Lego Space - Blacktron (1987-1988)

Blacktron (1987-1988)

The first unified and truly themed Space sets, Blacktron took to the stars in black with yellow trim, and red and yellow transparent pieces. (The odd man out was the Meteor Monitor, which was white and black with red transparents.) Blacktron minifigures (or "minifigs" for short) wore black jumpsuits akin to today's military pilots, with white trim and opaque black visors. Stylish, sleek and intimidating, Blacktron was a major step up from the rather clunky design values of Classic Space. It featured a large spacecraft, the "Renegade," which set the tone for all future big ships by splitting into a number of smaller modules, including a storage bin for a small wheeled vehicle; these modules could be recombined not just with each other, but with modules from other vehicles in the set as well, specifically the "Invader" and "Battrax." This modular interchangeability has been a staple of Lego Space ever since.

Popular Blacktron vehicles include Renegade, Invader, Battrax (all 1987) and Alienator (1988). The base was Message Intercept Base (1988).

For clarification, Blacktron is often referred to as Blacktron I, as Lego released Blacktron II in 1991. Though Blacktron officially ended in 1988, the Meteor Monitor was released in 1990. Considering Blacktron II's slightly altered color scheme, Meteor Monitor could be viewed as being from between the "upgrade" era of Blacktron to Blacktron II.

In 2010 LEGO made the new alien minifig in a set 5981 Raid VPR from the Space Police III theme (year 2010). The alien minifig were called Rench which was a tribute to both old Blacktron themes (I and II). The Rench minifig has the Blacktron II logo on his torso and an upgraded Blacktron I uniform. In 2011 the LEGO Group made another updated Blacktron minifigure, which comes with the Series 3 of "Collectable Minifigures" (8803) called Cyborg/Space Villain, with the Blacktron II logo on his chest and the Blacktron I colour scheme.

* There are two versions of this set.