James Gillam's book is the most comprehensive text we have come across on Major Matt Mason, Zeroids and Colorforms Aliens.  We have found it to be an invaluable reference for cataloging and authenticating these toys.  It contains a wealth of illustrations of both loose and packaged items.  Mr Gillam’s approach to the subject matter is straight forward and informative.  Instead of filling the book with anecdotes and childhood memories as so many authors would do, he instead concentrates on facts relating to the subject matter.  This is actually a refreshing approach which saves the reader from having to wade through reams of useless information to find the facts they seek. 

The book is broken up into an introduction and three major sections.  Appropriately enough these sections are Major Matt Mason, Zeroids, and Colorforms Aliens, respectively.  The bulk of the book is dedicated to Major Matt Mason, as the number of figures and accessory sets for this toy far outnumber those of the other two.  He starts out with a brief history of the era in which the toys were created and some of the events which influenced their design and popularity.  While at this point I am not a MMM collector, I still found myself intrigued by the wealth of items available in the series, and it has sparked my interest in collecting items from the series.  He even includes box art from international versions of many MMM items, and details the subtle differences between those and the US versions.  The MMM section also contains pictures of figure and playset variations, spin offs and prototypes and rumors.  He concludes the section with a price guide which contains stock numbers, illustrations and descriptions.  While this may not make you a MMM expert, it will go a long way towards educating the new collector or filling in those missing spots for the advanced collector.

The Zeroids section is surprisingly detailed.  While all collectors know ZINTAR, ZERAK, ZOBOR and the rarer ZOGG, Mr Gillam has unearthed their odd looking cousin, ZEMO.  Looking somewhat hacked together, ZEMO encompasses elements of three of the four other zeroids.  Full page ads and pictures of every packaging variation imaginable adorn the ZEROIDS section, as well as pictures and information on accessory sets and variations.  He even has a section on the 70’s Star Wars knock off STAR TEAM items, in which ZOGG lost his head and Captain Action was recast in black plastic as a Darth Vader clone.  This section also concludes with an informative price guide.

The final chapter of the book is dedicated to another of our personal favorites, the Outer Space Men, or as they are better known, Colorforms Aliens.  He includes pictures of both loose and carded aliens, details all their accessories and reproduces the blister card text.  Along with the original seven aliens (Alpha 7, Commander Comet, Colossus Rex, Electron +, Xodiac, Orbitron and the highly desirable Astro Nautilus) this section also contains pictures of carded version of the never released second series aliens.  With more exotic accessories and their even greater unearthly appearance, these figures from “The world of the future” would have certainly taken the Colorforms Aliens line to another level.  Alas, that was never to be, but thanks to Mr Gillams book the lost aliens are preserved, at least in picture form.  This section too contains the obligatory price guide and a knock offs section. 

Why, you may ask, if I am so enamored by this book, did it receive four aliens instead of five?  Well, in all honestly, while the book is presented in full color, it looks as though the body was printed on an inkjet printer.  The wonderful artwork in this book deserves to be presented on sharp, glossy stock, instead it has been printed on flat paper which is slightly better than newsprint and the pictures suffer for that.  The brilliant colors of the originals are reproduced in relatively low resolution washed out colors.  After being presented with the full color glossy cover artwork, the flat colors in the text are disappointing.

So do I recommend this book?  Absolutely.  My copy has been signed by the author and I am not giving it up.  We at Games and beyond are pretty stingy with our aliens and don’t give four to just anyone.  Thanks to James H. Gillam for amassing all this invaluable information and making it available in a single comprehensive text. 

Dan Webster

Editors Note:  Since publishing this review, we have been contacted by Collectors Guild Publishing LTD who have told us that the decision to use a color-web press to print the book was theirs, and it was based on their desire to be able to produce the book in color and still keep the list price below twenty dollars.   We would like to thank them for providing us this information and for publishing this great book.