Bizarre Toy Box: Lords of Light

- by Jacurutu99, 26 April 2017
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The Micronaut toy line was a huge success for toy manufacturer Mego. The action figures were repurposed for the United States from the popular Microman, a creation of Japanese-based toy company Takara in 1974. Micronauts stood out in comparison to other action figures of the day with an extremely high number of articulation points, great detail, and later on, deluxe figures that used magnetic ball-and-socket joints in their heads, legs and  shoulders.

Many of the Micronauts toys used interchangeable ports and connectors that allowed parts to be transferred and connected between different toys, for several new combinations.

Mego went out of business due to a series of bad moves, including passing on the offer to produce STAR WARS toys, which went on to become hugely successful for its competitor, Kenner. The huge popularity of the Star Wars figures also established a new industry standard size of 3-3/4" for actions figures, taking sales away from the 8" standard popularized by Mego in the past.

A still from the Lords of Light commercial.

Also, the new focus on electronic toys in the early 1980s, like the Fabulous Fred hand-held game player and 2-XL toy robot, was disastrous for Mego. Micronauts ceased production in 1980 as Mego reportedly had $40 million in losses in the years 1980/1981.
 
In this era, action figure molds were often sold if a company closed in order to try to recoup some of the losses. A manufacturer could sell the figures to discount store outlets with new names, repaints jobs, etc. When Mego ultimately closed up shop 1982 the original molds for many of the toys found new homes as they were sold off to 3 different companies:

• Italian licensee/distributor Gig’s for the foreign I Micronauti line,
• Hourtoys/M&D Toys for their Interchangables discount toy line,
• and PAC Toys for use in their Lords of Light toy line. 

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​For Pac's LORDS OF LIGHT, a new "gimmick" was added - the option of removing the heads of the figures and then inserting a mini glow stick into the chest. Figures came packed with 3 Emralyete Power Rods. When those Emralyete power rods eventually "powered down" you could fill out the order form to purchase more glow sticks, 6 for $3.95, as well as mini comic which gave you the Lords of Light story.

The Lords mainly used the 3/3 4 molds of previous smaller scale Micronaunts that Mego were experimenting with to compete among the newer smaller-scale successes. 

A section of the Lords of Light cardback showing the heroic characters, the Izzurians.

The Lords of Light EVILITES, sworn to destroy IZZURIANS. Check out the brief slideshow below to view some of the Evilities figures.

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This edition of Bizarre Toy Box wouldn't be possible without valuable toy knowledge archives like The Robot's Voice, Micro Outpost, Figure Realm, Mego Museum, OnlineToyShow and AcroRay's Lord of the Light commercials video - go check them out!

Tagged: collectibles & merch, Bizarre Toy Box.

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