"In the year 2026 the Earth is invaded by a swarm of terrible alien creatures. President Mendlik immediately order's the military's super robot warriors in to battle. Piloted by Captain Foster and Lieutenant Benham, they are charged with taking the fight to the enemy and they'll win!"
I'm a big fan of the M.A.R.S. heroes line. Ironically, I recently was able to collect all the nine characters (3 troopers, 3 aliens, 3 robots), and I find these by pure happenstance at a store called Family Dollar. These toys are from a line called 'ALIEN ATTACK'. It also has a sister line called 'ROBOT DEFENDERS'. This line contains bootlegged version of the three alien figures form M.A.R.S. Heroes as well as two used from the robot 3-packs. Weird that this cruddy bootleg line has a bakstory and the official M.A.R.S. Heroes do not.
These are available only in 5-packs consisting of three aliens and two robots. All figures are roughly 3 3/4inches in scale and made of semi-pliable plastic, which is slightly lower quality than the real M.A.R.S. Heroes stuff. Technically, there are three 5-packs...so 11 characters in all, I guess.
Some differences...each alien now has TWO shoulder attachments as opposed to the M.A.R.S. figures' one apiece. I like that a lot! Naturally, the joints still pop apart, but they are generally more loose. Only one of the alien face plate sculpts is used for all the figures...there were three in the original M.A.R.S. ones as seen below:
The biggest difference between the Alien Attack aliens and the original M.A.R.S. Heroes ones is the addition of light FX! Normally, I don't care about this sorta stuff, but in this case...I don't mind. Honestly, get a bunch of these guys going off at once, and it can be trippy!
Just hit the blue button on each alien's crotch (conveniently located) in to see a slow strobing or pulsing effect with color changes. You can also barely see the Family Dollar stamp in the pic as well and the battery door.
Like I said before...there are nine aliens in three color groups, spread over three 5-packs. Here's a look at all the ones you can get.
Clearly, the aliens are the stars of this line. We get the two robot figures in each of the three sets. Sadly, no variations. Obviously, these are the two guys mentioned in the backstory (sadly, I neglected to take pics of the packaging...sorry). I have no clue which character is which. Also, you have to wonder if the robot suits are just man-sized armor like with Iron Man or big mechs like with Gundam. Hmmmmmm.
Bootlegs of another M.A.R.S. Heroes line. I've seen a series of robot 3-packs for years at Dollar General and a few other locales for years now. These are based off of two of those figures. I own the originals, but right now I have them deeply buried in storage. I didn't have time to dig them out for this...darnit! Maybe later! Like the aliens, the limbs can pop off and weapons are removable, including the shoulder accessories. No elbow articulation on these Alien Attack 'bots...just like their real M.A.R.S. counterparts.
Alien Attack has a sister line, also at Family Dollar called Robot Defenders. Much bigger, and also has light AND sound FX. Those robots are clear, jumbo-sized bootlegs of M.A.R.S. Heroes single pack Megabots...just missing one gun. I kinda like to pretend these bigger robots contain human pilots and the smaller ones are just drones.
I can totally say that I love not only the original M.A.R.S. Heroes figures, but the Alien Attack and Robot Defender figures as well. i had picked up the bigger robots earlier and took not to the aliens being shown on the package artwork and went back weeks later in hopes of seeing the aliens being made aaaaand...BINGO! Jackpot!!! I would certainly not mind finding more M.A.R.S. bootlegs some day.
Keep in mind, if you see these, inspect the packages before you buy. Being a bit cheaper in quality, the parts may pop off in the package. Since there is a "TRY ME" hole on the front and back...parts may fall out. I was missing one of the robot shoulder accessories, but thankfully nothing form the aliens. Cheapness aside (these are five bucks a set, by the way), not bad.
