Okay. I admit it. I played with dolls.
The original G.I. Joe was a doll. He was 12 inches tall, like Barbie and Ken. You bought the basic doll, either the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine guy and then had to buy clothes and accessories for him. Just like Barbie and Ken.
Back in 1964/65 we didn’t even have the term “action figure” to fall back on or hide behind. My dad and my older brother would make snide comments that only girls played with dolls. Ken was a doll. No doubt about it. But Joe was a macho dude.
G.I. Joe was burlier than the effeminate Ken, and didn’t even fit into Ken’s clothes. He had guns and grenades, and jeeps, cannons and even a space capsule. He had a scar on his cheek, and eventually life-like hair and beards, and a kung-fu grip. Like I said: macho!
Stony Smith was less doll-like. And also less fun, at least to me. His clothes were molded onto the body and only his arms and neck moved. Stony and his cousin Johnny West’s accessories were also made of plastic. Me? I preferred G.I. Joe’s fabric outfits.
Even cooler than Joe was Captain Action. Where Joe could become anyone in the Armed Forces, Captain Action could become any of a number of super-heroes, like Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spiderman or Aquaman. Pretty great for a comic book geek like me, but maybe more like a doll to other fellows. It didn’t help that Cap had four different Super Queens to help him out: Batgirl, Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Aquaman’s wife Mera. Yuck! They were girls! Dolls for sure.
I don’t think that Captain Action ever was a serious rival to G.I. Joe, although one of the last Joes was Bulletman, who had chrome arms, a chrome helmet and wore spandex. By 1976, Joe and Cap and Stony were all gone from the shelves, having been replaced by the 8 inch Mego figures.
Mego had super-hero dolls featuring many of the DC and Marvel characters as well as Tarzan, Conan the Barbarian, Knights of the Round Table, Star Trek, and a soldier named Action Jackson. The Mego toys seemed less like dolls than Joe had. They were smaller than Barbie and even though they wore fabric and spandex clothes, they were complete when you bought them. There were no other outfits or accessories to buy and dress them in.
Mego ruled the 1970s, but were eventually crushed by the 3¾ inch Star Wars action figures, which prompted the rebirth of G.I. Joe as a 3¾ inch molded plastic toy. Megos disappeared, but super-heroes returned in the new format with DC’s 4” Super Powers collection and Marvel’s Secret Wars line.
The dolls were gone and action figures ruled. The toy aisles were safe once again for boys and dads alike.
What does any of this have to do with Big Bang Comics? Over the years, the vintage 12″ G.I. Joes and 8″ Megos became collector items, and even staged comebacks of varying degrees. Just for fun I have recently been customizing some Mego style Big Bang 8 inch figures and thought that I’d share them with you. You may have noticed them illustrating this post, instead of pics of G.I Joe and real Megos as you might have suspected.
I will have some more pics and info next time around, but wanted to share these with you now and see if anybody else out there would be interested in Big Bang dolls – – er, toys and action figures. Let me know. You can leave a comment here or on FaceBook or email me at bigbangcomics@sbcglobal.net.
