lemurian forums/mighty max forums pretty much the only MM fandom online which oddly enough does have some activity even if smal

l>>6242840
These are from the heroes and villains sets which were figures that didn't come with an actual playset but were original molds in cool poses.

They're awesome and somewhat rare, they can go for really cheap or even quite expensive, it depends on the auction. I'll take them off your hands if you're selling.

>>6242933
I remember it did have some pretty obscure info and photos of prototypes.

>>6242950
Ahh, I always forget about good ol' archive.org.

>>6242950
Sure hit me up

[email protected]

As a wee femanon, I was of course into the polly pockets, and borderline appalled to learn later on in life that these existed as well without me knowing about them.

Fuck is this thread is making me consider splurging on a few sets of both. There's something about tiny "pocket world" toys that just..."have it", y'know?

>>6228996
Kids have the most badass ideas. It truly depresses me when they grow up into dull normies.

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>>6248731

I grew up having Mighty Max but would go over to my cousin's house and play with her Polly Pockets.

Feels good man.

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I wish this line would come back! I had so much fun with this toyline. (Pic related- Nuke Ranger was the first one I picked up as a kinderkid)

>>6248756
I remember the sheer detail molded into the very floor, all the skeletons and corpses that added so much story to the place.

Now kids get cheap plastic crap with some electronics in it.

Philosophical question, anons:

Mighty Max was one of the few 30-minute toy commercial cartoons of it era; virtually every single episode corresponds to a playset. And yet, it never makes a noticeable effort to push the toy line; I marathoned it about a year ago, and the entire time it was thoroughly enjoyable in and of its own merits. It explores various locales and legends around the world, has an unobtrusive educational blurb at the end tying into science/mythology/history, and shows a lot of character development and backstory for the side characters.

Likewise, some of the toys late in the series line are true to the design of the show, but for the most part they take plenty of liberties in the design and aesthetic of each monster-of-the-week. They don't attempt to include every event from every episode, and have several secret compartments, traps, and the infamous skeletons/ghouls adorning the interior of the molding they've come to be known for. You could make an argument that the only significant links between a playset and the episode which inspired it are the theme/totem of the collapsed playset, and the three panel comic included on the back of the package.

What is it, then, that makes this series so memorable and enjoyable for so many of us all these years later, when the show and the toy line were so loosely connected?

And more importantly, what lessons could today's toy companies learn from this example to provide a similar quality and sense of awe and adventure?

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>>6255179
>What is it, then, that makes this series so memorable and enjoyable for so many of us all these years later, when the show and the toy line were so loosely connected?
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it was just a perfect storm of good design and actually knowing what kids wanted. Every single facet of the Max empire was well done, from the toys themselves to the illustrations and comics on the backing cards to the cartoon. It all generated so much excitement.

Even past that though, it was simply a really well crafted toyline. I never saw a single episode of the cartoon, yet I was the hugest MM fan. I can still recall the first time I saw a Doom Zone on the playground, I was so excited I traded some of my best figures for it that very day. It was instantly compelling to me, all the intricate little sculpted details hinting at untold stories and adventures I could have within. It definitely didn't hurt that the sculpt quality and paint apps were phenomenal, and that gold chrome MM on the lid felt like a seal of quality.

I think it also hit at the perfect time for the 90s gross-out fad. What kid didn't want a horrible monster head in their pocket that also happened to contain an entire world? Shit, Ax-Man here legit gave me nightmares as a kid. Sometimes I still can't believe a toy this gruesome was able to be released.

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>>6255207
This is another one that gave me fucking nightmares. Zomboid. Look at that ragged, tattered mouth stained with gore. Look at the oily gleam of a giant centipede barely visible in the darkness between the strands of torn flesh. It's genuinely horrific.

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>>6255215
I think what I also loved about MM was that it was like an opportunity for the sculptors to do these gigantic, super-detailed monster headsculpts. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and they really pushed the boundaries of detail and paint apps. It's a thing of beauty.

>>6209519
I own all of these except Skull Master, the rat, and the four small ones in front.

Anybody have pics of the action figure ones? They were the best.

>>6209519

I love these, I buy a few, from time to time. Still missing many sets and some of the smaller ones are becoming nigh impossible to find.

I guess having a complete set of doom zones & horror heads + mostly complete everything else apart from the really rare ones would leave me content.

Imma check ebay right now.

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IGNORING THE BEST OF THEM ALL. WHAT THE FUCK GUYS

My mom was overprotective and wouldn't let me get a Might Max, so I got a Polly Pocket instead. Other than the disappointment in not getting a MM, I didn't give a fuck about having a PP, the fascination with the engineering and design of folding miniature playsets was still the same.

>>6263036

Ehh, inside's too cramped, and they only give one lava man bike even though it's obvious he was designed to come with one in each leg.

>>6266251
>Ehh, inside's too cramped, and they only give one lava man bike even though it's obvious he was designed to come with one in each leg.

That's because there was no space for Norman if they included two bikes. The designer of a shitton of MM sets explained it in the Mighty Max Archives message board years ago.

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Goddammit, you guys, you've got me on ebay again. I'm amazed at how affordable these still are. I don't think I ever got any of the Horror Heads as a kid, but I'm really loving the looks of these.

Next time I'm at my parents I'm going to have to dig out all the ones I have. I remember one year all I wanted for Christmas was Dragon Island and by god I got it and I was so excited. Such great toys.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if these made a comebacks sometime, although I doubt they'd be as good. But gross out stuff is making a weird revival with all the semi-blind bag collectible stuff like grossery gang or whatever. So horror-ish Xtreme stuff isn't that much of a leap.

>>6209519
i would love an original IP similar to this or WarPlanets nowadays

>>6266272

I know, but I'd honestly rather have two bikes than a Norman.

Not that it's a real problem to me, I had a spare Magus with half the pieces missing and took the bike from that and added it to my complete one.

Also managed to fit Norman in, but it's a bit tricky.

I remember getting these when my dad ran a toys r us back in the early 90s. Back then they'd have random "yard sales" of old toys for cheap. Got tons from there too

I have some in my parents' attic, but memories are very hazy. I had the brown snake one, and a couple others, and some really small items. I recall the TV series better.

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Just won pic related and can't wait to finally have them in hand.

>>6272658
You got em complete? Good job if so. MM is such a difficult toyline on the aftermarket because they have so many tiny loseable parts. I had those two sets as a kid and all I can find now is one of the blue aliens and the mammoth.

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>>6272658
I did. $14 a piece is well worth it. At least in your case it's easier to find the incomplete shells and put your accessories in them so that's something?

There's actually a few eBay sellers who sell only Mighty Max accessories. One in particular was even able to take three of his incomplete scavenger vehicles (the little car in pic related) and make a complete one for me even though his page said he was out of stock.

The Terror Talons we got looks so much better with the vehicle (and pilot) the Dread Star had.

>>6272676

Got lucky and got a complete terror talons for under 20 euros a few years ago. I didnt even know about the whole dread star/terror talons thing. I just saw "complete" and bid.

>>6272718

Ooops, I meant I had a complete dread star. My bad, the two names are still a bit confusing to me.

>>6272720
Same thing for me. I had Terror Talons as a kid and loved the thing so I definitely wanted it again once I rediscovered Max. Later I learned of its "Dread Star" origins and had to get the omitted pieces.

>>6272676
I had this when i was a kid. And that Rat face one

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This is my stuff. Was inspired to dig it out of storage after reading this thread. The bag has various heroes and villains sets and extra figures. Only complete sets in the pic

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>>6278247
Dope, you have my three favorite sets of all time: Palace of Poison, The Man Eater, and The Hand. The Hand was so fucking great...the finger opening up into this toothy creature was just brilliant. Plus, as a horror-obsessed kid, the whole haunted woods/mausoleum theme really did it for me.

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>>6272658
HOOOOOLY SHIIIT
>that cool looking sabertooth tiger
>that cool mammoth figure
I was always thinking about getting Mighty Max but wasnt sure what set i need exactly. Now i know.

>>6278307
Godspeed, anon. I got that set for like my 12th birthday and man, it was a good birthday. The mammoth is such a pleasing little figure in-hand.

IIRC the inner lower jaw is spring-loaded, too.

I loved this show, I need to finish watching it.

>>6278288

Those are all super slick. My personal favorites are probably The Hand, Man Eater, the Fly and the series 1 small heads like Zomboid and Nuke Ranger.

I somewhat feel that while the Doom Zones only became better with series 2 and 3, the Horror Heads actually became less and less interesting, for the most part.

But I love them all, really.

>>6278247
You've inspired me. I'll snap a pic of my collection once Battlecat and Wolfship arrive later today.

>>6278307
I'm so stoked to get mine. I always thought it was a neat looking set. And PS, if you like beavers you can totally leave out the mammoth and pretend you have a Battlebeaver playset.

>>6278371
IT'S FUCKING SPRING LOADED??

http://www.toyhypeusa.com/2017/03/17/playmates-toys-tmnt-micro-mutants-leos-surprise-attack-playset-review/

How about these?

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>>6278433
Tough to compete against the originals.

>>6278247
Woah. What are the fly and the snail/nautilus ones? I don't think I've ever seen them.

>>6278433

They ain't bad. My nephews had a couple and we had lots of fun playing with them.

I also had a cheapo street fighter style playset that was shaped like a SNES controller. Shit was pretty cash. I believe it was unlicensed

>>6278453

http://mightymax.wikia.com/wiki/Mighty_Max_Sinks_Nautilus

http://mightymax.wikia.com/wiki/Mighty_Max_Squishes_Fly

Nautilus is a very odd one. Both pretty cool tho.

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>>6278247
Here's my collection so far. I've only been back into Mighty Max for around a year, but I love this toyline so much.

How is Magnus? I saw commercials for him all the time as a kid but never got it.

>>6278561
>Magnus

Why so many people call it "Magnus"? The name has always been "Magus".

>>6278616
Slight retardation and years of Transformers brainwashing are my excuses.

I actually knew it was Magus, but didn't catch the mistake. Whoops.

>>6278561

He's very cool. He doesn't have a ton of internal space unlike a lot of other larger playsets, but I think the novelty of having a playset which becomes a large articulate creature is worth it. He has very nice components in my opinion, a good number of lava monsters and all three heroes.

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>>6278618
No problem anon, it's just that I've seen it written incorrectly so many times that I was curious about the reason. Have this pic.

Answering your previous question, Magus is pretty cool. The interior is somewhat crappy and you can't do much with it, but the fun is in the actual figure itself and its accesories. As a kid I always wanted a Magus but never got one, so it was one of the only two MM sets I bought as an adult (the second one being Dragon Island).

>>6278652

I want Dragon Island and Skull Master the most out of the big sets, but I haven't found any with a good price/shipping to where I am. Most of my collection (I was the earlier collectionpicanon) was bought at flea markets.