Membros
Membros is a fictional character in the Micronauts series. He is an evil alien humanoid slug introduced as a toy in 1979. He did not appear in Micronauts fiction until 2004.
Micronauts
Membros are evil humanoid slug aliens in the Micronauts series. Membros comes from the planet Visceros, which is also the homeworld of Terraphant.
Advertisements referred to Antron and Membros as androids, but the the word seemed to be used to mean cyborgs.[1]
The package for Ampzilla mentions that Antron or Membros can fit inside Ampzilla.
In a Mego catalog a Membros can be seen piloting Iguanos and Terraphant.[2]
Development
Membros was designed by California R&D for Mego under the name Slugman. He was designed to look like a yellow and green humanoid sea slug in armor. This version of Membros had hands that held a gun instead of cuffs with 5mm pegs.
The prototype figure for Membros was colorful, and use 5mm cuffs for hands.
Membros was released as part of the 4th wave of Mego Micronauts in 1979. Versions of this toy were also released by Gig, Lion Rock and Pin Pin Toys.
Membros was released by Palisades in 2003 in four retail color variants, plus the exclusive Bio-Scan version. Bio-Scan Membros was brainchild of Kristof Erkiletian and the initial cost was funded by him personally while Ray Miller and his wife did all the shipping and handling.
Ray Miller mentioned another recolor Membros Palisades had planned for Palisades on Facebook in 2018.
Another alternate to the black Membros that didn't make the final cut was one with transparent red arms. I have one of the test shots. I call him "Bloodworm Membros", since he sort of has Dracula colors... Yeah, I really like him. Shame it didn't make final production. But - given the issues with the transparent plastic and the faulty inner blister that stressed the elbow joints to breaking - it probably would only have given us another figure with a high critical failure... I think there are probably less than a half-dozen of this test shot out there.
In 2004 Bryan Wilkinson posted the concept of the clear yellow Membros being a fungus-like creature called an Embros which was mimicking Membros DNA.[3]
In 2018 Mathew Robert Ignash released several replacement parts for Membros on Shapeways.
Fictional biography
Slithery Skinned Invader from the Remote World of Visceros A sight any Micronaut explorer dreads detecting in his Bioscanners, these radioactive wraiths haunt the battle fields of Visceros. The deadly Membros wanders the dark craters of it's home world, stalking friend and foe alike, polluted by radiation spilling from the fractured atomic piles once powering their demolished Terraphant battletanks.
Comics
1979 Marvel Comics
Membros was the only Micronauts alien figure not to appeared in the Marvel Comics Micronauts series.
In 2005 The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Fantastic Four in stated that several Antron, Membros and Repto androids worked for Psycho-Man, although Membros was never depicted in the comics.