The Captain Power Power Base is kind of poorly-documented on the ol' internet, but you can see it about halfway down the page here. I lucked into a boxed one last year, and it is indeed one of the cooler playsets ever made in 1:18 scale.

The Battlevision set makes the Power Base look overexposed by comparison, but here's a smallish picture of its box:



I recently got one of these from a friend. It's pretty cool, in a Roger-Moore-era Bond villain lair kind of way. Once you get rid of the goofier gimmick pieces (it's covered in them, but they're easily removed), it's like a futuristic Tactical Battle Platform. They're out there to be had, and it's not uncommon to see them in photos of people's collections and displays. I remember them hitting pretty deep clearance at my local Kay-Bee Toys. The main selling point was that the playset interacted with a VHS cassette, much like the Captain Power toys. I've been waiting for the right moment to break out the tape, but based on its hilarious box art, I'm looking forward to it. The set also came with two 3 3/4" figures who are fairly similar to those M-P.A.C.T. figures from the early '90s, but much crappier.

Heh, those sure look cool. Wouldn't mind seeing better pics of em!
EDIT: Google to the rescue! At least for the Power Base!
http://captainpower.tumblr.com/post/885 ... power-base

On the topic of neat non-Joe playsets from the 80s, anyone own the Bionic Six Secret Headquarters?
http://www.virtualtoychest.com/b/bionic ... icsix.html

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I'll try to take a few in the next day or so. They both warrant more documentation than is currently available out there.

As for that Bionic Six playset, I've been looking on and off for years. They show up every now and then on eBay, but usually for a pretty hefty price. It's one of a handful of items that I never saw in a store as a kid (the extraordinarily difficult-to-obtain Robotech playset being another example), and the Bionic Six line wasn't exactly a smash hit, so I'm not terribly surprised that they're kind of hard to find. Still, it looks like it would be fun to have, and if nothing else, I'd just be happy to see one in person at some point.

Google didn't give me much for that Battlevision playset outside of boxed pics... But I'm still not seeing all those goofy elements you brought up. Aside from, I guess, the bubble dome... but is that any sillier than anything Cobra's cooked up?

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Ooo, those Capt Power flycycles are cool. Never knew about them, now WANT.

I've been thinking of using my Battlevision set for the roof of the Baxter Bldg I wanna make.

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The roof of the Baxter building would be an awesome use for that set.

I had a friend who had the Power Base and while it is sort of neat, it felt like it wanted to be a batcave before the animated series batcaves were everywhere. It felt like it was missing something...else. I don't know.

I've never seen the Bionic Six set in person anywhere.

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The Power Base kind of looks like a leftover he-man idea that didn't get used...

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what immediately caught my eye about the bionic six set is that it is not self-contained in any way. Most playsets try to make the plastic itself be the entire scene. That B6 set flows into whereever you place it - floor, table top, etc... and becomes a bigger play area then as a result. It's a subtle thing, but it caught my eye for sure. It helps eliminate the difficulty of suspended reality some sets provide (for me at least) by being so small and out of scale within their own parameters.

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Yup, when/if I ever make a BatCave, it's gonna be built around the 2 (!) PowerBases I have.

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No, the bubble dome is the best part! I just mean that it's covered in brightly-colored working missile launchers and other big, gimmicky parts that make it look very cluttered and busy (to me, at least). Mine came unassembled, so it was easy to lose those parts. But, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would love that aspect of it, so everybody wins.



Good call. I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're absolutely right: the openness is a real strength. It's also such an odd-looking piece: the Bionic Six toys in general are a weird jumble of colors and patterns, and the playset has the same feel to it. That alone makes it interesting to me.

I took a few pictures of the Battlevision playset this afternoon. It turns out my skills as camera-phone photographer are sorely lacking, but you can still get a decent idea of what this thing's deal is. The first two images have all of its elements in place:





This image depicts (in a blurry fashion) the fold-out warhead launching station, bearing the deadliest payload of all: foam. The villains who designed the Battlevision platform clearly plan to litter the planet with these foam missiles and then watch as they refuse to biodegrade.



Here's the platform without all the bells and whistles. It's a pretty well-sculpted piece, and you can get a much better feel for its little details without the spring-loaded weapons cluttering it up. I found the helipad pretty funny: it's fun to imagine someone trying to land even the smallest helicopter on this thing. The amount of decapitations and other helicopter mishaps that would inevitably result would make the Twilight Zone movie blush.



The crane is a cool piece, and I'm hoping to find a home for it somewhere else. The red dome-thing in the center is also pretty rad: it gives the playset a pleasant spy-villain feel (hence the red-jumpsuited henchmen manning it).

Oh, and for good measure, the figures that come with the set. I don't know what to say about these poor bastards that isn't communicated by a single look at them. If there's such a thing as action-figure schadenfreude, these guys are going to make a lot of people very happy.