No, I never owned that weird “Spock” helmet (but I remember seeing it in stores).
So I was no stranger to the Mego series of action figures, those 8-inch tall poseable dolls with fabric clothing and (usually) molded plastic accessories. As a Young Mikester I had the first two series of the Star Trek figures (as well as the amazing Enterprise playset and these “communicators.” And a whole bunch of other Trekkian products until Star Wars came out in ’77 and suddenly there was a whole new obsession into which my poor parents had to sink more of their household income. (I also had at least one Planet of the Apes figure, pretty sure just Generic Ape.)
Alas, the landfill was the ultimate fate of all these goodies, as we cleaned house years later and I, the smooth and cool teenager that I was*, decided to put away childish things.. Or at least dump them, like I did the tricoder out the truck window which I realized was still in the cab as we were leaving.
There had been reissues of some of the older Mego lines over the years, or at least lookalikes, and even new figures that never originally had Mego-esque releases, with the plastic bodies and the clothes and all that. I’ve admired the work on many of those, as they passed through either my previous place of employment or my own store, but I’ve never felt tempted at picking up any of these for my own collection.
Well, guess what happened. Yup, the Figure Toy Company (which specializes in Mego-likes) produced an officially licensed Swamp Thing figure in the classic style. Yes, with fabric clothing (which I poked a little fun at when first announced):
And that would indeed be the very figure I received in the mail just a few days after placing my order. No, I haven’t opened it yet, so I don’t know if under his leafy garments Swamp Thing is wearing little blue underwears like his Mego Star Trek cousins. …What? Anyway, it’s a good looking figure, definitely evokes the original Mego style. Good face sculpt, definitely not a repaint of Spider-Man villain the Lizard.
I’m not quite the Swamp Thing completist I used to be, and I really don’t need to be spending money of ridiculous stuff like this. But it brings a nostalgic smile to my face when I look at it, and after the year we’ve all had, who can blame me for wanting this?
I had the Mego Spock and Kirk. Both of them had their left arm become dislocated in exactly the same way within a month of me getting them.
I had friends with them and the same thing happened to theirs. At this point I gotta wonder if that was a design flaw or if we were all that unlucky.
Jack: “left arm become dislocated”
That REALLY sounds like a design flaw. or at least, cheap manufacturing!
There should absolutely be Swamp Thing pajamas based on this design, complete with fur collar.
Jack – I have to tell you, I played with these figures excessively and never had a problem with the limbs (though I did know a friend or two who did). Maybe there was a design flaw that was corrected in later runs, or possibly not present in early runs? Or I was just lucky? Hard to say.
I’m gonna guess it was a design flaw that got fixed later, then, because MAN it was so frequent in my circle of friends. Poor Spock and Kirk always had dislocated arms.