Dr. Derek Bright

Include the Inhumanoids on the list of promising yet inadequately marketed eighties toy properties. Inhumanoids was well positioned, with Hasbro production a cartoon tie-in. Alas, the cartoon consisted of an anemic skein of seven-minute clips on Sunday morning animation graveyard Super Sunday. The story was compelling enough: A team of heroic scientist adventurers battles a series of re-animated ancient subterranean monsters with the aid of other ancient subterranean monsters. Sounds good, right? Apparently not to children or parents, circa 1986. The toys were neat, though.

Dr. Derek Bright is one of those heroic scientist adventurers.

All of the human characters wear these strange, oddly proportioned protective suits, crafted from a heavy, rubbery plastic.

In lieu of any practical grasping tools, Bright has these huge hinged basket-claw things, presumably for harvesting geological specimens. They are nightmarish and impractical.

Bright’s suit is pure bondage Steampunk, with bio-mechanical valves, gaskets and tubing. His front is more restrained, but his back is a tangle of parts.

The sculpt is engrossing, really special for the era.

With such a sinister outfit, the twisted monster within must be quite a sight.

Let’s remove his helmet (complete with a neat but barely functioning light pipe). Nope, it’s a grinning, avuncular doofus! Hey Dr. Bright! Weird goddamned lab suit you got there!

Articulation is limited. The arms rotate at the shoulders, the tools rotate and hinge, the legs rotate at the hips. He doesn’t do much but flail and sit.

The weirdness of this design is really arresting, very similar to the Power Lords ethos. Definitely worth checking out if you’re into this kind of thing.