The Galaxy Laser Team by Tim Mee

The reissued Tim Mee Galaxy Laser Team is a curiosity among toy soldiers sets. First released some time after the first Star Wars movie, the set is a real mixed bag of spacemen and aliens. There are five characters, two NASA Apollo type astronauts. a drone / robot and a peculiar fighter-jet with X wings tipped with air to air missiles.

The astronauts are about 50mm size. One looks to be an updated version of one of the old MPC Mercury-type astronaut from the early 1960s. The other reminds me of one of the Marx astronauts from the early 60s. The difference is that these are Apollo rather then Mercury astronauts.

The characters are a mixed bag, so to speak. There is a woman standing beside a console who looks right out of the original Star Trek series. A shaggy space alien with a Neanderthal face and antennae is too much like Chewbacca to ignore. The space warrior with raised weapon may have been intended to fill in for Darth Vader, but he looks more like a Marvel Comics type character. In fact, his helmet is quite similar to that worn by Marvel’s "Magneto". A soldier with a ray gun pistol could have been inspired by Star Wars Rebel infantry or the 1970s Buck Rogers TV series.

The Drone robot may have been one of the other robots in Star Wars, and the last character’s origin is uncertain. Jerry, one of the folks who posts on my Army Men Homepage group, put up characters from an old South American comic. They were identical to the Drone / Robot and the last character, a turtle-like thing with lobster claw hands, dinosaur tail and feet like a toddler. I call it a "Turtolob." It turn out the comic itself was inspired by the Galaxy Laser Team!

Then there is the fighter that reminds me on an F4 with x wings and air-to-air missiles at the end of each wing. Maybe they tried to simulate a Star Wars X-Wing. To me, it looks like an N-scale mock-up of something the Skunk Works tried and failed.

Photo courtesy Neil Goodacre

The thing about the Galaxy Laser team is that as a set, it is an odd combination. As a set of playing pieces, it could be good for some sort of space game. I am working on one myself. However, as a source of individual pieces for various types of space gaming, it is the charm! The figures are well-sculpted and have crisp details. With very little work, they can be painted up into a spectacular group of individual space characters. With a little more skill, they could be re-posed and converted for a greater variety of characters. Neil Goodacre, another Army Men Homepage poster, put up a picture of the whole crew fully painted. They look great!

Photo Courtesy Neil Goodacre

If you are into science fiction gaming or if you just like to paint science fiction characters, the Galaxy Laser Team has the raw material. And price-wise, it is economical, too. You pay a lot less, figure for figure, than you would for the hobby figures out there. Why have a squad of hobby figures when, for the same price, you can have an army with the Galaxy Laser team?

Photo courtesy Neil Goodacre

You can read Neil Goodacre’s article for Echidna Games here: Galaxy Laser Team & Echidna

A link to the comic inspired by the Galaxy Laser team: Galaxy Laser comic

You can get the Galaxy Laser team here: Victory Buy

They are also available here: Toy Soldiers Depot