OK – massive nostalgia-fest post – who remembers these? You’d have to be well into your 40s and even though my brother and I had a couple of these figures, I had forgotten about them totally. But as soon as I saw a photo of one everything came rushing back, the weapons and attachments, the comic story on the box and the extra outfits to change Muton into different guises.
Made by toy company Deny’s Fisher in the mid 70s and apparently riffing off a Japanese toy design-wise, these were pre-Star Wars and 2000AD and the closest thing to a space toy I can remember outside of miniature scale models of Space 1999, Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet vehicles. I had Cyborg with his water-squirting laser cannon and missile firing arm attachments. He was like a bigger version of the Time Traveller from Micronauts, all see-through body, robotic parts and ambiguous features. In reality it looked like someone had taken the standard Action Man body mold and cast it in transparent plastic, forgotten to give him any clothes and added robotic parts.
One of the ways the company got you to buy more products was to sell extra sets of attachments, namely feet or arm pieces, so that you could customise him for different play scenarios (remember them?). His enemy, Muton (my brother’s figure), had a similar set and their back story was rendered on the back of their respective boxes to give you a jumping off point to start play from.
My friend Jason Atomic put a photo of his Muton accessories on his Instagram recently and it triggered some long-buried memory in me that sent me off on a Google search to find how I knew these toys. I’ve cribbed several images from the excellent Plaid Stallions site which has more info about these figures so go and take a look if you want more. It seems there was a third figure which I never knew about, another villain named Android who could be transformed with similar extra sets of limbs and, right at the bottom, there’s what appears to be some sort of Argos-type catalogue featuring the toys plus the Six Million Dollar Man which puts it all into some sort of historical context.
I had Cyborg and Android. I remember the first day I played with them at my friend’s house after school and how I didn’t want my friends to mess them up before I’d had a chance to figure out all the combinations of accessories. I particularly liked Cyborg’s roller skates. (Cybo Tracks) and the various gun arm attachments left me jealous that I didn’t have any on my arms. Android was fun too, with his smoked transparent body and missile launching chest. I never got Muton. This was pre-Star Wars, so it made me suspicious of the so-called Droids on the forthcoming movie.
Hi Kevin, I’d say a clearly marked listing on eBay, I’ve no idea about collector circles for these kinds of things, maybe there is a Facebook page for things such as these?
Hi just wondering i have for sale from my childhood all three plus mutons 3 suits, plus the extra weapons the others came with plus some catalogues and even the front of the original box for two, wondering what is the best way to sell these
Hi Martin, I’m really no expert I’m afraid, best look on eBay maybe and see if anything like that is on there.
Hi Everyone,
I wonder if you could advise me. I found my original vintage 1975 Muton Cyborg figure red boots and right hand glove in mint condition in the loft under the flooring. What would be a reasonable price for the three items?
Thank you for your time.
Kind regards
Martin
Wow!!! I simply adored my Muton. I also had the green monster fish outfit. Never did get Cyborg but also never knew about Android.
Muton was a big part of my preteen years even joining in when I got my first Star Wars figures. I had him until I left home aged 23.
I came across this post because my wife was Googling about transparent creatures on Earth and something just triggered in my brain about Muton and Cyborg!!! Funny what can trigger memories!
My goodness I had the entire set in the 70’s
… I especially remember getting Cyborgs ship … Cybo-Invader (if memory serves) on Christmas Day and then dropping it down then stairs and breaking the canopy. I’m now 53 
Wow! Had these as a 9 year old in mid 1970’s and my whole toy world revolved around them. I saved up especially so I could get Android figure as he shot missiles out of his chest. Muton sort of a little let down compared to the Cyborg & Android. My best mate had them and some of the extra accessory sets. We had mad battles after school. We took turns at each other’s house’s (Stayed for tea to.) Only remembered recently as had a dream other night with these in it. Eventually we moved onto other stuff. I went mad for Star Wars figures and mate for Space 1999. It ended in us falling out as he wanted an Space 1999 Eagle spaceship for birthday, and I wanted to get him something else ( Ok I wanted another Star Wars figure really for myself and tried to talk him into it.) Well me selfish really at age 9, so we fell out as never got him the spaceship. Now I’m in my 50’s and we never spoke since we were 9. Through Facebook I looked him up and sent an message (Olive branch). We met up and had a right good laugh over it. 43 years yeats later he said now and again he thought about it as he has got kids and explaining to them about friends and how to treat them. I told him I felt the same. Now we are mate’s again and we couldn’t be happier. Our other halfs have a right good chuckle as we they say we talk like big kids when we are round at each other’s places. I was not really a big fan of social media as people seem to spend their lives on it, but if not for this we still wouldn’t be mates. So sort of in a small way thanx Facebook. The kids like to hear about what we were like as kids, and even they laugh also.
For some reason these two protagonists popped into my head today and I knew they’d be out there on the internet somewhere. They were my action figures of choice for quite some time and I vividly remember saving up my pocket money pennies for the various accessories. Priceless!
I still have all three….mostly in tact. I also have the amphibian costume and the skelator type costume. Sadly I never owned Cyborg’s robot outfit.
Yep I have been searching this bad boy for years”muton” had a cloudy vague image in my head from when I was 8 years old 41years since.
But once I saw this page I knew that I had found him.
I can feel Muton’s squishy brain-head between my fingers to this day. You could pop the head right off and leave him with a little brain-stem thing underneath. In fact I seem to remember the head long outlasting the body in the toy box, like some kind of unclear metaphor.
Excellent genre-bending playmates for these guys: http://www.plaidstallions.com/matchbox/fury.html