Help support the Mego Museum
Help support the Mego Museum

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The joker's detonator plunger box accessory

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • darklord1967
    Persistent Member
    • Mar 27, 2008
    • 1550

    The joker's detonator plunger box accessory

    I have MEGO Toy Corp. to thank for my permanent association of a BOMB DETONATOR PLUNGER BOX accessory with The Batman’s villainous nemesis, THE JOKER. For me, the two are inexorably linked. This guy’s MO has always been to BLOW stuff up!!!

    Of course, all these years later, as an action figure customizer, I knew that a Detonator Plunger Box Accessory was going to be a virtual foregone conclusion when I fabricated a custom 1:9 scale Joker action figure. But I had no way of knowing that the journey to realize this seemingly simple accessory would be… a little bit involved:

    Let’s start at the beginning…


    COMIC ACTION ORIGIN

    Like many kids back in 1976, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with MEGO’s new 3-3/4” scale offerings of action figures and playsets under the newly launched COMIC ACTION HEROES banner. There were officially three playset offerings in the line, and they all featured the same gimmick of a villain BLOWING something up.

    Maybe it was just the die-hard BATMAN fan in me, but If I’m being honest, I just didn’t quite relate to THE PENGUIN (of all Bat-villains) blowing up a Radio tower in order to kill Wonder Woman… or the Fortress Of Solitude (really the Hall of justice) in order to get Superman (as illustrated on the box packaging for those playsets)! The Penguin??!!

    However, THE JOKER blowing up a bridge in order to destroy the Batmobile and kill Batman and Robin… Now THAT I could get with!

    Like a LOT of MEGO’s other superhero-related toy packaging, the box art for the CAH BATMOBILE and EXPLODING BRIDGE Playset (by comic book artist Neal Adams), made a real impression on me! The image of The Joker depressing a plunger box to set off his explosive really rang true for me!! It was an image that I forever connected to the villain.







    Of course years later, those CAH images were only reinforced for me when (in the 1988 Batman comics storyline “A Death In The Family”), The Joker gruesomely murdered (Jason Todd) Robin by beating him with a tire iron, and then blowing him up while tied up inside a rigged warehouse.






    The Comic Action Heroes Detonator Plunger Box (more accurately referred to as a Comic Action Activator) was a pretty simplistic design. It was essentially a tall red box with a “T” plunger handle lever. I remember as a kid always being frustrated by the fact that the detonator activator box was WAY out of scale for the characters that they were supposedly sized for! LOL!










    SETTIN’ IT OFF… THE 9ART WAY!

    Several years ago, as I gradually completed the custom 1:9 scale custom action figure characters of my LEGENDS OF GOTHAM CITY series, I began gathering up / assembling/ fabricating the extensive collection of accessories that I knew I wanted my custom JOKER to have. Most of those accessories where easy enough to create from scratch (Re: Walking cane) or to kit bash from other sources (Re; crowbar, deck of trick playing cards). But the BOMB DETONATOR PLUNGER BOX was a different matter all together.

    At first, I intended to do a simple repaint / customization of a Detonator Box already in existence among available production toys. During my earliest attempt, I managed to only find THIS simple vintage 12” GI-JOE Detonator box from ebay. I was more than a little disappointed that this accessory turned out to have absolutely NO ARTICULATION to speak of. Even the vintage MEGO Comic Action Activator actually plunged! Try again.







    My second attempt at kit-bashing a Detonator Box netted me THIS accessory, also from the world of Vintage 12” GI JOE. While this accessory was designed to actually articulate, it was unfortunately too large in scale for use with 8 inch action figures. I DID like the concept of the word “DETONATOR” stenciled on the side of the plunger box, and I made a mental note to incorporate a similar design detail onto whatever detonator box I came up with.






    The one thing those early kit-bash attempts made VERY clear to me (regarding a detonator box for my custom Joker figure) was the overall VISUAL STYLE the box should have: I realized that a MILITARY STYLE industrial “demolition” plunger box was just NOT what I had in mind for my Custom Joker figure to use… again, due to my mental affiliation with the MEGO box art from 1976. To my mind, The Joker would NOT use a slick, modern, metallic military demolition box. Instead, he would probably re-purpose an old hand-made plunger box (fabricated with older, rustic, worn wood plank materials) to create something with a more TRADITIONAL vintage look.

    As a NOD to the old Warner Bros cartoons (the same studio that owns DC Comics and all of its properties), I made reference to the explosives used by The Joker with large “TNT” letters emblazoned on the side of my Detonator Plunger Box. This was also in keeping with my desire to emulate the “DETONATOR” designation scrawled on the side of the earlier-attempt GI JOE ACCESSORY.

    Now having a DEFINITIVE mental picture of what I wanted the Detonator Plunger Box to LOOK like , and combined with my desire to make it a very detailed and ARTICULATE accessory, I got right to work DESIGNING it from scratch:

    I put together a working engineering schematic drawing of exactly how the prop would be constructed and would articulate, and what the general design and surface details should be.
    I established the general size of the accessory to be properly scaled to function with 8 inch doll characters.







    Once that work was done. I spent a few days creating a 3D digital file render of all the individual parts of the Detonator Plunger Box.











    I elected to render several of the Detonator Box's detail components as separate parts so that they could be 3D printed and painted separately.









    With all printed parts painted and weathered, I assembled them into THIS final accessory.

    Custom 8 inch Joker is pretty happy.










    I hope you'll enjoy the FINISHED 9ART THE JOKER CUSTOM ACTION FIGURE



    .
    Last edited by darklord1967; Mar 21, '21, 11:48 AM.
    I... am an action figure customizer
  • Confessional
    Maker & Whatnot
    • Aug 8, 2012
    • 3410

    #2
    Congrats, that's excellent propmaking!… cool that you went for a vintage detailed style instead of something too simplified.

    Comment

    • boss
      Talkative Member
      • Jun 18, 2003
      • 7204

      #3
      Awesome as usual.
      Fresh, not from concentrate.

      Comment

      • sprytel
        Talkative Member
        • Jun 26, 2009
        • 6539

        #4
        Looks great. And I always enjoy the story behind your creations.

        Comment

        • apes3978
          Permanent Member
          • Nov 19, 2005
          • 4901

          #5
          Super nice work.

          Comment

          • Meule
            Verbose Member
            • Nov 14, 2004
            • 28720

            #6
            Wow, that looks awesome, so detailed and I love the weathered look
            "...The agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long and final scream of despair..." - Edgar Allan Poe

            Comment

            • drquest
              ~~/\~~\o/~~/\~~Shark!
              • Apr 17, 2012
              • 3742

              #7
              Super awesome looking!
              Danny(Drquest)
              Captain Action HQ
              Retro shirts and stuff
              More retro shirts
              Stuff For Sale

              Comment

              • SeattleEd
                SynthoRes Transmigrator
                • Oct 24, 2007
                • 4350

                #8
                Nice!!

                Comment

                • Xaitone
                  New Member
                  • Jul 7, 2020
                  • 10

                  #9
                  Wow, that’s impressive. Love the detail.

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  😀
                  🥰
                  🤢
                  😎
                  😡
                  👍
                  👎