[Lego] Black light - #6989 Mega Core Magnetizer

Since it has been a while since my last non-project related LEGO® blogpost, I thought it might be a good excuse to dust off one of my favorite Space models for a Black light post! It has also been almost 1,5 years ago since my last Black light post.

The #6989 Mega Core Magnetizer was the largest set of the M-Tron line (released in 1990), a theme that started the extensive use of magnets in non-train sets. It held the record for being the largest Space wheeled vehicle set that LEGO® for almost twenty years, with the #7699 MT-101 Armoured Drilling Unit (Mars Mission, from 2007) holding the current record.

Large Space wheeled vehicles is unfortunately not a common thing to see in Space sets. Rarely has a wheeled vehicle been the largest set in a Space subtheme, with other names as the Arachnoid Star Base (Insectoids, 1998) and the Galactic Titan (Galaxy Squad, 2013) being other notable examples. Either way, Space hasn't been such a common theme to be done since Star Wars was released - most likely because Star Wars cannibalizes the sales of Space, and not many children are as interested in most evergreen LEGO® themes (i.e. Pirates, Space, Castle) as most adults have that were born before 2000.

 

The Mega Core Magnetizer is packed with lots of play features, most of which are designed around the main crane it has. The crane contains one of those magnets, and pretty much every cargo has a magnet too. Almost every Space theme had a story-based role and existed in the same imaginary universe that LEGO® set up since Futuron, and M-Tron were set up to be the mechanics and engineers to repair broken spaceships and other stuff (as shown in promotional material).

All of the cargo conveniently fits in the main vehicle build and the crane can easily reach every cargo without much hassle. Despite this being an old set and perhaps "blocky" for today's standards, it screams to be played with and I can imagine it made a lot of children happy! PS: I did not own this set as a child. On the contrary, this set is older than I am.

While nowadays a lot of modern LEGO® Designers keep track of what sets they've designed in the past few years, it is fairly difficult to find out who designed the older LEGO® sets before 2000. Just only a handful of LEGO® Designers from before 2000 are still working at this day, and fortunately a colleague of the designer of this set has kept track of what he has designed over the past almost 30 (!) years. I was surprised to see he was responsible for a lot of fantastic and well known sets that are highly coveted by a lot of fans, including some favorite sets of mine...

Speaking of old! I own the original box of this set with the instructions and all. This is probably going to be the oldest LEGO® box I'll ever own, because I have little interest in sets prior to 1990. Either way: if this box were a legal citizen, it would've been old enough to vote in most countries.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!