StarCom - The US Space Force review

In the 80s, there where a lot of cartoons, and a lot of pretty awesome toylines.  Because back then, these series where created purely for the marketing of those lines.

One of the latest to arrive in this format, was my beloved toyline of StarCom and it`s to short cartoon series.

Because by then, the `engine` was dwindling down, and while the series was actually pretty realistic compared to other space shows, the toyline wasn`t a big succes over in the States.

Heck, StarCom toys where far more popular, but far more difficult to get, in Europe, with Germany and Italy being it`s biggest market, so this makes it a highly collectable toy line.

The series itself focusses on the US Space Force having expanded into our solar system, and being opposed by the power hungry scientist calling himself `Emperor Dark`, lord of the Shadow Empire.

While both the StarCom base and the Shadow Force main bases are located in the Saturn rings, the adventures take place in the known universe.

A stranded mission on heat baking Mercury, a story about the fabled `ruins on Mars`, a hijacked training cruise... those are just some of the adventures the leading trio of hero`s face.  StarCom is divided into three divisions, and their respective col. are the centre points of the adventures. 

Slim is from StarBase Command, Crowbar is from the Astro Marines and Dash from the Star Wing divisions, each force having their own colours and structures.

The series was developped with the help of NASA itself, and was apart from marketing the toyline also a way to inspire more young people to go and pursue careers in the space orientated sciences and engineerings.

All in all, even though it lasted only for 13 episoded, and had an open ending as it wasn`t renewed, StarCom was a pretty fantastic show, but a sequence of effects like it`s time slot changing, the toyline lack of succes overseas and the general loss of intrest in `yet another saturday morning cartoon` led to it`s to soonish ending...