TOYHEM! Let’s get small… — Welcome to TOYHEM! For the seventh straight holiday season, we’re bringing you a series of features and columns celebrating the toys of our youth, which often made for the best memories this time of year. Click here to check out the complete index of stories — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! (NOTE: This first ran during TOYHEM 2023.) — Dan — By SCOTT TIPTON Like many of us here at 13th Dimension, I grew up a huge fan of Mego’s superhero toys. And when most people hear the term “Megos,” they all think the same thing: 8-inch-tall action figures with cloth outfits and uniforms; it’s practically synonymous. But true Mego connoisseurs know that there was also a secondary action-figure line for Mego superheroes: the Comic Action Heroes! Nowadays, most folks think that the 3 3/4-inch action figure got its start with Kenner and their insanely popular Star Wars toys that began to hit stores in 1978. In fact, other toymakers like Fisher-Price, Mattel and, yes, Mego had gotten there first in the early ’70s, with lines like Adventure People and Heroes in Action. For Mego, Comic Action Heroes was a way to extend its very successful licenses from Marvel and DC without cannibalizing sales from the primary World’s Greatest Super-Heroes product line. Debuting in 1976, Comic Action Heroes focused on the company’s most popular super-characters: Spider-Man, Hulk, Captain America and the Green Goblin on the Marvel side of things, and Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam!, Joker and Penguin from the Distinguished Competition. Each figure came with an orange faux-stone display stand and accessories where appropriate, such as Cap’s shield or Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth. I never did understand why all the figures were molded in a permanent crouch; they all look like they’re either playing goalie in the World Cup or lowering themselves gingerly into a rocking chair. And while the sculpts are overall kind of primitive compared to today’s 1:18-scale figures, a close look at the faces reveals some impressive sculpting work at that size, particularly on characters like Hulk, Joker and Penguin. Mego also went pretty light on the paint-operations on these figures, to such a degree that most of them are more than a little off-model. (As you can see here on my...