The Space Shuttle Columbia Lands at Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, March 1979

Or, what the Space Shuttle means to me. On Thursday, July 21 2011,  US Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down for the final time, returning from the last mission that the shuttle program will fly for the United States.  The program and the shuttles themselves have been retired, cast aside due to a national lack of enthusiasm and a casualty of the ludicrous economic battles that pass for governance these days. But none of that matters to me when I think of the Space Shuttle.

First and foremost, to me it remains the last exciting moment of the US Space program that really touched people when I was growing up. Sure, the Mars rover and the various interstellar missions of the past 20 years have been interesting, but the Space Shuttle program was a continuance of that bright, shining age when it really looked as if the science fiction was being coming the science reality. It was totally conceivable that by the year 2000 we might have (small) colonies on the moon, or a floating city in space to replace Skylab.

In 1979 my dad was in the Air Force, working at Kelly AFB in San Antonio when it was announced that the newly christened Shuttle Columbia, the first shuttle to go into space, would be stopping at Kelly overnight to refuel on it’s way to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I was already excited about the shuttle, having seen the promos for the new James Bond movie, Moonraker, that was coming out that summer, so when dad woke me at 6am so we could drive across town to Kelly Field and watch it take off the news morning (on the back of a 747) I was beyond excited. I, of course loved Star Wars, and Buck Rogers, but this was REAL. I remember there were a lot of people who showed up to watch what was basically a big plane sit on a runaway, it an event that was closed to the public.

Afterwards, we went to a hobby shop where he bought me a small toy Space Shuttle. I remember keeping it sitting on my desk for quite some time, enamored by it’s unique shape and markings. Unlike previous spacecraft, the shuttle was a sleek, cool looking vehicle. I think it’s no coincidence that so many movies worked in the actual shuttle design instead of aping Star Wars when dealing with “non-fighter” craft. Unfortunately, we know how the rest of the story goes: I saw the Challenger disaster happen live on tv in my 11th grade art class. I remember how horrified and distraught my teachers were that one of their own was on that ship. And the Columbia herself came to rest back in Texas in 2003 in another horrific accident, although I was in California by then.

But with all that, when I think of the Space Shuttle my mind always goes back to that little toy one my dad bought me, and the long gone hobby shop where it was purchased. You can still find hobby shops, where you can buy model planes and trains, but they are becoming few and far between. Like Borders bookstores that are closing for good this month, and Circuit City, And Linen’s & Things, and all the mom & pop bookstores and variety stores before them, we are left with just one or two big box stores for each category now. The era of stores that catered to specialty items exist online, but it’s not the same. There is something to be said for riding your bike to the hobby shop for a model, then to the variety store (Winns? TG&Y?) for some action figures, then on to the drugstore for trading cards and a soda, ending up at the neighborhood used bookstore where the owner has a little side room filled with old comics and pulp paperbacks to leaf through. But those days are gone, and they’re not coming back. And now I fear the days of excitement over space exploration are joining them on the shelf marked “nostalgia”.

I’m going to be taking a hiatus from writing about toys to concentrate on a few outside projects that need my full attention, so this is going to be my last blog post for what might be quite awhile. And although I have a lot of great blogs sitting around in various stages of completion, one article in particular demands to be finished before I take my leave.

Five years ago, shortly before I left California for Texas, Julius Marx and I paid a visit to the studio of a truly fantastic artist, sculptor, and all-around great guy: Rubén Procopio. If you don’t recognize the name you surely will recognize his work (and if you don’t recognize the name, shame on you!).

First, Rubén  has recently written an awesome book (with Tim Bruckner and Zach Oat), Pop Sculpture, that anyone who is interested in sculpture should read. If you want to be a sculptor, I would even say stop reading this blog right now and go buy a copy. It’s a really, really informative look at the whole process of creating action figures and statues based on popular media properties.

Second, Rubén has been involved in so many areas that are near and dear to my heart that I alternate being in awe of him and being bitterly jealous. Just kidding! But seriously, he started at the Disney Studios in the 1970s, following in the footsteps of his father, Adolfo Procopio (and if you’ve ever been to Disneyland or Disneyworld, you’ve seen a lot of Adolfo spectacular sculpts), and was mentored by the fabled Nine Old Men (Eric Larson in particular) as he rose through the ranks of Disney Animation.

In the 1980s, he was a key figure in bringing back the art of using animation maquettes to guide the artists, creating some of the first ones for The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, and The Little Mermaid. While at Disney, Rubén was also being mentored by Alex Toth, whose comic art style can be seen influencing Rubén’s take on The Phantom and Zorro. Since leaving Disney as an animation supervisor, Rubén has created sculptures for Walt Disney Consumer Products, Walt Disney Classics Collection, Bowen Designs, Sideshow Collectibles, and DC Direct through his Masked Avengers Studio.  Most notably, he’s produced a wide array of items for his former Disney colleague Tracy Mark Lee at Electric Tiki. Rubén was further able to honor his long time love for pulp heroes by spearheading the Classic Heroes Collection, featuring everyone from Dick Tracy and Doc Savage to The Rocketeer and Hellboy. Even Lassie got some love! I can’t tell you how much I love this series; the only thing that would have made me happier is if they were able to make a figure line that looked just like these sculpts, only articulated.

He also oversaw a lot of product for the Disney Store through Disney Consumer Products in the 2000s, notably the new take on “Disney Heroes” as detailed, articulated action figures. We see some of the original sculpts in the pics below, but you really should go check out the second series that was never made. Just stunning stuff. The Beast would have made a terrific figure. A compatible line of Disney Princesses was also on the drawing board, but alas.

Rubén was gracious enough to let me take pictures of his workspace and some of his past projects to share. The artistry on display here just blows my mind, especially considering his medium of choice is Super Sculpey! So check out the pics below (click on a picture to enlarge and get commentary below each shot) and then leave some comments! And go check out his own blog for lots more gems! Sorry this article is less than timely, but hopefully it was worth the wait.  And I’ll see you kids on the other side!

Toy Fair 2011 has come and gone and while this year seemed a bit more sedate for what new items were shown, one group of action figures stood out above all others: DC Universe Classics Wave 18. Why are these toys special, you ask? Because for the first time ever, not only do we get a mass market assortment of Super Friends specific toys, but it’s centered around four figures that you would be justified in thinking no one would ever think to make figures of, let alone all four in one wave! Yes, I’m talking about the controversial "ethnic" heroes: Samurai, Black Vulcan, El Dorado, and C&C Apache Chief.

I know some people think these characters are superfluous, or not "comic based" and therefore not worthy of a figure, but I don’t agree with that logic. First and foremost, there is a big section of fans who do want these figures and have waited for them for 20 years.  And on top of that, this is a toy line, not the comics. And these guys make GREAT toys! And they do give a selection of diversity to an all too-white toy aisle (with the occasional black character thrown in). How many Native Americans are on shelves? Asians? Hispanics? Is it going to kill collectors to add one more? And Mattel made it super easy to skip this wave if you don’t like it by tying in the C&C to the theme, so if you just want Bronze Tiger, then by all means just get Bronze Tiger.

Plus, with the addition of Toyman the Legion of Doom is now complete as well!

But the big "completion piece" is Samurai, who wraps up Mattel’s recreation of the fabled Super Powers lineup. With the further additions of Dick Grayson Robin from Wave 16 (out now!) and the upcoming SP Mr. Freeze repaint in the Batman: Legacy line I’ve updated the DCUC/SP picture below. Sure, we could still use repaints of Superman, Batman, and Penguin in more Bronze-Age accurate colors. And Kalibak and Orion would need resculpts to be perfect recreations (although it’s been hinted that the new Lex Luthor armor will be repainted and rereleased down the road to be more SP accurate as well).  But if the line ended with these guys I would be content that we have a complete SP lineup in the greater DCUC line. And with Creeper, El Dorado, and Black Vulcan we’re three more characters closer to finishing off all the unmade SP figures as well!  Now all we need is for the Four Horsemen to make some awesome figures of the sculpted-but-never-produced  Quadrex, Silicon, Rocketman and a C&C Shockwave and I’ll be happy. All of these guys have form factors or special treatments that would make them really neat toys. I’d probably buy Howitzer and Executioner, too, but even I don’t think they’re necessary as figures…

OK, so I’ve been pretty lax on introducing my millions of readers to much needed Bollywood glory. But maybe the long wait for a new clip has been worth it.

I’m not exactly sure how they did it, but I think Bollywood (Russia? Azerbaijan) somehow was able to film Michael Bay’s actual dreams. This is everything he wishes he could do in real life, but just can’t muster that much awesome in one container. Be prepared for your mind to explode! (And they even throw in a Wilhelm Scream!)

So I’m going through some old AFi files while working on a new project for the site (more on that later) and I stumbled across our gallery of concepts that Toy Biz never got to make before getting out of the toy business. Of course, one concept in particular is painful every time I see it, and I know many other fans feel the same way:

It’s just a shame that this never got to see the light of day in all of its super poseable glory. Not that it really ever had much of a chance, even had Toy Biz kept producing toys. As Jesse Falcon explains in the video below, Disney holds the rights to this guy, and they wanted waaaaaay to much money to make a figure. Go listen to the man himself:

Man. You know, since Marvel was recently sold, maybe the new buyer would give it a shot to see if Disney would work with them and maybe do some Rocketeer projects, maybe even some new comics. Now who was the new owner of Marvel again? Ohhhh yeah….DISNEY. With all the noise that has been made over the past couple of years about Marvel dancing around the Marvelman license, you would think that SOMEONE would be talking up the Rocketeer. Wouldn’t that be something, to fold the ol’ Rocketeer into the Marvel Universe. And maybe into the Hasbro deal as well. Maybe even give us one nice Cliff Secord figure in the 3 3/4" scale to fit right in alongside all those great 30s era Indiana Jones toys as well.

Still, looking over the slides of all that unproduced artwork, I did notice that we have recently been given two of those concepts at least: check out the Paul Komoda concept art next to these recent releases from Hasbro. Looks like someone in Rhode Island has been raiding the Toy Biz archives…

So Hot Toys unveiled its new Indiana Jones figure at their 10th Anniversary showcase last week and it got me thinking: who would have thought 10 years ago that we would have so many Indiana Jones toys to choose from? Back then all you could find were the old Kenner figures and the extremely hard to find Toys McCoy versions. Now we have an embarrassment of riches, with figures and accessories in all scales, the ability to recreate Jones’ actual wardrobe, and more paraphernalia than you could crack a whip at.

But one piece of Indiana Jones lore has remained relatively hard to find: The Secret of the Incas!

What exactly *is* The Secret of the Incas, you ask? Well, while Raiders of the Lost Ark had many influences in its development, the one most often cited as the key film is this 1954 movie starring Charleton Heston as Harry Steele, a rogue Soldier of Fortune searching for a lost artifact that will bring him “fortune and glory”. While TheRaider.net can detail all the similarities far better than I can, suffice it to say that Steele dresses and acts more than a bit like our favorite archaeologist.

In recent years this lost gem has become easier to view with poor copies on youtube and ebay, but for some reason Paramount has kept it pretty well hidden from tv showings or any home video/dvd releases. So imagine my surprise to stumble across it ready for instant viewing on Netflix’s streaming service in pretty good quality! Now, is this a great film? No. Not even close. But it is fairly interesting, if only for two reasons: one, it introduced the world to the Peruvian Soprano, Yma Sumac (whose voice should be familiar to fans of the Big Lebowski), and it was surprisingly filmed almost entirely on location! If you’ve ever been interested in Cuzco, Peru or the fabled Machu Picchu ruins, you get to see them in lingering detail in this movie. And it sure feels a lot more exotic than the sets in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull…

So go check it out if you’ve got Netflix, because they shift what’s available in their Instant Viewing section frequently, so there’s no telling how long before this curiosity will be put back into its crate in that endless warehouse.

So the other night, just before Thanksgiving, I decided to hit Walmart around midnight. It’s been many years since I made a late night toy run, for a variety of reasons. But mostly because I usually have much better things to do with my time than to make a special trip just to turn up empty-handed at the usual dearth of new toys on the North Texas shelves. But for some reason, I felt like this would be a good time to take a break from working and drive the 10 miles to the nearest Walmart. Plus, I needed a few groceries and things, so the trip wouldn’t be a total waste.

And lo and behold, they had new pallets of merchandise on the floor, waiting to be stocked. And right on top of the toy pallet in front was one box of DCUC Classics. And when the very nice stocker opened the box for me I found one complete set of DCUC Wave 14. Which is the first time I’ve found any of an exclusive Walmart wave in Dallas at all, let alone in the first week or so of shipping! FYI, the box had doubles of Zatanna, Alan Scott, and Hourman. And it was lucky for me, since I haven’t seen any of them since.

What was unlucky for me was that I didn’t realize until I got home that my Tyr was all jacked up. Of course, at first I was too busy being mad that my Obsidian had two right biceps, until I realized that he actually did have a left bicep, it was just bent so badly it looked like the wrong one. A little hot water and rubber bands holding it down fixed that one overnight. But Tyr is a different story: his chest piece thing is completely malformed. And by the time I figured it out (at first I thought they had changed it from the package images for some reason, since it looks like a new chest piece, not necessarily a deformed one)  I had thrown away the receipt and package. And have I mentioned that I’m kind of a big Super Powers fan, so this was a figure I’ve been looking forward to more than most? So my choices are to try and find a new one, switch packages and try to return the bad one, live with this one and forget about it, or just eat the cost, buy a new one, and go to my blog to rant about Mattel’s consistently crappy Quality Control.

Guess which one I’m choosing?

by Jason "ToyOtter" Geyer and James "Sallah" Sawyer.

So there was that thing back a few years ago where we found out all about the plans for the final years of the Super Powers Collection including concept art for many possible figures. And that other thing, where some extension plans for the original Kenner Star Wars line showed up in a found presentation. Or the ill-fated Mattel Wonder Woman and the Star Riders? And how about when it was revealed that there was another Raiders of the Lost Ark assortment to be made in Hasbro’s Indiana Jones line (OK, that one still hurts).

You’d think we would have heard all about toys that never made it into production by now. You’d think that with so many collectors and so much time having passed, there are no surprises left any more from the golden days of action figures (1970s & 1980s).

Well, partner, you’d be wrong.

What if we told you that there were more gems out there? Gems that might Dazzle and Annihilate your senses with their Fantastic concepts? Can you keep a secret?

That’s right, true believer! Mattel’s toy line of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars lives again! And it’s a crazy tale that will Thunderball you over with its twists and turns. But first, let me lay down a little background on you for those not already in the know:

It all started with a phone call. In 1983 Mattel, the largest toy company in the world, contacted Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. Having recently lost their bid to make toys of the DC Comics characters to Kenner Toys, Mattel immediately went to Marvel for the chance at a competing toy line. Shooter was intrigued by the talks, but Mattel did have one condition: they wanted a big event to base the toys on in lieu of any TV or film support. The specifics weren’t important as long as it was called "Secret Wars"- two words that Mattel had found tested well with adolescent boys. And so the tongue-twisting "Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars" was born. Although Mattel had input into the mini-series’ direction and Marvel did everything they could to facilitate new toys (creating new characters, changing existing character’s costumes, and highlighting vehicles and play environments), Mattel ultimately used very little specifics from the Secret Wars comics itself.

Roger Sweet, the creator of Masters of the Universe at Mattel, was responsible for oversight of the new line. "I had been put in charge of managing the design creation of the 1983 He-Man / Masters Of The Universe line, and continued to do so through the 1987 line.", said Roger. "But, in about 1984, I was also given responsibility for managing the design creation of the Marvel Secret Wars line. Mattel had gone to Marvel in the hope of picking up the Marvel line, and did so. Previously, Mattel had been to DC Comics in the hope of acquiring the DC license. But, Mattel lost out to Kenner. By Mattel Marketing and upper management, the Marvel Secret Wars line was viewed as a "flanker brand" to Masters. In other words, it was considered as a secondary brand to pick up additional male action sales for Mattel, but while cutting little into Masters’ sales. That is why the Marvel figures were designed smaller and far less muscular than the Masters figures." So these figures were intentionally "dumbed down" to not only save production costs, but to literally be a lesser product to not compete with MOTU, but still pick up subsidiary sales, much like Marvel’s SuperHeroSquad does today (of course, we still see this theory in effect today at Mattel, with lines like JLU). This also explains how a smaller company like Kenner got the DC license instead of Mattel; because they were willing to put more money and effort into it.

Secret Wars figures were articulated only at the shoulders, hips and neck and had no special "action feature" like Kenner’s Super Powers or Mattel’s own Masters of the Universe. Most of the figures shared one of 3 basic bodies, with only minimal custom detail tooled for each character. This also meant that there would be no characters with unusual bodies that couldn’t be reused or that were oversized and would need unique packaging. Mr. Sweet explains how the direction of the line was decided: "I was quite familiar with the Marvel Comics characters. I had grown up with some of them, and had read about them in the Marvel comics. Marvel provided very little actual support, but would have if Mattel had needed it. My design group and Marketing handled the selection of the Marvel figures to go into the Mattel Marvel line, and the creation of the other product like vehicles and playsets."

Costume seams and line were painted rather than sculpted, and even paint details such as eyes were dropped on some of the figures. There were almost no unique accessories, but all figures instead came with the same common guns and "Secret Shields"; the Heroes came with round shields and the Villains came with square shields. These shields came with a series of 4 two-sided lenticular inserts that featured art showing the characters in action. Each scene changed when the shield was tilted.  Even the figure packaging had uniform art on the front with only the character name changing from figure to figure. The backs of the cards did feature a brief biography of the character, along with a short comic strip that resembled the old Hostess Fruit Pie ads more than it did the actual Secret Wars comics.

The first series to hit store shelves featured the customary stalwart Marvel characters along with some new fan favorites getting toys for the very first time. Roger Sweet’s design group, "along with Marketing, selected the figures. They were selected largely because they were the main known Marvel good and bad guys at that time, or appealed to someone at Mattel". It’s safe to say that colorful characters and ones that were easy to produce also played a factor in figure selection.

Series 1- Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man,
Doctor Octopus, Doctor Doom,  Kang, Magneto

Series 2 hit shelves in early 1985, but by this time the line was already ceasing production overseas. Whereas the first series featured characters that all played a big role in the Secret Wars comic, nearly all of the characters in this next series didn’t appear in Secret Wars at all! Even during production then, some concepts never made it to shelves. "There was one vehicle that I created and designed that was very neat. And, I commissioned an outside designer to do a beautiful full-color styled illustration of it. The vehicle had one figure sitting inside a cockpit and another figure standing on the back manning a machine gun. But the vehicle later was deleted in the Mattel visual design department and replaced by a much less appealing vehicle of another type." laments Mr. Sweet.

Series 2- Falcon, Hobgoblin, Baron Zemo, Black Spider-Man, Daredevil

Unfortunately the toys were not a giant hit on the scale of He-Man and his pals and within just 2 years of launch, the Secret Wars line was already in clearance bins at toy store around the country. The cancellation of the line was so abrupt that three figures for the third series were already in production. Rather than destroy these toys, they were released in Europe only as there were not enough of them to distribute to all the American markets.

European Figures- Constrictor, Electro, Iceman

Once again, the only three new characters never appeared in the Secret Wars comics, and in fact they were not even very well known or popular in the comics of the day. The cost cutting could readily be seen by this point: outside of new heads, each of their bodies are recycled from earlier figures with no added details. Like much of the other characters, this would be the first time any of them had been made into toys. Unlike the other series, these three are by far the rarest pieces in the entire line, and even at the time of their release were hard to find if you didn’t like in Europe.

And that’s where it ended, as a pale shadow of other contemporary lines, yet the only glimpse fans had of their favorite characters in plastic during Marvel’s heyday. But was it really the end?

Well, apparently Mattel had further plans for these stalwart heroes…and heroines. Yep, now it can be told: there were TWO more assortments planned and it seems that they were a good ways into production when the line was cancelled. We’ve done a little detective work coupled with the find of some artwork for those final waves to bring you the whole story. The artwork in and of itself is quite a find. This isn’t concept art, but actual production art to be used for one of the most overlooked items in the Secret Wars saga: the lenticular shields used by all of the figures! Each figure came with four lenticular inserts- one in the shield and three in a baggie. The inserts showed unique scenes on front and back pertaining to each character; some of them showed secret identities, some showed a demonstration of their powers, and most showed them in battle with other characters that had figures so kids could act out the mayhem on their own.

And that fact is key to figuring out what was going to be made: no shield produced featured characters that were NOT a part of the Secret Wars line. So looking at the artwork created for the unmade figures’ shields we can see that the characters that were previously unknown are: Mr. Fantastic, the Abomination, Annihilus, Thunderball, and…Dazzler! Yes, as crazy as it seems (and really, this entire line-up is pretty crazy) the first female figure that the toy line was going to have was not Phoenix, not Invisible Girl, not Scarlet Witch, but Dazzler. Oh…kay.

But maybe she wasn’t going to be the first. There were two more characters featured on the shield artwork that hadn’t been seen before, but didn’t have full set of art themselves: the Hulk and Mystique. And this is really the final piece of the puzzle, because some of the existing characters seen on the artwork include Iceman, Electro, and Constrictor: the 3 "European" Secret Wars figures. If we assume that Mattel’s plans going forward were to mirror the second wave, and offer 5 new characters with some re-released older figures in each assortment, then it seems apparent that wave three would have actually been Electro, Iceman, Constrictor, The Hulk, and Mystique. The Hulk has long been reported by multiple sources to have been sculpted, and Mystique would have made a very striking, colorful figure. Especially since the prevailing mantra of the time was "girls don’t sell" in the action figure world, having an "alien" looking girl just might help counter that wisdom. It also makes sense why only three of them were released to Europe: this figures only needed tooling for new heads, and their bodies were straight repaints of earlier figures and there fore were cheap to produce and recoup costs on what was already in production. But tooling new bodies like the Hulk or Mystique would cost much more, giving them no chance to make their money back unless they were released wide in a big market like the U.S.

The fourth wave probably wasn’t that far into production, with most of the artwork not even having been inked yet, let alone colored and formatted for lenticular prints (and that also explains why there is finished artwork so far out; the lenticular process took more time than normal printing schedules). But we can see how Dazzler would have been meant reuse the Mystique body, Abomination the Hulk body, and the rest reusing and repainting existing bodies with maybe new wings for Annihilus and a new neck or arms for Mr. Fantastic.

Of course, we haven’t talked yet about WHO exactly drew this artwork. Earlier series had art by comic pros such as Mike Zeck and Bob Layton. But Mattel also had their own stable of artists that they used for lines like Masters of the Universe. Some of them were established comic artists, too, like the great Mike Sekowsky, who drew some alternate Mr. Fantastic pieces, and Pete Von Sholly, who drew the Thunderball artwork. But the majority of these pieces were handed over to a young artist who was then doing a bang-up job on the MOTU mini-comics. An artist who would go on to establish himself as having not only a distinctive art style, but also a unique voice that would remake how people saw superhero animation. Yes, these images would have been the first professional published superhero art by Bruce Timm, who confirmed it for us himself. "Holy crap, I’d completely forgotten about that stuff ", said Bruce. "It was so long ago, my memory’s pretty hazy, but …these were the only pieces I did for the Secret Wars line — and yes, I guess this was my first "professional" spandex/superhero art". Another artist who worked on the line remembers that "the line was cancelled while they were working on it, but [I] really don’t have more memory of it. Bruce came in at the end, which is why I don’t believe any of his were ever produced." According to him, they were specifically commissioned by Mattel to create this final art. His notes on the last two assignments character assignments reads: Abomination, Dazzler, Mr. Fantastic, Annihilus, Hulk, Glider (1st of two), and Mystique, Vision, Thunderball.  Color was never produced for these two batches, so they got a kill fee for that aspect. This is the only mention of the Vision, as no artwork involving him has shown up anywhere (it is possible that the art for the Vision was never started,with the cancellation of the line happening before that point and much of the artwork in pencil only).

Hero Shields

Dazzler	Dazzler vs Annihilus	Dazzler vs Constrictor
Dazzler vs Villains	Dazzler vs bars	Dazzler vs Abomination
Mr Fantastic	Mr Fantastic vs Abomination	Mr Fantastic vs Doom Roller
Mr Fantastic vs Electro	Mr Fantastic vs Villains	Mr Fantastic vs Abomination (Sekowsky
Mr Fantastic vs Hobgoblin (Sekowsky)	Mr Fantastic (Sekowsky)

 

Villain Shields

The Abomination	Abomination vs building	Abomination vs Captain America
Abomination vs wall	Abomination vs Hulk	Abomination vs Wolverine
Annihilus	Annihilus vs Hulk	Annihilus vs Base
Annihilus vs Captain America	Annihilus vs Dazzler	Annihilus vs Daredevil
Annihilus vs Spider-Man	Thunderball	Thunderball vs bike
Thunderball vs Captain America	Thunderball vs helicopter	Thunderball vs Spider-Man
Thunderball vs Iceman	Thunderball vs wall

 

Bruce didn’t just draw the figure’s shields, though. Also included in his artwork were some new gliders (like the Doom Star and Star Dart) and "Battle Board" art that appears to be tied to new "mini-rig" type vehicles that probably would have been packaged with a figure or two for a deluxe package.

 

Battle Boards

Iron Man	Captain America	Constrictor
Daredevil	Mystique	Spider-Man
Electro	Dr. Doom	Wolverine

 

Gliders

Mystique	Spider-Man

 

With this great new look at what might have been we can only step back and marvel at how amazing, fantastically bizarre this toy line really was. To this day we do not yet have figures of Baron Zemo 2 and Dazzler, and Constrictor is only just showing up now. But the likelihood of turning up actual sculpts of the unproduced toys seems to be pretty slim. According to a source "in the know", there is nothing in the Mattel archives concerning Secret Wars.  Apparently Mattel kept terrible records back then and anything pre-1995 is kind of a lost cause.

There is a copy of Dr. Doom’s original weapon (?) that was not included with the figure in one of their display cases.  And the rumors swirl that Hulk and The Thing were sculpted.  But unless the prototypes were still on someone’s desk who has worked there all these years, or in a retired designer’s drawer hidden away from the world, it is doubtful we’ll ever know just what could have been had Mattel stuck it out for just one more year back in 1985.

Special thanks to Bruce Timm, Roger Sweet, and others involved in this line for the great information! Go watch Bruce’s awesome WB DVDs, and go check out Roger’s book on the making of the MOTU line. And be sure to check out co-author James Sawyer’s super Star Trek blog, "A Piece of the Action"!

 

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Here’s the thing: San Diego Comic Con is no longer about comics. Yes, I know this is not news. Many, many, many people have pointed out what a shame it is that movie, tv, and toys have taken over the con in the past decade. I am not necessarily one of those people: I enjoy the con more for the broader scope and the inclusion of hollywood. I especially like that SDCC has replaced Toy Fair as the place to celebrate collectors and unveil new toys for the year (although I really wish companies could figure out how to keep a lid on news better so there were more genuine surprises). 

But at its core, SDCC was and is about comics and comic culture. That’s what drives the train. So when huge news breaks, it is a tad disappointing that the major outlets like USA Today, Entertainment Weekly,  and CNN that are covering the con do not highlight it in an appropriate manner (kudos to TIME for recognizing the significance of the news, though). What news is this, you ask? Well the biggest news of the con is this: Fantagraphics will be publishing the Complete Floyd Gottfredson run of Mickey Mouse comic strips, starting in May 2011. This is huge.

Fantagraphics has spent over two years negotiating with Disney over these reprints. And while Carl Barks’ and his Ducks comics are well-known and revered, a much smaller group of people is aware of the seminal work done by Gottfredson on Mickey Mouse. These strips are pretty much the last of the "greats" to be reprinted, in what is now the Golden Age for classic comic strip reprints. What is big about this news is that these strips have NEVER been reprinted uncut before, and many of them not at all. Think about that: for 70 years, Disney has let some of the best work featuring their flagship character go unseen. Can you imagine if Marvel had never reprinted the Ditko Spider-Man issues, except in compilations? Sure, many individual stories have been chopped up into comics over the years, but these stories were heavily edited, rewritten, and relettered. 

While it remains to be seen if Disney can bring themselves to go through with a hands-off policy, Fantagraphics has the best shot ever to not only show these strips as they were originally seen (and from all accounts, Disney keeps excellent copies of everything in their morgue, so they’ll look better than anyone has seen them) but do so in a great presentation, judging by their treatment of Peanuts and Popeye among others. I’m just hoping that Disney sees that these are of historical value and let’s Fantagraphics reprint EVERYTHING, warts and all.

Now where are those Gottfredson Mouse & Friends toys?!?

OK, it’s been a bit of a roadblock lately with me trying to get back to my series of blogs looking back to earlier blog entries, but I think I’m finally over the hump at work. With that said, I’ll be trying to catch up and post a few more "sequels" over the next week or so. So for this post I’m once again revisiting our look at how DC Universe Classics is reviving the 1980s touchstone toy line Kenner Super Powers Collection. 

Of course, I’ll first need to update that iconic pic of the 33 basic Super Powers characters again:

Wow.  We’re only one figure away from having the whole line announced. I don’t think anyone saw this coming in their wildest dreams a couple of years ago when the line started, nor that it would happen this quickly. Sure, Scott and the Four Horsemen are big Super Powers fans, but the red tape involved has held back revisiting this line for quite some time. Not to mention DC Direct and Hasbro not having the confidence to look at it when they’ve had the chance. So for all the crap I and others give Mattel, my hat is off to them BIG TIME. No matter how flawed some of the execution might be, I still will take it over not getting these figures. Same goes for the hassle of getting con exclusives.  I’m going to guess we’ll see Samurai in either Wave 16 or 17. And then…the circle will be complete. Or will it?

After all, Kenner did plan on making a whole bunch more Super Powers figures before the line was axed. And they even sculpted a nice set of prototypes for the 4th wave, including Man-Bat, Silcon, Shockwave, Rocketman, El Dorado and Quadrex. While we only have Man-Bat out of that line-up (so far) in DC Universe Classics, we have gotten a lot of the characters that were presented in concept art. In fact, we have enough to complete a whole "imaginary wave", from a certain point of view. As shown below, Mattel has made nice versions of Man-Bat, John Stewart, Kid Flash, Blue Devil, The Wonder Twins, Clark Kent, Bizarro, Vigilante, Deathstroke, and Obsidian. I don’t doubt that Creeper and 70s Supergirl are too far behind. What I really would love to see are new versions of the other Kenner created characters, like Quadrex and Executioner. And now that we have Cyclotron and Golden Pharaoh, that goal doesn’t seem too far out of reach. More to come on this topic…

Would that wrap up the line then? Almost. While it’s true we do have versions of some of the same characters in DCUC, we do not have the Super Powers versions. I don’t think we’ll necessarily get new sculpts for Orion or Kalibak, but we could get repaints that would put them much closer to their earlier counterparts. And of course, we still do need a Dick Grayson college age Robin! How great would it be to get a new 5-pack of these guys below (minus Kalibak) with the new figure being that Robin? I put the pic below together using some customs from other places online and some photoshop tweaking. And I have to say that the idea of a SP colored Mr. Freeze didn’t really appeal to me until I saw Adventurevault’s awesome custom repaint. I want this figure NOW. Custom Robin is by Lesternessman (just incredible work), Penguin is by Rich (check out his other DCUC repaints), and Kalibak is by Tyke. I highly recommend checking out all the links above. Batman and Superman are just more color accurate, with brighter grays and blues than the production figures. In general, ALL of the DCUC figures have duller, less vibrant paint jobs than SP did, even when the paint masters have them. I don’t know how these get so dull in production, because when you see the prototypes at conventions they look fantastic. I really wish they’d ditch the darker oversprays so it didn’t look like Mr. Miracle has been mud wrestling.

 So that’s about it. Once I actually have all of these in hand I’ll probably shoot that pic one more time with all of the figures at once, and put it on here poster sized. And now to work on getting all of these made in 4" scale…