TOYHEM 2023 BEGINS! Let’s get small…
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Welcome to TOYHEM! For the fifth 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! — Dan
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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 childhood set, my mother took it upon herself to correct the matter, most noticeably on Captain America and Spidey, who still have the additional paint detail provided by her. She also improved my Wonder Woman, Shazam! and Robin, but the paint wore away on those after years of play.)
The smaller size of the Comic Action Heroes line also allowed Mego more flexibility when it came to vehicles and playsets, which it took advantage of in a big way. In the first year, there were three offerings: the Exploding Bridge with the Batmobile, the Collapsing Tower with the Invisible Airplane, and the crown jewel of the line, the Fortress of Solitude Playset. Just look at this bad boy!
All of the vehicles/playsets came with what they called an “Activator,” a pneumatic spring device that could be used to create various explosion effects on the different toys. It could be used to blow a door off its hinges. It could also be used to launch an action figure into the air, which I recall happened quite frequently around my house. These things were so fragile, and only worked sporadically even then; finding one intact and functional today is nearly impossible.
Even though the Fortress of Solitude is billed as such, it definitely gives off more Hall of Justice vibes. In fact, a close look at the meeting table and chairs reveals them to be exact duplicates of Alex Toth’s designs for the Hall of Justice on the first season of Super Friends. It’s possible that this was originally intended as a Hall of Justice set, but the name was changed so as to avoid confusion with the larger Hall of Justice that Mego had produced for its larger WGSH line.
Another curiosity: A close look at one of the computer screens shows a scene of Superman fighting alongside… Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch? An art guy at Mego who didn’t know the difference between Marvel and DC probably just traced Superman over a piece of Marvel art. A charmingly weird novelty, to be sure.
This wouldn’t be the end for Mego and its miniature heroes, with more vehicles and playsets and even a full-line refresh in the years to come. But that will have to be a tale for a future TOYHEM…
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MORE
— The Complete TOYHEM INDEX of Stories and Features. Click here.
— The TOP 13 MEGO WORLD’S GREATEST SUPER-HEROES Vehicles and Playsets — RANKED. Click here.
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Scott Tipton is 13th Dimension’s longest-tenured contributor-at-large. He’s best known as the writer of scores of Star Trek comics published by IDW.
November 24, 2023
Gotta luv an era where 1) lawyers aren’t called to arms when Avengers show up in a DC toy set. And, 2) a time where DC didn’t micromanage every detail in their licensing.
Fun article. I don’t recall the line. My only suggestion would be that references to “Shazam!” should be Captain Marvel. It was the ‘70s…..
November 24, 2023
I’ll always vote to call the Big Red Cheese by his proper name, to be sure. But just as a matter of accuracy, back in the ’70s all Mego’s Captain Marvel merchandise carried the “Shazam!” trade dress, presumably to cross-promote with the DC comic books and Filmation television series of the same name.
November 24, 2023
These are the forerunners to all the Toy Biz and Kenner Comic Book Action figures from the 80’s onward larger than 1/18 scale.
November 24, 2023
The ‘sun’s out, guns out’ Robin will take some getting used to.
November 24, 2023
(Insert juvenile joke about the right hands of all these figures)
November 24, 2023
I had Spidey and Hulk. Both long gone. Thankfully, I kept my comics.
November 25, 2023
Wow!
November 25, 2023
I always thought it weird that Wonder Woman’s top came off.
November 25, 2023
I had a Penguin figure from the line that I played with the larger Mego figures I had, figuring The Penguin is shorter in the comics so the difference in size was no big deal.
November 25, 2023
Ah, the squatting pose meant that they could sit in their chairs! I don’t think I ever saw pics of them in seated positions before. They look good around the conference table.
In 1979, when Mego did “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” figures in the same scale, they were all straight-legged, and looked really silly in the vacuformed chairs of the bridge playset.
December 19, 2023
Mego actually made a line of straight-legged comic figures too! They were called Pocket Heroes, released about a year after the Comic Action Heroes. (And yes, they did look silly in the chairs too!)