It was gonna happen. That time when I start to think, “Hmm, what do I own that is spooky?” and then I remember I haven’t done a Mighty Max post yet.

I think anyone who has visited this site before should be somewhat familiar with Mighty Max by now. Essentially Mighty Max was Polly Pocket but geared towards boys, which makes sense as Bluebird Toys manufactured both toylines. They were similar in the sense that they were both compact playsets that opened up but whilst Polly would go and get a haircut in a lovely little shopping mall, Max would usually have to try to outwit some demonic entity that would want to slice off his face and eat him.

So enough dilly dallying. Lets take a look at the unpleasant experience in store for Max today!

As you can see, the outer case is the head of some crazed man with a red complexion and a metal muzzle/mask over his face. I think I’d be pretty pissed off too if I had to wear a thing like that. It’s an interesting enough design though and I’d take that any day over the generic heart or circular shaped Polly Pocket toys. But if moralistic cartoons taught me anything as a kid, it’s that what’s inside is far more important than on the outside. So here we go!

It looks to be the inside of a barn, with farm equipment and hay moulded into the upper part of the set. On the lower part is a large box, with Max peeking from out from behind it. The neat thing about this set is that there is a large skull on the top of the box, which becomes the eye of the head when the set is closed, and the padlock on the side of the box becomes the lock on the muzzle when the set is closed. MM toys often did neat little things like this, or included accessories that were far too big to just fit into the playset when closed, so had them protruding from the set and part of the outer design.

Removing the lid of the box reveals the antagonist of the set, who I’m guessing is ‘Lockjaw’, a miniature version of the angry muzzled man. He’s angrily brandishing an axe and looks set on removing some of Max’s limbs.

It really does look like a scene from Friday the 13th, with Lockjaw being a stand-in for Jason Voorhees. I don’t remember exactly which Friday the 13th movie it was, but  it was the one with the asshole greasers/bikers where a few killings take place in a barn. This could very well be inspired by that movie.

Despite this set being pretty tiny, the detail is what makes it pretty amazing. I’ve said before how impressed I am with the details of the MM toyline, and this set is no different. Look at the interior of Lockjaws crate, there’s a little hammer and a sword and a rope sculpted in, with a shovel placed on the ground next to it.

I can’t recall another ‘miniature’ toyline that actually sculpted loads of little details half as well as Mighty Max. A lot of sets like Micro Machines relied on stickers, which is an automatic effort fail in my book.

I don’t think I have that much more to say about this set, but I had a lot of fun playing with it to take photos. I like slasher movies, and the genre lends itself well to a MM playset. As much as I love the old Hammer Horror-esque crypts and Frankenstein laboratories, a simple barn with an axe-wielding  maniac adds an an element of chilling believability that isn’t found in the previously mentioned set styles. That said, I will probably have a look at a less realistic Mighty Max playset before the Halloween Countdown is over, just because Mighty Max is awesome.

That’s another day over in the countdown. We’re over halfway there now which is a bit of a shame, but there’s still six more spine-chilling days to go, so come back tomorrow for more!