Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 10, 2025 | 10 comments

COMICS 101: The ultimate Mego grail — where Marvel and DC live side by side…

Well, not every Wednesday. Now, it’s a recurring feature.

By SCOTT TIPTON

DESTINATION: SUPERCITY

Here’s something of a Holy Grail in my own personal toy-collecting story, something I’ve been looking for around 45 years or so that finally fell into my lap. Allow me to explain:

I vividly remembered seeing as a kid in one of my mother’s housekeeping magazines a feature about this huge elaborate city block you could make for your Mego World’s Greatest Super-Heroes action figures: a skyscraper, a revolving door, lampposts, even a phone booth for Superman to change in. However, successive searches of my parents’ house always turned up negative. I couldn’t even remember what magazine it was in, but I remembered the photos like it was yesterday.

As the years went by and the internet became the massive conglomeration of geek minutiae that it is today, I would periodically search the web for signs of this phantom feature. Surely by now some other Mego fanboy would have discovered this magazine in a garage somewhere and put the pictures up. Eventually, I found some reference to it and that it had appeared in Woman’s Day. A bit more research revealed that in 1982, the magazine’s publishers put out a book titled Woman’s Day’s Book of Best-Loved Toys & Dolls. 

The time frame was right: it might be in there. A quick search on eBay located a copy of the book in question, and some two weeks and seven American dollars later, the book was in my hands, and sure enough, the pages were in sight. I had returned to Mego Supercity. And it was pretty much exactly as I remembered it, if maybe a bit more corrugated. (There was also at least a mail-away exclusive for the plans.)

The first thing to come to mind? What is Sue Storm doing climbing up the side of the wall?

Sure, Spidey makes perfect sense, but seeing the Invisible Girl clambering up the masonry seems a little odd to say the least. Note the Velcro patches on the building to allow the Megos to climb; a clever touch. I like the Penguin hotfooting it from the scene of the crime on the lower right, with Captain America heading out the window in pursuit.

By the way, take a look at the Batman figure behind the wheel of the Batmobile cruising down the avenue: That’s the rarer “Removable Mask” Batman, a Mego I didn’t get until I was in my thirties.

In looking at the schematics and instructions for the Supercity, apparently Woman’s Day expected most 1970s housewives to have an X-Acto precision compass and a hot glue gun, as well as a minor in engineering, because these schematics are complicated.

This thing is daunting; definitely not something you knock out for the kids between setting up the Crock Pot and watching Donahue. I mean, look at this: the Bank Building even had two flights of stairs, complete with roof access:

And look at this: the telephone booth was rigged with a toothpick, a rubber band and a clothespin to catapult your Mego Superman through the roof of the booth. No problem at all, if your mother is MacGyver.

The skyscraper even boasted a working elevator — check out Robin taking it easy inside.

Another feature of the skyscraper was its revolving door, which seems to be fascinating the Hulk to no end.

Next door to the skyscraper was the apartment house, which, while lacking either an elevator or stairs, did offer a convenient trap door and escape chute, which we see Robin using to once again escape the Hulk, who seems to be in everyone’s house in Supercity. Talk about the guest who won’t go home.

And there’s the garage, which even has an entrance ramp for your Mego Batmobile or Spider-Car (although I suspect the clearance may be too low for the giant web trap on the back…).

And because your Supercity wouldn’t be complete without stuff for the Hulk to throw around, they helpfully include directions for making your own cardboard lampposts, trashcans and fire hydrants.

Oh, and if you want the complete plans, hit up the Mego Museum!

I don’t think I’ll be building my own Supercity any time soon, I must confess. But at least now I know I wasn’t imagining the whole thing…

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MORE

— Dig This Prototype 1983 MEGO BATMOBILE That Might Have Been. Click here.

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