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Webbed-Hand Aquaman: Search for Atlantis?

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  • noelani72
    27inaleon
    • Jun 25, 2002
    • 4608

    #46
    not to tanget, but I am really surprised these have not been cast or sculpted by one of our talented people here...

    Comment

    • sauce
      Removed
      • Jun 24, 2007
      • 3491

      #47
      Just reading this great thread again tonight . . . I was curious if anyone had a larger scan of the instructions. I'm in the mood to hunt for clues:

      Comment

      • Tothiro
        Kitten Mittens
        • Aug 28, 2008
        • 1342

        #48
        Originally posted by noelani72
        not to tanget, but I am really surprised these have not been cast or sculpted by one of our talented people here...
        I actually brought that up at one point... asking if more exhaustive photography existed showing structural reference. The response was a little sensitive if I recall, of the "why would you want to muddy the research/collecting waters with a bootleg example?" school.... so I left it alone.

        It was one of those Adam Savage/Maltese Falcon things for me. The mystery is the fun part - If International Larry digs anything up in his research it'd be pretty awesome.

        Comment

        • LonnieFisher
          Eloquent Member
          • Jan 19, 2008
          • 10814

          #49
          I'm pretty sure that they were made for Man From Atlantis. They look exactly like his hands when he held them up to some glass in the show. I think it was the pilot episode. And I'm pretty sure Mego would have ground up all the extra plastic parts that didn't get used. When I worked at a plastic item manufacturing company, they would grind up bad parts and re-melt it and it got injected into another mold. When oil prices are high they won't throw away good plastic like that. So the other web hands probably got ground and make into regular hands. These might be "test shot" hands from a new mold that didn't get used in mass production. There is way more going on in a factory than somebody who hasn't worked there to realize. I've made things from bullet tips to medical devices, reflectors and lids for peanut butter jars. I'd say it was an accident with somebody not knowing anything about Aquaman and putting the hands on one of his bodies by mistake. They wouldn't make the hands to be covered by his gloves! They had to be Man From Atlantis. No real other explanation. "Test shot" Man From Atlantis planned figure. And he was probably going to have a shark because there were no real good villains on the show to make toys out of. I bet a lot of regular Mego hands are ground up web hands recast as normal ones. I can't wait until somebody finds a web-toed Aquaman!

          Comment

          • bizzaro megomauler
            WANTED for card bending
            • Apr 26, 2008
            • 1052

            #50
            Ahh... another thing that lacks mention here regarding "Man From Atlantis" is the Kenner securing of the license..lets re-enact the possible scenario...

            "Man From Atlantis" makes the airwaves, and is declared a viable property for the action figure market....
            Mego, a company that did not want to run the risk of losing another potential winner wants to get the potential figure to market before interest dwindles, therefore they create the hands for proof of concept, knowing if they secure the lisence, they can get the figures to retail in time for Christmas...
            Knowing that the hands could (remember the pitch would be a hard sell) be used for other figures (Aquaman, Sub-Mariner even though we all know neither has webbed hands), the tooling and moldmaking costs could easily be considered as a good calculated risk. should the lisence be secured the only piece left to tool would be the head. (IF that ever shows up in any form, I would consider it case closed)
            Kenner secures the rights to MFA, and any mego plans are scrapped. Due to the failure of the series however, Kenner tried to recycle the Cetacean design for a line called Scuba Squad in 1978...could both companies have had the same pre-license agenda, and jumped the gun?

            A wild shot in the dark, but not purely within the realm of science fiction either.

            Comment

            • captact
              King of Super Queens!
              • Aug 19, 2007
              • 1997

              #51
              [QUOTE=imp;98678]Hi Ray. Can you elaborate on this? Also, where did you gather this information? I interviewed several former Mego warehouse staffers (from Bohemia, NY as well as the original warehouse, in Southern California), and no one ever corroborated an actual incinerator in any Mego-operated buildings. In fact, I understand there was a third building in Bohemia, located directly behind the first building, that Mego used primarily for 'dead stock' (such as the woeful "Walton's Farm House") which was eventually sold at closeout to wholesalers. I always thought the whole 'incinerator' concept was simply a metaphor... not to be taken literally. As in: "Ah, we just burned it," meaning "trashed it."

              I'm anxious for you to tell me more about your findings! Thanks in advance.

              Ray here!
              All I know and learned was from my long time (since 1983) friend, and many phone calls with info,... Mark Huckabone...as hes my Guru when it comes to Mego's. Hope this helps Imp.
              Ray

              Comment

              • hedrap
                Permanent Member
                • Feb 10, 2009
                • 4825

                #52
                When I saw Baeira's R&D notes, I ended tracing way back. My .02

                Jack Weston had the Marvel rights from very early on, holding them from at least 1965 and through the Marvelmania boom. Marvel licensing rights worked in groups - Spidey, FF and Marvel Super-Heroes, which was principally Cap, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man and Namor. Namor was always the weakest seller of the group.

                Fast-Forward to Weston grabbing the DC rights and presenting a mixed dozen WGSH lot to Abrams. Odds are the Marvel side was the MSH five, plus Spidey as FF merch was its own group. Since Weston helped generate the Super Friends concept and was a DC licensor, he would know who the show was built around. So the original WGSH presentation line most likely included Aquaman and Namor.

                As we see on the Aquaman figure, he has Namor's ears. As we see in the R&D notes from '77, Aquaman and Namor are written with a hyphen, Aquaman/Namor. IMO, R&D were working on both as part of the initial release. When you consider the original waves-

                Superman
                Batman
                Robin
                Aquaman
                Captain America
                Spider-Man
                Shazam
                Tarzan


                It's the male Super Friends, Cap & Spidey with Shazam and Tarzan sticking out. When you look at who comes after, you see each wave gets more detailed; female figures, fat bodies, multiple accessories. IMO, Shazam replaced Wonder Woman, (and possibly replaced Flash in R&D) and Tarzan replaced Namor.

                Think of how simple and cheap Namor would be; T1, Robin shorts, Namor head...Tarzan flesh suit. Tarzan was secured in May of '72, six months before the first WGSH trademark and Christmas release. Much later than the rest. Like Aquaman's ears, I think the suit was developed for Namor and then put aside when the character was dropped from the wave. Why was he dropped? Because Weston would have the numbers to show he didn't sell and Weston/Mego knew Aquaman was going to get airtime with Super Friends so Namor was redundant. The Namor/Aquaman head mold wasn't fixed because of character confusion and the flesh suit went to Tarzan, a cheap addition to the line that required as little as Namor. He is, in so many ways, Namor of the Jungle.

                Flash-Forward to 1976 and Man From Atlantis was commissioned for four MOTW for the '77 season. When you look at the Baiera notes, some of the other shows listed around MFA - Ark2, Hulk, Code R - were late '76 or '77 premieres. Mego was apparently developing licenses in conjunction with a show's debut and not after. Whether they were simply reading the trades or had someone like Weston actively seeking new licenses, I don't know. Either way, MFA was in the works before its premiere. In November of '76, Mego took out the Search For Atlantis trademark. This would have been around the same time as the show's production was announced. According to the MFA info at Plaid Stallions, Kenner had MFA prototypes in the works from at least Feb of '77. When you see Kenner/MFA was 3 3/4, it appears Mego either lost the rights to Kenner due to the Star Wars 3 3/4 boom, or was brought the rights after Kenner bailed and was developing a "Search For Atlantis" catch-all playset that would include "Aquaman/Namor",(Namor donned the Black Stingray garb in '73 and would have been easy for Mego to make following the Falcon/Neptunian design). If it's the former, perhaps the webbed hands were considered for a green paint job to simulate a gloved look and a way to ride MFA. That would explain the retroactive "First Use" date of July '76.

                I tend to think it's the latter, so when MFA as a series didn't pan out as the next Bionic Man, Mego dropped the premise but was left with a huge amount of Aquaman parts, some Jaws rip-off sharks and however many webbed hands. IMO, this would account for why webbed hands are beyond rare. The production started and stopped within months, most was recycled in melts while the bottom was falling out of the 8-inch market in '78.

                Comment

                • johnmiic
                  Adrift
                  • Sep 6, 2002
                  • 8427

                  #53
                  I am really out of my depth in this Aquaman mystery but a couple of things have not yet been mentioned which could help or could be dead ends.

                  Man From Atlantis also had a comic book series from Marvel comics. Could the production of the hands for the figure coincide with the publishing of the comic book and maybe a request by Marvel to produce such an action figure? Marvel may have wanted to add MFA to their line up of Mego action figures? Perhaps there is correspondence between Marvel and Mego which could be researched? Does anyone have any MFA comics to check the dates of its first issue or if there is any mention a figure was coming out?

                  This is even a longer shot. There was a notable Star Trek Animated episode where Kirk and Spock met an underwater race and were changed into water-breathing people. Marty said he hated the STAS but the Klingon figure looks like the animated Klingon. Someone sculpted it, approved it and got it on to pegs despite the fact that he didn't like the animated Trek. Could there have been a plan much earlier on to make an alien race similar to the ones in that episode? Could the hands have been for that?

                  This doesn't really jibe with current theorized timelines as the STAS was around 1973 or so. Still I think there was animation of people showing off their webbed hands in the episode. Maybe the webbed hands were made much, much earlier and long forgotten about? I just wanted to mention it.
                  Last edited by johnmiic; Jul 15, '10, 9:48 PM.

                  Comment

                  • hedrap
                    Permanent Member
                    • Feb 10, 2009
                    • 4825

                    #54
                    The MFA Marvel comic came out in '78, and IIRC, missed the entire series. IMO, it looks as if the show was supposed to go on, it was sold as such to licensors, and then it got whacked.

                    Comment

                    • MegoMark71
                      Permanent Member
                      • Dec 18, 2008
                      • 3383

                      #55
                      This was a question i wanted to ask after reading the aquaman section of bens book. Where did berto get his figure from?

                      Comment

                      • Blue Meanie
                        Banned
                        • Jun 23, 2001
                        • 8706

                        #56
                        Originally posted by MegoMark71
                        This was a question i wanted to ask after reading the aquaman section of bens book. Where did berto get his figure from?
                        I got the figure in an auction on Ebay. It was a lot of about 10 figures. The seller was I think a guy from New Jersey. It will be 10 years in July/August that I got him.

                        Finding out where the Catalog shot of the Great White set was taken would be about the only way to tell if mine could be the one in the pic. Here's the pic from the Museum Archive/Library:

                        Comment

                        • Tothiro
                          Kitten Mittens
                          • Aug 28, 2008
                          • 1342

                          #57
                          It will be so awesome when all theories are blown out of the water after we find out this was a modified fist fighter concept hand for a Tron disc throwing figure.

                          Comment

                          • MegoMark71
                            Permanent Member
                            • Dec 18, 2008
                            • 3383

                            #58
                            Man that is so cool. You bought it in an auction. So what was the highest amount you have been offered for it? That is if you care to divulge that knowledge. I think the fact that only one is known to exist at this point is incredible

                            Comment

                            • Blue Meanie
                              Banned
                              • Jun 23, 2001
                              • 8706

                              #59
                              Originally posted by MegoMark71
                              Man that is so cool. You bought it in an auction. So what was the highest amount you have been offered for it? That is if you care to divulge that knowledge. I think the fact that only one is known to exist at this point is incredible
                              Not going to give out any numbers, but I have turned down 2 offers for it in the past 10 years that I've had it. I have thought about selling it recently though...who know's, it may be in the offing sometime this year...You never know.

                              Comment

                              • MegoMark71
                                Permanent Member
                                • Dec 18, 2008
                                • 3383

                                #60
                                Well sir if you ever do decide to sell it, I think you might get a pretty sweet return for it. I couldn't even come close to being able to make a serious offer. However we do have some collectors here that are loaded...lol It would be the sale of the year i bet.

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