Name your top five greatest action figures of all time, and why...

[enyawd72]

GASP! Sacrilege!!This is seriously the worst thing I've heard all day..all week actually. Nay! All month. Yup. The worst thing I've heard all month. Wait you know what, all year. Definitely the worst thing I've heard all year. It's like someone saying they don't like The Beatles, or Summer vacations, or Christmas....

Okay...I thought it was just me. I feel waaay better now.
I love the diversity of everyone's picks though...shows we all have our favorites for different reasons.
I actually had a really hard time with the 80's and 90's picks. Aside from He-Man, Secret Wars and Super Powers could have easily made it a three way tie for the 80's. The larger size and removable armor made the difference for me.
As for the 90's...I think Sideshow's 8"inch Universal monsters were just incredible, but again, I have to credit Spawn with pushing action figures in that direction to begin with.

[spacecaps]

Ok as for the list, I can only play along up to a point because what I played with as a kid and what I collect as an adult are two totally different animals. As far as my toy collecting goes, I don't really collect anything modern, nothing after mid 90's, and some of my favorite toys are actually from the 60's.....

Top 5 as a kid:

5. Remco's Creature From The Black Lagoon: I won this at a carnival when I was a child. I played this figure into the ground. When I wasn't playing with the figure, I wore the ring he came with till he broke. He was my first collectible before I even knew what a collectible was and one of the only and certainly the most valuable toy my mother ever threw away. Also, I thought he was a Space Alien.

4. Kenner Mask: The best vehicle driven toy line ever. The figures took a back seat to the cars. Which were awesome. Flying cars, motorcycles that turned into boats and helicopters, a robot that turned into...a scooter!? Ok so maybe that last one was lame but for the most part, the toy line rocked and there really hasn't been a successful one like it since.

3. He-Man: A. Every kid in the neighborhood had at least one of these guys to bring to the table. B. Half of the toy lines in the 80's were knock-offs of this line so they were compatible with most toy lines to come out that decade (unlike those MASK figures which were too darn small to fit in with anything else) C. Best part was, when you played with them you could just pretend they were monsters.

2. 3 3/4 Gi Joes Truth be told, I probably played with these guys longer than I should have been playing with toys but they made so many for so long, it was hard not to get the cool ones from the "next wave"

1. Kenner Star Wars: The toyline that shaped my childhood. Nuff said.

As for what I collect, it's a much different list:

5. Robo-Force: The last robot line to come out before Transformers changed what robots are. As an adult, I bought the entire line for my son to play with because they just don't make robots like that anymore. As a collector, I own a one of a kind 2nd series figure that has never turned up anywhere ever. It's literally a 1 of 1 and the only one known to exist IN THE WORLD and therefor has a special place in my collection as being one the rarest toys anyone could ever hope to own. (Until someone finds a warehouse full of them in Italy or something....)

4. Remco Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea Submarine: It's a big yellow submarine straight out of the 60's !

3. Colorform Aliens/Mattel Sea Devils: Generic bendable aliens that look like something out of a 1950's Sci-Fi movie.

2. Ideal Zeroids: Boxy monochromatic robots that light up, have no back story and predate Star Wars.

1. Mattel's Scorpio: A one-off 9" tall pink and purple alien with a light up head made out of bendable rubber. This is by far my most favorite action figure of all time.


I'd also like to give an honorable mention to the Star Wars Droids/Ewoks line because as a kid, I looked at them like almost baby toys. As an adult, after having seen the market get flooded with everything and anything Star Wars, the original movies tainted by the touch-ups, and the prequels being the most disappointing thing in my entire life, I now see the simplicity in the Droids line. No matter how many times Star Wars gets reincarnated, the Droids/Ewoks series will probably never be re-explored making it one of the few things in the Star Wars world that will be left alone just as it was originally (along with the two Ewok movies and little else) which I find pretty cool and reminiscent of a simpler time.

[piecemaker]

I'm stuck in the seventies for my greatest/favorite action figures.My favorite was the Adventure Team GI Joes.They were the first action figures i had followed very closely by Megos.The 80s and 90s,i was too "old" to play with toys.I did have some of the 3" 3/4" Star Wars figures but was very disapointed in them because they were not made like the Megos were and never really got into them.The 2000s,i found my 70s favorites again and more plus many Retro 70s style lines i like.

[kingdom warrior]

Gotta start from the 60's on....

1960's-Gi Joe what's not to like.....

1970's Mego- Why i love toys to this day....

1980's-TMNT so good i bought the whole first line in one shot

1990's Spawn-first time I was excited about toys since TMNT

2000's Takara Cool Girl/Cy girls figures

2010's-EMCE Modern day Mego

[HardyGirl]

I have to laugh at some of these reactions. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings or anything. But c'mon guys, this is a Mego forum, and let's face it, Mego was in it's heyday in the 70s. It's only natural that at least some of us are gonna play favorites w/ the decade in which we were kids. I was born in 1966, so I was a 70s kid. By the time the 80s rolled around, the toy market had changed, cartoons had changed, heck almost everything changed. I just wasn't into it. But please don't make me out to be a bad person 'cos the 80s weren't my thing.

(and for the record Spacecaps, I like the Beach Boys better than the Beatles. )

GASP! Sacrilege!!This is seriously the worst thing I've heard all day..all week actually. Nay! All month. Yup. The worst thing I've heard all month. Wait you know what, all year. Definitely the worst thing I've heard all year. It's like someone saying they don't like The Beatles, or Summer vacations, or Christmas....

[starsky]

these are my picks because i spent the most time playing with them.

1 six million dollar man
2. mego wgsh superman
3. big jim pack commander
4. star wars 3.75 inch small head han solo and 12 inch han solo
5. 9 inch gabriel lone ranger and silver
6.super powers green lantern

[HardyGirl]

Yep, how could you not love the 70s for action figures? GIJoe, Evel Knievel, Mego, Big Jim, SMDM...it was a great time. (no offense, 80s babies)

I'm stuck in the seventies for my greatest/favorite action figures.My favorite was the Adventure Team GI Joes.They were the first action figures i had followed very closely by Megos.The 80s and 90s,i was too "old" to play with toys.I did have some of the 3" 3/4" Star Wars figures but was very disapointed in them because they were not made like the Megos were and never really got into them.The 2000s,i found my 70s favorites again and more plus many Retro 70s style lines i like.

[Mikey]

The 80's are a tough one for me because quite honestly I didn't have much interest in any toys back then.

In the mid 80's I dabbled in collecting older stuff but I had no interest in then current stuffm - short of buying my nephews some LJN WWF's and Transformers.

[torgospizza]

1990's- Kenner Dark Knight collection Bruce Wayne

Good call! I don't have that exact one, but the Batman Returns version, which is the same figure with different packaging, and I was seriously thinking about listing that. Excellent figure, looks like Keaton, removable mask and armor--it has it all.

This is pretty tough, though. I need to mull this over before making my list. F.ex., for the 1970s, I loved Kenner's Six Million Dollar Man; yet, Pulsar had phenomenal sculpting and was a unique approach, Big Jim had great accessories and action features, but Adventure Team GI Joe was an icon that kind of blazed a trail for all of them. Lots of stuff to consider. For the '60s, although not world-changing, I have a huge fondness for Callisto from the Major Matt Mason line.

[jimsmegos]

70's - Mego Superman - My first Superman Toy and it's play value, look , costume, construction set the standard that I demand in a toy that I hold on to to this day.

80's - 12 inch C3-PO - He was gold and shiny my Dad got him for me as a surprise out of the blue circa 1979.

90's- Star Wars POTF2 line - These badboys (and monkey faced woman) brought toy collecting back to the forefront of my "hobby to do list". Trying to track down the latest releases in the wild was a blast for a buddy of mine.

00's - Diamond Select / EMCE Spock - It brought 'em back

10's - Bif Bang Pow Brock Samson - New body style for this fantastic Character took Re-Mego possibilities to a new level.

[Hector]

I have to laugh at some of these reactions. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings or anything. But c'mon guys, this is a Mego forum, and let's face it, Mego was in it's heyday in the 70s. It's only natural that at least some of us are gonna play favorites w/ the decade in which we were kids. I was born in 1966, so I was a 70s kid. By the time the 80s rolled around, the toy market had changed, cartoons had changed, heck almost everything changed. I just wasn't into it. But please don't make me out to be a bad person 'cos the 80s weren't my thing.

(and for the record Spacecaps, I like the Beach Boys better than the Beatles. )

You don't need to apologize, I wasn't into action figures in the 80s either...that was my party decade...who had time for those plastic 80s things, lol.

My list consists of actual age and favorites at the time:

60s...mmm...probably Mr Potato Head or that rubbery Gumby figure...I was too young for the concept of "cool" toys, lol.
70s...definitely Kenner's Six Million Dollar Man...narrowly edging out Mego Superman and Mego Kirk and Spock.
80s...this is a family friendly forum, I plea the fifth, lol.
90s...again, for most of the decade, nothing...no interest in action figures at the time....I was more into R/C cars. But by 1998 or so...something clicked...so I bought some newer Star Wars stuff...nothing specific...things that never became collectible.
00's...OK...finally nostalgia kicked in my late 30s...I discovered my inner childhood again, joined this fine forum...and immediately got hooked with Megos...then it avalanched to an all out Superman action figure love fest, all due to Superman being my favorite comic book superhero since childhood...

[enyawd72]

^Superman's your favorite? I had no idea...

[Mongoose1983]

I suppose you're asking for specific figures and not for lines of figures, so here I go with my favorite five:

1.- Lesney/Matchbox Captain Peg-Leg (1974): the superbly well presented box, the scaleness of the figure itself, the clothes, the action arm, AND that unforgettable hidden map on his peg-leg made of it the most amazing toy figure I have ever seen.
2.- Mego Incredible Hulk 12" (1978): A huge and VERY resistant green figure with an amazing box that truly got my attention back in the day.
3.- Kenner Six Million Dollar Man (1974): Another huge action figure, from what arguably is the most exciting TV series ever.
4.- Mego Spider Man 12" (1977): The skinny version looked much more in tune with the Spider man from the 60's TV cartoon series. It was amazing indeed.
5.- Hasbro Megatron (1984): "The figures that could transform". Says it all for a kid in a world that never before seen such thing. Transformers were awesome in every sense of the word.

Hmmm...

80s-The WORST action figure decade IMO. Sorry folks, but I don't like small, molded plastic guys that didn't pose well, and the clothes were painted on, or the accessories could be eaten up by mom's vacuum. And I just didn't like the new concept for GIJoe, or He-man, Transformers, Star Wars figures (except the big ones), She-Ra...yadda yadda....I'm a 70s kid and proud of it!

Sorry guys, but with the HUGE exception of the Transformers, I will have to agree with HardyGirl. Chuck Norris, He-Man, Rambo, those were awesome characters, but the toys that depicted them were a sad departure to what 70's toys industries developed for action figures. They were, just like HardyGirl said before, molded plastic and didn't pose well. Quite frankly, they were horrible. And the small Bionic Six, Super powers and GIJoe... not a fan of them, nor of the Thundercats. I believe the 90's figures, and much more the ones from 2000 onwards have been more scale and poseable. Therefore much nicer.

[toys2cool]

No way, give me 80's toys all day over 70's...you're telling me welcome back carter, the hardy boys, and stuff like that were more fun then He-man and Gi joes? Hells no! were they cool yea, but come on..most were Ken looking dolls or dress up dolls...Give me the action figures you can stick in your pocket and take to school without your mom knowing

and no i'm not talking about WGSH's because megos were still being made in the 80's as well so it doesn't count...and some of my faves too, like Chips and DOH's

you're always going to pick your childhood toys first but to say 80's suck or horrible? come on now

[VintageMike]

I fit right in the middle of the 70's/80's argument. I am old enough to have enjoyed the 70's toys but young enough to enjoyed some early to mid eighties toys as well. That said the thread is about YOUR favorite. There's is no right or wrong answer here. You could make valid point for either. You could love Megos because of the articulation and clothes. You could love Star Wars because of all the ships/playsets. I think we also sometimes forget how we thought of things as kids not adults. Today we see Mego Captain America and point out all the costume faults. I have a good memory and can tell you for a fact myself and my friends didn't care at that age: It was Cap, he had a shield and that was good enough. I can also tell you being seven years old when Star Wars figures were released the lack of articulation didn't matter. Having representations of the characters was all that mattered. It's been said by others before but it bears repeating: whatever you grew up/had as a kid is going to special to you and have a favored view. Everyone should respect that. Saying a particular period of toys "sucked" is basically disrespecting someone's childhood and it's memories.