Micro Collection Death Star Escape Action Playset

I've been bitten by a new collecting bug, and it's the Micro Collection. I can't say that the small stuff hasn't ever been on my radar (a couple years ago I was able to complete my loose run of diecast ships) but it's never been a focus, until now. I've had a mint loose Death Star Escape set in a storage box for over a decade - or two? - I don't remember where I got it, I always thought it was neat, but it never was a focus. But recently for whatever reason I got the bug to develop that part of my collection, so here we go! 

Let's start with the tableau, replicating the box photo. But first let's get into a bit of Micro history. The Micro Collection was released by Kenner in 1982. These were plastic playsets in approximately 1:60 scale - instead of action figures, you got prepainted diecast metal figures included, in a variety of poses. There were several sets available: Hoth Wampa Cave, Hoth Ion Cannon, Hoth Generator Attack (also collected into the Hoth World mega-set), Hoth Turret Defense, Bespin Control Room, Bespin Gantry, Bespin Freeze Chamber (collected into Bespin World), and Death Star Compactor and Death Star Escape (collected into Death Star World). There were ships as well - the X-Wing Fighter, TIE Fighter, Snowspeeder (J.C. Penney exclusive and also sold in Australia) and Millennium Falcon (Sears exclusive and ditto). But we'll get to most of those in future posts.

Like I said earlier, I've had my loose Death Star Escape for donkey's years. But I decided to pick up a box for it recently, as I want to have all of the playsets in boxes. This box is a real beauty too, and it came with all the goodies, as we'll see in a minute. Here are some tableaux from the box photos:

The Micro Collection boxes are just great, very colourful and distinctive with plenty of pictures and a great mailaway offer. It's kinda too bad there aren't more play photos for my tableaux. 

The box came with all the goodies - instructions, ESB catalog, sticker sheet, and even the original bags for the figures - nice! The instructions are particularly good:

Hey I almost forgot - the box even came with the cardboard insert. Really the complete package.

One last thing - here's the copyright info from the bottom of the set.

So we're off on the Micro Collection and it's gonna be a trip. I've got lots to get to and stuff to talk about (I've just ordered Gus and Duncan's Micro Collection book so look out for a review and some tidbits from that) and I can't wait to get at it!