For children in the 1970s, nothing was more exciting than having a fantasy adventure flying with Superman or climbing a skyscraper with Spider-Man. This was well understood by a small American toy company, the Mego Corporation, which acquired the rights to the Marvel and DC Superheroes, transforming them – for the first time – into jointed plastic dolls with vinyl heads, dressed in fabric outfits. The World’s Greatest Super Heroes! conquered the world, selling millions between 1972 and 1983, and are now considered among the most sought-after items by collectors, so much so that they are regarded as vintage pop culture icons.
Starting in the 1980s, when the Mego hyperbole came to an end, the Superheroes returned in the form of action figures, at first with minimal joints before going on to become more and more detailed, demonstrating an intriguing evolutionary path that combines playful art, design and ever-advancing production technologies. Action figures become a very important vehicle for communicating the world of Superheroes told through costume changes, different graphic guises, secret identities, friends and foes, dating and other information needed to understand a vast universe that has continued to change and update throughout almost ninety years of existence.