Friday 13 July 2018

Mego relaunches with new action figures on the way

Mego are back! The long hibernating toy brand is relaunching, as "Marty Abrams presents Mego" (named for the company's co-founder), with a range of action figures available exclusively at Target, and that includes a return of one of the earliest Star Trek toy series, the iconic Mego action figure.

Mego's new range will feature a wide variety of characters from classic TV series and movies, including DC ComicsThe Brady Bunch, Cheers, I Dream of Jeannie, and Married with Children. Eight and twelve inch figures are being made, including resurrecting the eight inch Star Trek line. The range will start to be released from the end of this month, following a more extensive preview at the San Diego Comic Con. Each of the new figures will have a limited run of 10,000. For now the initial announcement reveals one Star Trek release: Sulu:


While the original Mego line was released in the seventies, the range already had one revival care of Diamond Select Toys, who reissued and expanded upon the original series in several waves of releases over the last decade. Sulu was not in the original seventies range, but was one of DST's new additions, and this new release appears to be using the same mold.

The packaging for the new Sulu suggests other characters that could be released. The Gorn was in the original Mego run, but was not remotely screen accurate, so DST made a brand new one for their range. And there was a Romulan in both previous releases, which looked kind of like Mark Leonard's Romulan Commander, but was marketed more generically, so it will be interesting to see if this is a new figure, or a rebranded version of the classic generic Romulan.


As you can see from the other releases so far previewed, Sulu is packaged in the same style as other new Mego figures - Which sadly means we're not getting a revival of the glorious retro sci-fi artwork of the original releases (see below). The I Dream of Jeannie two-pack has a bit more character though, so fingers crossed some of the other Star Trek releases set similar treatment.




The original Mego line featured many of the main TOS characters (but not all), and an impressively generous range of aliens, including some completely made up ones! (Images below via Mego's Facebook page). DST's range filled in those missing main characters, and went further, adding a Captain Pike and salt vampire, mirror universe variants, and even TNG characters! - You can get a run-down of that full range on my Trek Collective List. So there's quite a range of characters that could be reissued, but it will be interesting to see if they do launch any new characters too; could be fun to see retro takes on Discovery characters!



To keep up to date with all the latest Star Trek toys releases, click the "Models, Toys, and Games" tab at the top of my 2018 schedule page.



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