A Look Back: 1992 LEGO Magazine (Featuring Pirates and Space!)

A few days ago, I began going through this gem that I discovered from 1992.

That's the LEGO magazine that came (I think?) in large sets.  I deeply treasured that magazine back in the day - and as luck would have it, I kept it all these years.  I've already talked about my favorite theme (Castle) in the previous blog entry but today we get to take a look at my second favorite theme (from when I was a kid).

First though, we begin with my brother's favorite theme:  Pirates!

The Pirates theme has been popular for LEGO - so popular, in fact, that they seem to bring some sort of Pirates theme back every three or four years.  I believe there is a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie coming out soon(ish) so I imagine we'll see another round of Pirate movie sets soon(ish) as well!

However, despite the popularity of movie tie-in sets, I don't think anything Pirate line can beat the classic Pirates of the early 90s.  I must say that I love how LEGO included a bit of a "bio" on each of the factions - they did that for the Castle factions and now here for the two Pirate factions.  As a kid, I didn't own a lot of Pirate sets - but my brother did (including Raft Raiders and Buried Treasure).  I think he might have also owned Smuggler's Shanty but I could be wrong about that.  I also know he owned a big Pirate ship, though I don't recall if it was the one shown here.  As for myself, a couple of years ago I found Forbidden Island for a (relative) steal on eBay and so I bought it...that was the one set that always caught my eye as a kid.

On the next page, we get sets from the Imperial Guards.

Once again, my brother gets the glory here - I know for sure he had both the Broadside's Brig set and the Lagoon Lock-Up set.  He also had the small Bounty Boat.  As for me, I always thought Sabre Island looked cool (and it's one that I've had my eye on a few different times on eBay, but I've never pulled the trigger).  I'd also like to track down the Imperial Trading Post some day - a great looking set!

While I didn't own a lot of Pirate stuff, I did have a lot from the next theme:  Space.

As with the previous two themes, LEGO took time to explain the various factions in this theme as well.  I always loved the MTron (and later Ice Planet).

Looking at the sets on the next page, I only owned the Vector Detector (in fact, that is my lone MTron set that I own to this day).  That said, I did almost win the Multi Core Magnetizer on eBay a few weeks ago...so maybe someday I'll add to my MTron collection.  As for the Space Police, as a kid I only owned one little Space Police car (not shown here) but as an adult I have since bought Rebel Hunter (see my review here).  That's a pretty cool set - in fact, it's much nicer than it looks in the image on the page.

Finally, we turn the page to the last of the Space stuff:  Blacktron.

The Blacktron were definitely the "bad guys" of Space.  I remember getting the Allied Avenger as a kid (and loving it).  I think my brother had the Sub Orbital Guardian...neither of us had any of the big Space sets from this time unfortunately (the Alpha Centauri Outpost looks pretty cool).  Notice in the bottom corner of the page that there is a Space Mini Figures set.  I know my brother owned that as well.  I wish that LEGO did more things like that these days - for kids on a budget, that was a great way to add to our collection of figures without having to spend a lot of cash.

Finally, the Space section ends with the rest of the huge Blacktron diorama and then an advertisement for the Value Pack which includes a Blacktron vehicle, a small castle set, a pirate set, and an Octan race car.  As a kid, I always wanted that value set...but it never happened (in fact, I don't ever recall seeing it in a store).

That ends the Pirates and Space portion of the magazine, but there are still plenty of cool things remaining (including Town for which both my brother and I owned a few sets).  I'll have more from this magazine later on, so stay tuned!

PS:  If you happen upon this blog entry and you have some old LEGO that you no longer want.  Let me know, maybe we can work out some sort of deal!

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