Debs – Vintage Action Figures

Mr Fantastic by Mego polaroid head and shoulders shot

Plastic Fantastic! Mister Fantastic by Mego

For fans of the Marvel Universe, there’s been no shortage of movies and TV shows over the past fifteen years – or rather, a mind-boggling onslaught of never-ending films and reboot after reboot! The Marvel Cinematic Universe has released 36 films so far, with at least nine more in the pipeline at the time of writing.

Next up is Fantastic Four: First Steps, centred on the iconic Marvel Comics team. This will be the 37th instalment in the MCU and marks a new chapter for the legendary heroes, following the second cinematic reboot in 2015, which bombed catastrophically at the box office.

P-P-Pick up a MEGO Penguin!

Colin Farrell has been busy collecting awards for his recent turn as Oz Cobb (a modern spin on the original comic-book name Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot), aka The Penguin, in the television miniseries spin-off from The Batman (2022), starring Robert Pattinson as the man in the cowl. It’s fair to say this gritty crime drama is a far cry from the Penguin of my childhood! While I’m also a fan of the downright creepiness of Danny DeVito’s portrayal in the Tim Burton reimagining of the Batman universe, I’ll always have a soft spot for Burgess Meredith’s Penguin.

‘I am Dracula … I bid you welcome!’ The Dreadful Dracula from Mego’s Mad Monster Series

Could there be a better occasion than Halloween for reviving a blog from the dead? So here we are again folks … weeeee’re back!!! Mwahahaha!! Anybody who has followed this blog in the past will know that I’m a huge fan of Mego 1970s action figures. I’m also a huge fan of the old monster movies that were produced by Universal Studios from the 1920s through to the 1960s, so the Mad Monsters line by Mego comes top on my list of all-time favourite action figures. They may not have been officially licensed products, but they manage to skirt licensing laws and produce four figures that are spookily reminiscent of their silver screen counterparts.

Robin Hood and Mego’s Super Merry Men

Who doesn’t love Robin Hood? He’s everybody’s favourite Medieval subversive, known for his archery skills, noble acts, and his commitment to robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. Despite being a fictional character, Robin Hood has become a cultural icon, inspiring numerous adaptations in literature, films, and television shows. The legend of Robin Hood continues to captivate audiences around the world and Hollywood revisits his tale with regularity, although the last attempt to revamp the classic with Taron Egerton wielding the longbow, was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards! Ouch! Stealing from the 1% to feed the 99%? Better quash that concept, don’t want the movie-going peasants to get any strange ideas, do we now…?! But I digress…

R2-D2… Now with Sensorscope!

Since first starting this blog almost fifteen years ago there has been a huge amount of change in the Star Wars universe. The generation of kids who grew up watching the prequels – episodes I to III – are now adults and the action figures they played with back in the day have officially crossed that magical albeit arbitrary line of twenty-years, the minimum requirement to becoming ‘vintage’. Meanwhile, many of the Generation X-ers who derided the prequels so much, are now revisiting them. Hating Episodes I-III was the cool thing to do, right? Maybe it took a series of even more divisive sequels in the shape of J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, and Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi – episodes VII-IX for those of you who are still counting – to provoke a prequel reappraisal. And there is nothing quite like a powerful injection of nostalgia to kick-start a Renaissance!

Ghostbusters Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man …signed by Sigourney Weaver!

I recently had the very good fortune of attending the European première of the brand-new Ghostbusters movie, Afterlife (or Ghostbusters: Legacy as we call it this side of the pond here in Italy). It was my first time back in a packed cinema since the pandemic, so this gathering of fans felt like an extra special experience. Shown as part of the Alice nella Città children’s film festival on the opening night of the Rome Film Fest, it was a spooktacular affair, with screenwriter Gil Kenan, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Jason Reitman, in attendance to introduce the screening. I won’t reveal any spoilers here, other than to say that this Ghostbusters fan left the theatre happy with an unapologetically nostalgic film that skilfully passed on the torch to a younger Stranger Things generation of viewers.

The Real Ghostbusters Screaming Heroes: Winston Zeddemore

Looking back over this last year of blogging, I noticed that I started the year with a vintage Ghostbusters figure, meaning that nearly a year has passed since I last blogged about one of my favourite lines from the 1980s – The Real Ghostbusters by the legendary Kenner. Let’s set that right straight away with a closer look at this fun 5-inch Winston Zeddmore figure from the Screaming Heroes subset. A hugely popular action figure line that dominated the market until they were knocked off the top spot in the early 1990s by, of all things, a family of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Real Ghostbusters figures still turn up loose in thrift stores and charity bins on occasions, which is where I found this Winston just the other day.

Juggernaut with Power Punch – the Unstoppable X-Men Villain!

The brainchild of legendary comic book writer Stan Lee, and artist Jack Kirby, Juggernaut aka Cain Marko first appeared during the Silver Age of Comic Books in X-Men #12 published in 1965. When Toy Biz issued this 5-inch Juggernaut action figure as part of the Evil Mutant subset of characters in the first series of its hugely popular Uncanny X-Men line decades later in 1991, the villain was riding a surge of new notoriety thanks to the 1990s X-Men animated television show. Indeed, he got his own showcase episode in 1993 entitled The Unstoppable Juggernaut, and that same year Toy Biz reissued this figure with a fresh lick of paint, switching his reddish boots and midriff for a brighter shade of orange.