Great Hera! Look at those Box Cars!

[RSS]

The mid to late seventies saw what would become a regular event in our lifetime, an explosion on superhero merchandising. Some of it cool and logical like the Mego Superheros and some of it well, just plain strange. Take for example the 1977 Tyco Superhero boxcars, an odd marriage of Comic Books and the Rail Yard.

Tyco solely went with the DC characters for this venture and the used the seventies four pronged merchandising machine of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Shazam! Shazam faded from a lot of merchandise once his live action TV Series was cancelled. Poor Aquaman once again gets the shaft....

1977 Tyco Superhero Box Cars

Also check out these links for more Super Heroic Merchandise from the same era!

For more Fashion Mockery and 70's toy love visit us at Plaid Stallions.com


More...

[vulcan2074]

Those are Way Cool. I was just thinking about Buying a Train Set. The other Day I went for a cool Ride on one to the Beach. It was alot of Fun.
Sammy

[RG]

Thanks alot lol ... now I'm going to be looking for these on ePay .... I love train sets ... I have about 5 or 6 HO scale ones ... and a couple larger ones.

[Meule]

I can't imagine these being succesful, or were they?

[RG]

not too many on ebay ... and they look like they sit around at $20 a pop.

I know after Christmas I'm going to look for getting a set ... maybe I'll even go for a couple of each :D

[ramsey37]

It's hard to tell from the pics, but I *think* the Shazam! car features Kurt Schaffenberger art.
George

[The Toyroom]

It's hard to tell from the pics, but I *think* the Shazam! car features Kurt Schaffenberger art.
George

Yup it's Schaffenberger. The Wonder Woman art looks like it's the same that's on the 12" Mego box...is that Dick Giordano's work?

I still have my Batman boxcar.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Yep WW is Dick Giordano, and Shazam is Schaffenberger.Giordano may have inked the Adams Superman, and Murphy Anderson definitely inked the Batman. The art they used for their ad seems lifted or redrawn from comics. Batman looks really weird there.

Very cool stuff Brian! I have a set of these. They seem to be pretty common MIB on ebay, so my guess is these sat around in hobby stores gathering dust for a while. Maybe the crossover appeal to train enthusiasts wasn't too strong?

Chris

[ScottA]

I have 3 of the 4 (missing Superman). I couldn't tell when or where I got them as I've had them for as long as I can remember. And since I had 2 train sets as a kid (still have them) I used them as well.

[toys2cool]

those are awesome!