Galaxy Laser Team Jumbo Reissues Review

Galaxy Laser Team is back and bigger than ever…literally, the Jumbo figures of GLT/Star Patrol have been re-released! We’ve got a bag of them and go in depth looking them over!

In the late 70’s during the Star Wars craze there was a set of army men like toys that depicted crazy space aliens, astronauts, evil villains and heroic characters similar to those seen in space operas like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Star Wars. These bags of small plastic space figures were called Galaxy Laser Team (or Star Patrol sometimes) Many of these classic toys have recently been re-released by Tim Mee Toys including the Jumbo versions we are looking at today.

 

The full set comes bagged with a header card just like the vintage toys did. Since these are the jumbo figures (Typically around 4 3/4″ tall or 120mm) there is only one of each figure in the bag rather than the 3 of each figure you get with the smaller (54mm tall) regular figures.

 

Here we have the Mailbox Droid (Not an official name as none of the figures have actual names) You can see there’s a lot of detail here and the sculpt looks nice and sharp. The figure is solid and feels sturdy enough that you don’t worry about it breaking while playing with it. The Mailbox Droid is one of the few figures that doesn’t have a sculpted stand area due to his feet working well enough to keep him standing.

 

The Lobster-Turtle (affectionately known as the Hillsville Bug by my friends) is one of the more well known figures from Galaxy Laser Team since it’s one of the strangest. He is the other figure in the set that is free standing without a sculpted stand piece. Like the Mailbox Droid, the Hillsville Bug has a lot of nicely sculpted details all over. I really like that the antenna on his head is nice and thick so you don’t worry about them breaking off.

 

The Space Yeti is my favorite piece. This is the figure that drew me into collecting these guys. It’s just such an odd figure, A neanderthal like hairy creature with a laser rifle, antenna and ripped up blue jeans. Did he steal the pants from one of his victims? Did he transform into this creature? or does he just like wearing ripped up pants? Who knows? This is the first figure we’ve shown you with the generic sculpted stand around his feet that everyone knows from Army Men, there’s not much there, it’s just a smooth area to allow the figure to stand easily.

 

Here’s our Captain Benedict who is sporting the classic sci-fi serial look complete with space pistol. The Captain has the thinnest antenna of all the figures, but it’s still thick enough that you don’t really have to worry too much about it breaking.

 

Darth Ming is one of the tallest figures due to him holding his lightblade over his head. This sculpt feels more Flash Gordon-esq than any of the other figures in the set. The figure just screams evil space villain to me.

 

Sometimes you just have to have normal astronauts along with all your space fantasy figures, so we get a Mercury era Astronaut in the bag. He looks like he was originally sculpted to hold on to a flag pole though I don’t believe one was ever in the GLT/Star Patrol bags (the one from the army men bags probably works though)

 

Here is a comparison between a vintage jumbo Space Yeti and the re-issue one, as you can see, there is very little (if any) difference (The picture shows a perceived height difference and makes the re-issue look like the head is positioned differently, but in person that’s not the case, this is a trick of the camera lens. Also the vintage Space Yeti is missing an antenna and the other antenna has been chewed a lot) I was really surprised when I compared the two figures because from what I understand, the molds for these jumbo figures were just found earlier this year, yet the re-issues are so clean and look so sharp, you’d think they just made new molds. After collecting GI Joes for a number of years and seeing the multiple uses of the v1 Storm Shadow mold and the degradation it has suffered throughout the years, it just surprises me how good these look.

 

Here is a group picture of my two jumbo Space Yeti and 5 of the smaller vintage ones. You can see that the sculpts all match in most every detail.

 

This is a comparison of the jumbo Astronaut with a vintage small one that was hand painted by the talented owner of ThrowAway Toyz Just like with the Space Yeti (and all of the GLT/Star Patrol figures) I love how all the intricate details on the sculpt of the smaller figures translates perfectly to the larger figures and doesn’t make the figure look like it’s missing details or has a lot of empty space.

 

To give you a better scale of the size of these figures, I’ve put the Space Yeti next to a 5″ Batman Beyond and a modern era Flint custom. Like I mentioned earlier, the figures are around the 4 3/4″ height.

 

These six figures are a great throwback to many of our childhoods and look excellent. I love how crisp all the details are on the figures and how sturdy they feel. The price may seem a little high (typically around $15 per bag) but the figures look great and it is one of very few products made and sold in the USA and the quality is very evident here. Tim Mee does have sales from time to time as well (sometimes as much as 60% off)

If you grew up with any of these figures or if you just like oddball toys, this set was made for you.