Toy Fair 2002 was a total blast, even though I only got to see what LEGO® had to offer. As you can see from the above pics, Evil TAHU came along for the ride, and even helped out a bit with some pics. At the very top, there is a close-up of Evil TAHU strapped into the EXO-TOA suit, followed by two full-body shots from the front and left, and then one shot of the empty suit. And yes, Evil TAHU approves. If you squeeze the bicep on the right arm, it causes the two-clawed fist to snap out like MUAKA’s head. The left arm has a projectile launcher, like the one on the TECHNIC® Stormtrooper.

If you release the catch on the chest plate, you can plug a TOA into the frontal cavity, though I don’t believe POHATU will fit unless you flip his torso upside-down to match the other TOA. The footrests are spring loaded to flip up when not in use, and there is a section that flips up to where the head of a TOA would be, and I suspect the idea is that the EXO-TOA can be automated to work by itself, but not perform as well without a real TOA inside.

Next we have the BOXOR. The MATORAN is quite different from the previously shown version, in that he wears an orange PAKARI instead of a RURU, and he has a black torso and arms instead of red ones. When you push down on the body, it compresses the legs and causes the arms to snap forward independantly of each other. The MATORAN perches on an ‘L’-shaped liftarm, but like the KAHU, seems to require a temporary leg-amputation before it will work.

Then we have CAHDOK and GAHDOK. These are basically Queen BOHROK and they attempt to defend the pod-nest from the TOA and any other would-be heroes. I’m a bit disappointed in the design. Even if you lean them all the way forward, they still snap their heads up at steeper than a 45 degree angle. They do, however, have a new joint structure which can also be seen on the new ALPHA TEAM™ sets, the SW:AOTC sets, and even on the new GALIDOR™ action figures.

Finally, they had this cool display of a hatching BOHROK swarm. In the first pic, if you look to the left of the LEHVAK group, you can see LEWA swinging from a vine. Way down at the bottom of the TAHNOK cluster you can see TAHU trying to scale the wall. More disturbingly , if you look on the highest TAHNOK pod, you can see TAHU’s HAU…well out of reach. The other two pics show either a GAHLOK or a LEHVAK bursting out of their pods.