'With Removable Battle Droid' - Marchon
Were they trying for an alt mode that looks like an airport control tower? We may never know, however the challenge of a tall, thin design delivers mixed bag.
Air Commander's double fold down legs give the robot unexpected height while in contrast, the short, blaster arms are disappointingly minimal. This Mysterians' main feature is the removable 'computer controlled' Droid that lives in Air Commander's torso. This in itself is confusing as the blister card front refers to it as a 'Battle Droid' and then twice on the back it's called different things; an Armor Plated Droid and then Secret Radar Droid. Armor Plated Secret Radar Battle Droid might have been too much of a mouthful.
See Mysterians main index for further details.
Region Codes Used: US United States / CA Canada / AU Australia - Location codes only shown where items were known to be released.
This list is accurate yet likely to be incomplete. If you are able to confirm release in other regions please get in contact.
Mysterians US/CA/AU Marchon 1984
Trivia The M sticker on Air Commander's chest doesn't fully fill the sculpted shape for it leaving the thin, outer most ends exposed. This could indicate a manufacturing assembly cost saving measure to avoid quality control issues from slightly misaligned stickers.
Prototype The brown prototype below may have been the colour planned for the final version until close to manufacture. The front of blister card art shows Air Commander as brown with the same odd green/white eyes. Counting the corrugations on the head covers sees them not match the production release. It's quite possible the artist was given this flat surfaced prototype and told to add some corrugation details.
A couple of sculpt changes were made to better secure the Droid to its hatch platform. The prototype's hatch has an upraised ridge with no securing point under the Droid other than forcing its underbody over the ridge ends. Whereas the production version was modified to adopt a plug and socket solution.
There's a number of matching sculpt marks on both the prototype and production version to show that this is genuinely the same sculpt the final version was made from. The final image below shows scrape marks on the inside of the model that are present on both prototype and retail release.
Glow in the Dark Eyes? The Air Commander prototype's eyes as well as its Droid's under body are made from plastic that looks as if it would glow in the dark. It's also different to the off cream white plastic used for the arms and antenna; also for other Mysterians prototypes. I've tried to charge it up under bright light with no result, however with the age and it being prototype quality the effect may not have survived. The eyes on the card art depict an odd green vs. the white green of the prototype, possibly trying to indicate a glow in the dark appearance. It's only speculation.
Stamped (c) Marchon Inc. 1984 Made in China
Prototype vs. Production Release