My Starriors obsession is well-documented. But lurking underneath my thus-far unsuccessful and ineffective campaign to get updated Starriors figures in this, the most retro-toy updatey time ever, is another goal. It’s a goal you would think would be rather simple: obtaining a complete vintage Starriors collection. However, despite lasting a paltry two waves and despite the fact that these toys were so unloved that they were discounted to mere pennies on the dollar in some stores, it has been oddly hard to acquire the vintage figures.
In theory, eBay should be flooded with Starriors. Being such an unloved property, it doesn’t seem as though people would be holding on to them like they might their vintage Joe or Masters of the Universe collections. But, if nobody bought them, then it follows that nobody would be able to, as adults, discover their old collection in their parent’s attic to try to score some extra cash.
It’s a pickle of a conundrum.
I started this particular collecting path two years ago. I managed to acquire a decent amount of the humanoid robots and some odds and ends, but it becomes more difficult when you start looking for the subject of this article: the wheeled figures, otherwise known as Rammors. These are the vehicle-like subset of Starriors that feature pull-back wheels. It’s quite possible to find parts of them, but finding whole Rammors that still have all their parts and, especially, the rubber on their tire? That’s a stickier wicket than an Ewok eating cotton candy.
Like with every vintage toy line, carded or mint-in-box figures will pop up, but those are usually at premium prices. Despite wanting to complete my collection, I am a cheap bastard, so I’m not really willing to spend too much to do so. But occasionally, availability and price meet in that sweet, sweet spot, and I’m able to pounce with a clear conscience. That’s how I managed to get a boxed vintage Auntie Tank.
A while back I managed to get just the body of Auntie Tank without any of the weapons for a very cheap price. This was way back in the beginning of trolling eBay for Starriors, so I figured I’d easily be able to track down some weapons to go with the body. Well, two years passed and I still had a weaponless chassis. I barely hesitated when I saw a complete boxed one go up.
Starriors were such a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it toy property that I never had the pleasure of seeing any of these fully boxed Rammors in store. Best Department store was the only store that carried Starriors back then, and, despite having a fantastic selection of almost everything, they only carried the bubble-carded humanoid robots (called Wastors). Imagine a store carrying G.I. Joe but not carrying any of their iconic vehicles, except on a much smaller and less successful scale.
The first thing you notice with vintage packaging is the artwork. I’m a huge fan of various painted or drawn artwork on older toy lines and have always appreciated individualized artwork. Here, you get a nice shot of Auntie Tank in action. This box is in great shape — I could almost believe it remained boxed in a backroom and never actually made it to a peg. It does have a price tag, so I’m assuming it did actually make it to a display at some point. These may have been stacked on a bottom shelf somewhere. I wonder how long it sat around being ignored by kids before it was bundled up and carted off to make room for another short-lived toy line. I’ve been listening, but the box isn’t telling me any stories.
One side of the box features the actual Auntie Tank toy, and the other features Backfire, another of the Rammor class figures. Despite the artwork being extremely faithful to the toy itself, if you were a kid and knew nothing about the line this picture on the side gives you your only look at what you’re buying.
Like I said, this box has a price tag on it. This was originally sold at Child World, a toy store in existence from 1970 through 1992. Child World bought Children’s Palace, which is why there seems to be two names on the tag. Child World was apparently a Toys ‘R’ Us-like store, one I wasn’t aware of at all until I was an adult and started reading threads about vintage toys. You can find old television commercials for it on youtube.
Look at that price: $3.28. I wonder how much something like this would go for now?
The back of the box features the full lineup of Rammor class figures featuring the stock artistic representation that was used for the line. It also features the brief storyline and an illustration showing what the toy does. Pull it back, let it go.
Unboxed, you get a sprue full of pieces that snap on, stickers, a mini-comic, and the body of Auntie Tank herself. Itself. Whichever. Auntie is very simple: wheeled, with zero points of articulation, and featuring the standard “driver,” which in the mythology set up within the Starriors brand was actually the brains (or operating systems) of the Starriors molded into human form.
As Starriors took the general inspiration from Tomy’s Zoids line, they had to explain the drivers somehow, and I think that’s a pretty good explanation. It made the destruction of their “brain” in the storyline all the more disturbing because it was human-shaped.
The figure is clean without any aging or dulling. It’s literally time-warped from 1984 to now with no damage or ill-effects. Pretty cool.
The Sprue kit is still sealed, and everything is in great shape.
You can get a bit more detail to the Starriors story with the back of the mini-comic. This booklet was really crammed in there, so it’s got a fold about a quarter of the way down from the top, but a little flattening will straighten that out. Or not. It’s been that way for 31 years, so it might be permanently bent.
Once freed from the sprue, you’ve got a handful of decent options for customizing your Auntie Tank. All Starriors are fully modular, which means these pieces can attach to any of the figures and vice-versa. Starriors are notoriously brittle, though, so it’s imperative that you be careful with their pegs.
While these come with a set of stickers, I’ve opted to leave them off of Auntie. After so long sitting in a box with questionable climate control, I’m not sure how well the stickers would actually do their thing, so I’d rather leave her pure and keep the stickers on the sheet. Besides, I actually like the red and black unmarred by random stickers anywhere.
I’ve opted to tool her up with both guns, the front claw-hands and the back . . . missile thing.
And that’s that. After spending a handful of decades locked away from civilization, this grouping of various colored plastic is finally achieving what it was made for: it’s a toy. It’s a character, a part of a whole, a piece of a puzzle. Deboxed and put together, it’s alive. It’s Auntie Tank.
As a bonus, I’ve included the mini-comic in its entirety. If I had a scanner, I could have done this a lot better, but you’ll have to make do with pictures of the pages. If you care to, take a read through of this comic. While it’s got a simple stripped down storyline written with an all-ages feel to it, this is some pretty deep stuff, and may give you a clue as to why this property resonated with me so much. With no 65-episode syndicated cartoon available, these few mini-comics and the original Marvel four issue mini-series were the only stories available for this brand. It’s not really surprising why Starriors failed without the massive media train to shove it along, but it’s a shame nonetheless.
Heavy stuff.
Hope you enjoyed this trip to a different time. Thanks for reading!