Who sculpted who?

[English Paul]

All five Palitoy Space 1999 heads are marked with a 'D' behind the ear. Whether it relates to a first or surname is obviously unclear, but I reckon the sculptor of these wanted to leave his/her mark forever.

[TrueDave]

This is an excelent observation but I don't see it. Just a difference of opinion. I admit I am not very familiar with either the Superheroes or the Asian toons to judge.
Most of my sculpting "judgements " were based on the rotocasted Masked Rider or Ultraman collections. I was there in 98 not 68 so the animation influennces were different. mostly the very skinny robots with high school girl pilots and cool rifles.
I love teh Neptunian. I love all teh weird Megos. Today we have weirdo toys at Hot topic, yesterday we had rat Fink and friends in the 1960s. But Neptinian, Ape Soilder, Mugato etc, werent trying to be ugly, so they deserve extra love.

The Hong Kong theory for the DC & Marvel Super-Hero sculpts sounds very plausible to me. The Heroes faces all seem to share the popular`70's Anime style as they might have been sculpted at the time. Aquaman looks like Desslok from Yamato, Green Arrow's goa-tee looks like gravity defying anime hair, Batman's cowl & Captain America's mask look more like a hard-helmet from some of G-Forces enemies, Robin's goofy smile looks like Tiny from G-Force, Mr. Fantastic's stone-faced expression looks like the second Captain of the Yamato from the second series: Arrivederci Yamato. (Battle of the Planets/Gatchaman & Space Battleship Yamato was first released in Japan in the early 70's). It seems to me the signs are there.

[johnmiic]

Lets compare.

Mark Venture from Star Blazers looks a lot like Mego Shazam.




Sandor from Star Blazers looks a little like Bruce Wayne Alter Ego. Sandor has no eye-brows on his show so this *is* how he looks.




Aquaman resembles Desslok from Star Blazers. Desslok is blonde-haired.




Green Arrows goa-tee defies gravity as some of the hair on Alex Wildstar does.

[PNGwynne]

It's believed by some that the Neptunian was originally planned as Mego's version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon in its monster line. The theory makes sense to me. I actually really like the sculpt.

Really? I just can't see this as a Gillman-type character. How'd this theory start?

I do like Neptunian, though. The crude sculpt deserves a better deco.

[ctc]

>The Heroes faces all seem to share the popular`70's Anime style as they might have been sculpted at the time.

It's an interesting theory, and I think you're KIND of right.... but for an odd reason. If done in Hong Kong there'd be a definite influence, and they DO have a lot in common with what most folks consider the Japanses style; but that style was inspired by American animation, notably Disney and specificly Fred Moore. Since DIsney was having a bit of a renaissance at the time, and Mego was interested on making kid-friendly toys (tested on real kids as I recall....) I could see a certain amount of creep entering into the figure designs. ANd odd sort of parrallel development.

Don C.

[mikeoz]

Really? I just can't see this as a Gillman-type character. How'd this theory start?

I do like Neptunian, though. The crude sculpt deserves a better deco.

Yeah, he looks nothing like Gillman. I can't remember for sure, but I think I read it over at the Universal Monster Army forum. I also believe someone mentioned it here before, too. Since Mego didn't have the license to any of the Universal Monster likenesses, they created their own versions of the monsters (possibly as a way to counter AHI's monsters). The theory is that the Neptunian was supposed to be the repitilian monster in the line since they didn't actually have the rights to Gillman.

Hopefully one of the experts here can shed a little more light on this.

[TrueDave]

I respectfully don't see the anime similarities. I looked really. I just don't see it.

I was messing about with my Neptunian teh other day and thought how easy it would be to make it a Creature.

get rid of the red bathing suit ( yes on my Mego bridge teh Neptunian is a female) and slap a Aurora creature head on it and viola!
Doc Mego should have used those gloves for the Gorn revamp.

[johnmiic]

I respectfully don't see the anime similarities. I looked really. I just don't see it.

Well it's just a theory but I have to say that Mark Venture of Star Blazers/Yamato is nearly an identical match for Mego Shazam.

[TrueDave]

It makes sense though. the superheroes all DO have a similar cartoon look to them.