Many longish years ago, when I was but a young fella, I had (like many children) a number of persistent fears. The most dominant of these concerned, a) My parents untimely death, and, b) The catastrophic nuclear conflagration which seemed (in those heady days) terrifyingly imminent.

I well recall arriving in primary school one day (when I was about nine) clutching an alarming clipping snipped from the previous day's paper. The news was not good. According to a well-known clairvoyant, nuclear Armageddon lay just around the corner - with 1985 being cited as the year in which hell and handbaskets would come (explosively) together.

He/She was quoted as saying (and I paraphrase) "There can be little doubt that this will come to pass". As might be expected I reacted to this news by exhibiting that somber and intense anxiety peculiar to the very young. In my troubled mind's eye I pictured not merely an irradiated global wasteland (bad and all as that was), but, rather, a planet blown (Krypton-like) to absolute smithereens. Needless to say, such a result would also realise fear (a)…as the chances of my parents surviving the total destruction of the earth were rather remote.

Upon reaching school I immediately sought out my brainiest and most self-assured pal. Given that he'd previously introduced a gobsmacked class to the (apparently deadly accurate) prophecies of Nostradamus I figured he'd be the perfect judge of the article's reliability. Though undoubtedly clever and well-read he was not (alas) too hot in the reassurance stakes. As he scanned the clipping he tutted and shook his head sadly…his body language strongly implying the same grim message: "There can be little doubt that this will come to pass".

Happily, the world did not come to an end in 1985 - a fact confirmed by a cursory glance glance out the study window. Yup - there it is - looking the very picture of robust health (global warming notwithstanding).

While the melancholic image of ICBMs crisscrossing the Irish skies as we stood and stared remained a potent one for many years, I don't recall ever experiencing a fear of anything other than terrestrial threats. In other words, the notion of alien invasions and abductions simply didn't feature on my childhood terror radar. The children of the 1950s and 1990s (fertile alien decades) may well have listed such scenarios among their catalogue of concerns, but for me the mushroom cloud, and not the almond Grey alien head, was the more nightmarish shape.

After this protracted introduction (and possible cries of "Don't bore us, get to the chorus!) allow me to present today's Manky Toy:

"Protect the Planet" we are urged. Something of an alarmist invocation considering that the pictured foe looks like little more than a harmlessly cute Manga version of Predator. Perhaps it's merely that we live in a cultural climate of constantly exaggerated fears, but I'm not convinced by the apparent threat. Still…it doesn't hurt to be prepared, and it's in that spirit that I test the weapon provided.

Regardless of how minor the threat actually is, it's probably safe to say that "soft foam" bullets are not necessarily the first tools planetary defenders would reach for. Further complicating the situation are the stern orders found on the reverse of the box:

These caveats, of course, seem decidedly at odds with those military tactics popularised by the likes of Starship Troopers (et al), where firing repeatedly at the face and eyes from point blank range seems like a very good idea indeed.

Ignoring these warnings (somewhat) I attempted to put the weapon through its paces, with an unsettling, humanoid, wooden zebra figure standing in for an invading alien:

Standing close enough to be considered a point blank shooter I took aim at the face and eyes and pulled the trigger. Away went the foam rocket toward its target before inexplicably (and wildly) veering off - looping worryingly back toward me before flying over my shoulder and coming to rest on top of the TV. With defensive technology like this the planet is, I'm sorry to say, totally fucked…

Actually the more I look at the weapon the more its design suggest an alien aesthetic. Could it be the product of reverse-engineering one wonders - the end result of scientific attempts to replicate captured alien weaponry? If so, it seems that the aliens are having the last laugh.

I, for one, welcome our new overlords.