Superman Through the Ages! Forum

This should bring back some memories, or give you a terrific glimpse of another era.

About Heroes World Catalogs:

Back in the 1970's comic books seemed to serve two purposes.

To fill our heads with adventure (or romance, I guess) and to show us what new toys were out there.

The king of toy advertising in comics had to be the New Jersey based chain Heroes World , a king of mail marketing HW produced four colour comics filled with ads beautifully drawn by the Joe Kubert school of art.

Heroes World Catalogs were coveted among children then as they are with collectors today. Before the internet, before Toyshop, these were the only documents that showed you full lines and products created by mego.

So with that, take a look at some old school Super toys and rare artwork:

Heroes World Catalogs Scans
http://www.megomuseum.com/megolibrary/hwcats.shtml

I had a couple of these and I agree they are fascinating relics.

However, my big gripe with them at the time...which still holds...is that the items in the catalog were illustrated with drawings by Kubert and his students, and not by actual photographs.  This always made them seem doubly useless because:

(1) if you're considering a purchase, can you really trust a drawing?  Isn't rule number one to show people what they're actually paying money for? (Interestingly, in the case of Mego products, drawings by art school students almost always looked better than the real toys anyway).

(2) if useless as a catalog, then can we at least collect it as a comic?  But who wants to buy a comic where all the drawings are of action figures?

Ultimately, I'm glad I've got these old pink elephants anyway.  In an ironic sort of way, they symbolize all that was at once great and junky about the Mego line and 70s toys in general.  They are garish, weird, inaccurate, awkward and...either in spite of or maybe because of all that...unforgettable and essential.

I LOVE those catalogs back in the '70's!  I used to read 'em, wishing I'd had money to buy all the DC toys they had listed.  

Man, I wish they had something like those things now.  ;)

Some stuff brings back memories, others don't (I'm in Canada and not everything in the u.s. was availlable here).

What always struck me even as a kid is own the merchandising people thought we we retarded or something.  What does a stretchable Superman or a Batman that can fly?  Have Plastic Man, Elongated Man or Mr Fantastic stretch.  Have Superman fly, Spider-Man climb walls but don't put everyone in the same bag.

I remember buying some Superman(s) mego.  These are worth fortunes today and I wonder why?  Superman himself wasn't bad but the rest of the heroes look real bad.  Stickers of insignias peeling off before the box was open, every hero with gloves had painted hands or winter mits!  Today, the cost has gone up for smaller figures but they are accurate (at least those from DC Direct).  They can even have emotions on their faces...

Yeah, that was always funny.

They did a Spidey web-shooter (actually a wrist-mounted dart pistol) that sold well, so then there was a repainted Captain America version.  And the Batmobile begat the Arrow-Car and a Cap car, Batman's utility belt led to a Spidey version and so on.  Most of them were a stretch, but the ones that never made any sense were the Hulk items.  Why would the Green Goliath need any gadgets other than his fists?  And where would he store them?  (This is one of the few times Stan the Man missed the boat...there's few ways to market peripherals for a character who wears nothing but ripped pants!)

I have to say the Mego's do have some enduring charm, though darned if I could define it for you.  Maybe it's their very cheapness and inferiority that makes them lovable, kind of like a dog with a bum leg.  But honestly, even at 8 years old I knew they were junk.

Those Mego Star Trek figs were pretty sweet, however...

The Hulk Mego was pretty sweet. I belive he was the best one, besides Superman, of course :)

http://www.megomuseum.com/marvel/hulk.shtml

People like Megos now because, they liked them as a kid and because they are not high tech slick perfect figures. In Japan, those old crude Vinyl figures, get remolded and sold for big bucks to collectors.

Just like those big dots on old comics and colors that go over the lines, from a design POV, there is something really cool about stuff like that.

There is beauty in imperfection, just ask Kidd Chip, he has made tons of money pointing this out :)

Megos are cool. Period.  

I can't believe there are people who remember Mego from their own childhood and yet dismiss them in favour of some slick new toy with 60 points of articulation, etc.  New toys are gross!  They are chillingly, horrorfyingly lifelike, except for all the joints, and their fetishization by fans borders on pornographic obsession.

Of the superheroes, Superman and Hulk are very cool.  Batman is classically cool.  Spiderman is awful --you could take his costume off but not his mask and gloves.  Megos couldn't make fists!