Green Arrow head swap!

[TrueDave]

I think it's awesome people have figured out so many different ways to mix in match bodies and parts.

Do Mattel heads fit on Dc Silver Age Hasbro posts?

[fallensaviour]

I will have LJN swivel biceps available on drmego.com.

That is the greatest news I've heard in a very,very long time!!!

[GUYx1]

OMG, my army of arm swapped SWAT figures will be so happy!
Now are these going to be the real plastic deal? Resin, rubbery PVC or solid like original Mego/LJN?
Sign me up! I'll buy any ljn biceps I can!

[spamn]

I can tell everyone now
that by the end of this year, I will have LJN swivel biceps available on drmego.com.

BBP asked for them for Flash Gordon since he is sleeveless, and I had always
intended to make them, so the timing worked out.

Great news!

[drmego]

I must have missed reading this thread back in January - I'm glad rodkeith posted
an update to it.

I am not upset when people replace the body on the Mattel figures. The
beauty of this format is that you can kitbash. I do dislike phrases like
"mattaway" or "mattelego" or "mattego" because it may confuse people
as to who and what is actually being made.

I appreciate Shellhead advocating on my behalf. I can tell everyone now
that by the end of this year, I will have LJN swivel biceps available on drmego.com.

BBP asked for them for Flash Gordon since he is sleeveless, and I had always
intended to make them, so the timing worked out.

[rodkeith]

After seeing everyone else's endeavours in improving their GA, I thought I'd give it a go myself. Replaced the Mattel body with a Castaway one, which arrived today, and it's a world of difference. Much nicer.

I did have a lot of difficulty removing the head from the Mattel body, even after boiling it. In fact, I ended up tearing the head away from the insertsble plug section. I'm happy to report, after much cursing (internally-- the kids were around) that the pieces rejoined quite well with Krazy Glue. Even after re-heating that, this time with a hair dryer, inserting into the Castaway body was very difficult. I'm speculating that the amount of glue I used made the plastic less pliable (and I suppose I'm lucky the 2 sections stayed together, with all the squishing and pushing required).

Still, it all worked out, and I'll know to bs much more careful with the body replacement for the rest of wave 1.

Thanks for the input from this thread, everyone! Much appreciated.

[Meule]

Thomas and Jason, I'm cool with it.
I just felt that Docs bodies (which were Pauls original intent)might have been a preferable choice. And for the record Thomas, the dollar figures I spoke of had nothing to do with Mattel, I was talking about Pauls cost of tooling the DR. Mego body, and all the subsequent tooling costs for all the China produced heads, accessories,boots, etc..
Plus the minimum order requirements, to have all the pieces made, cost many thousands of his own money to get even one piece to sell.
And those are just his Dr. Megos Repros Products.
Diamond covered NONE of the tooling costs for the Trek and Apes lines, so Paul had to pay for all those products as well. ( and had to buy the figures from diamond to ad to the insult.)
I just trying to help Paul recoup some of his costs incured by getting Megos out to us again.
I figured at least I owe him that concideration for all he's done. I'm not trying to cause a problem, just to try to offer our support to the guy that gave us all this. I meant no offense.

None taken whatsoever, we're cool
I did misunderstand your dollar figures, so thanks for clearing that up.
But with new Treks coming out this year Doc's gonna need all the bodies he can get his hands on. Especially if the new figures are never before made figures cause they'll be a sure hit

[LonnieFisher]

I think Doc should have his Mego knock-off bodies pelvis area remade. His bodies have a problem of the left hip sticking out funny. The hole for the leg is not at the right angle. And I also think the upper arms should be made of a harder plastic. They are too rubbery and won't lift without breaking. I think their rubber bands are a little too tight. I have at least four broken doc mego bodies. With these two issues corrected I think he would have a perfect Mego reproduction. On the other hand, I think Cast-A-Way has a better style shoulder and bicep. Green Arrow should have bicep swivel action for his bow and arrow. Not so important on the other Mattel figures coming out. But Green Arrow really needed it. I was going to use a Cast-a-way set of arms, but noticed with the others already done that the split on the arm is in a funny place so is shows when rotated. So I am going with the LJN swivel bicep on mine. So I will come up with a nifty four or five company name amalgam. I'm using LJN, Mego, Playing Mantis, Mattel and LJF parts.
Paul shouldn't have a problem with people "fixing" their figures. After all, he isn't the one making them. And to use his body instead of the cast-a-way body would defeat the purpose of getting the swivel so he can hold his bow and arrow right. If Paul had a swivel bicep I'm sure people would be buying them from him. But he hasn't got one so cast-a way is the only "newly made" choice. If Doc Mego decides to make a swivel bicep, he should make it like LJN did.
I think Mattel just needs to think about it's choice of character and decide to give it better attention to the accessories. If he looks stupid then change it. Green Arrow pretty much came with an accessory that is useless to him play-wise. I wonder if anybody ever tried to pose the figure with the bow in the company somewhere and said to themselves, "wow this won't even hold the accessory. oh well...".
I do like the fact that Green Lantern and Sinestro will have fist hands with their power rings.

[Remco Monster]

No prob shellhead, I completely understand where you are coming from. Everyone loves the Doc.

[shellhead]

Thomas and Jason, I'm cool with it.
I just felt that Docs bodies (which were Pauls original intent)might have been a preferable choice. And for the record Thomas, the dollar figures I spoke of had nothing to do with Mattel, I was talking about Pauls cost of tooling the DR. Mego body, and all the subsequent tooling costs for all the China produced heads, accessories,boots, etc..
Plus the minimum order requirements, to have all the pieces made, cost many thousands of his own money to get even one piece to sell.
And those are just his Dr. Megos Repros Products.
Diamond covered NONE of the tooling costs for the Trek and Apes lines, so Paul had to pay for all those products as well. ( and had to buy the figures from diamond to ad to the insult.)
I just trying to help Paul recoup some of his costs incured by getting Megos out to us again.
I figured at least I owe him that concideration for all he's done. I'm not trying to cause a problem, just to try to offer our support to the guy that gave us all this. I meant no offense.

[Remco Monster]

Man o man

I mean absolutely zero disrespect to the Doc. Mattel is the one that dropped the ball on the body and boots, not Dr. Mego. I absolutely love what EMCE has done. Their Trek and Apes are hands down the nicest vintage toy reproductions to date. Even Hasbro hasn't reproed their 12" Joes as nicely. I am also not out to bash Mattel, I absolutely love what they have done with their DC Universe and Masters of the Universe classics lines, but all toy companies have their hits and misses, and I feel this line just has a couple misses.

As for the term I coined for my kitbashed Green Arrow "Matt-A-Way", to think that this is a slap in the face to Doc is just plain silly to me. I call it that because that is what mine IS, an amalgam of Mattel and Castaway. If I had used Doc parts, maybe I would have called it a "Dr. Mattel" :p A Dr. Mego body would have looked just as good as a Castaway on Ollie, but I chose Castaway for two reasons. One, swivel biceps, and two, I wanted their boots since they fit in with Ollie's other rubber accessories, therefore making it cheaper to buy them both from the same place and save on shipping. For the record, the lack of swivel biceps is not the reason I dislike the Mattel body so much, that I could deal with, it is the bow legged legs, and horrendous hip stringing that turns me off. I don't even see Mattel's retro-action as Megos, they are a lot different. They are simply Mattel's nod to Mego figures. They are "Mego Like". So why the heck should it matter if I am using a LJNish swivel bicep body, when the design of the Mattel body is FAR from an original Mego body?

This is all, of course, just my opinion. If people want to use EMCE parts, or like Green Arrow how he is, that is just fine. We can't all like the same things, and it doesn't make one person right over the other.

Ultimately, all parties should be happy. No matter if people are leaving him as is, kitbashing him, or giving him to their dog as a chew toy, he was a sellout hit!

That's all I am saying on this subject. If people have a problem with what I do with my figures, or what I call them, that's their bag....

[Meule]

My point is...the guys at Cast-a-way didn't have a thing to do with getting these figures made, DOC DID !
The other thing is that a lot of you have slaughtered the Famous Covers, and Hasbro's DC figures because they weren't Megos. They both had swivel biceps, but the weren't Megos. Paul's figures are like Megos, His boots, are like Megos, he had these things made in China at his own great expense for collectors of Megos.
Cast-a-Way figures are great, but they are more like LJN with the swivel arms.
Paul had that option, but he chose to stay close to the original Mego.
If any of you had spent 10's of thousands of dollars of YOUR money to support collectors with new MEGO's ( and they ARE now, just ask Marty ) then how would you feel, to see someone else get support! The term Matt-a-Way has got to be the biggest kick in the nuts you could give Paul after doing all this.

I do get your point, but the Cast-a-Way bodies were out before the Mattel figures, we can't just ask CAW to stop selling them and you can't stop people from customizing or making improvements where they think they're needed. I don't think anyone who's doing this is showing a lack of respect for Doc.

And another thing. Unless I'm mistaken Mattel is the one spending tens of thousands of dollars on this, not Paul. Paul did spend a lot of money on the rerelease of Trek and Apes, but I haven't heard of anyone replacing those bodies or even complaining about those lines.
Paul got it right and got nothing but love and respect for it. Mattel screwed up on the bodies (the legs anyway, they say so themselves), so people complain, that's normal. And that automatically means people will try to solve that problem, CAW happens to offer a solution. But it's not like they have advertised this themselves.
And from what I hear the fabric isn't of the best quality either. Sure, if you display it there's no problem. But these were also targeted at kids and in the hands of kids the suit starts getting runs all over the place. Mattel oughta know better.

Again, I haven't seen an ounce of disrespect towards Paul, everyone has applauded him for all his efforts and all he's done for this hobby. I do understand what you're saying, but I think you're reading into all of this a little too much.

[Remco Monster]

That's good to know for GL and Sinestro. I was wondering at what articulation point I was going to have pull Lantern's hands off for the ring.

Also, the hands fit a Castaway body just fine. You will need to heat them up to pull then from the Mattel body, but they pop in and out of a Castaway body no prob.

[hedrap]

...I'm using the Matty lower arm w/green hands (fits perfectly on the Castaway swivel upper arm).

That's good to know for GL and Sinestro. I was wondering at what articulation point I was going to have pull Lantern's hands off for the ring.

[shellhead]

My point is...the guys at Cast-a-way didn't have a thing to do with getting these figures made, DOC DID !
The other thing is that a lot of you have slaughtered the Famous Covers, and Hasbro's DC figures because they weren't Megos. They both had swivel biceps, but the weren't Megos. Paul's figures are like Megos, His boots, are like Megos, he had these things made in China at his own great expense for collectors of Megos.
Cast-a-Way figures are great, but they are more like LJN with the swivel arms.
Paul had that option, but he chose to stay close to the original Mego.
If any of you had spent 10's of thousands of dollars of YOUR money to support collectors with new MEGO's ( and they ARE now, just ask Marty ) then how would you feel, to see someone else get support! The term Matt-a-Way has got to be the biggest kick in the nuts you could give Paul after doing all this.