M is for Morestone's Modern Product Mars Mission Morris & Stone Men!

As you may have gathered from the title or already knew, Modern Products was an early incarnation of what would ultimately become Budgie, best known for their die-cast toy vehicles, motorcycles and wagons.

Yet these are made of a nice stable, slightly soapy polyethylene, unlike the supposedly later cowboys (seen on the Blog back at the start) who are in a brittle, chalky, 'early British' polyethylene, so I would be tempted to suggest these came along after the Modern Products branding had actually been dropped, or that my version are a late re-issue by Starcourt Ltd., who ended-up with the Budgie tools/mould-bank?

I don't know why I know they are Morestone (Morris & Stone), but I have firmly marked their card thus, so it's likely they've been in Plastic Warrior magazine (link) in the past and I got it from there? So - equally - I don't know how many there are pose-wise, I have three with the fourth a duplicate pose in another colour and they were among my first true 54mm figures, bought at the BP Fairs NEC Birmingham show in 2009/10 sometime.

I've had a quick look on Alphadrome but they don't seem to have them and Google also failed, so these may be new to the Wibbly Wobbly Way, but there must be at least a fourth pose out there?

You can clearly see the A Modern Product branding on the upper-side of the base, and he looks like he may have been manufactured for the 'de rigueur' fitting of a clear-plastic helmet as per- most of his contemporaries, but again; I don't know that for sure?

The weirdest thing about them (look again) is that they all seem to have been sponsored on their intergalactic challenge by Honda motorcycles! Even to a - blank - text-box below the eagle's wing where you would normally find Honda's moniker.