There are many things throughout our adult lives that spark memories of childhood. It is very rare that we can actually recover a physical piece of our young lives. Thankfully, Diamond Select Toys has decided to help out with that. Back in the early to mid 1970’s if you bought action figures chances are they were made by Mego. Producing highly articulate 8-inch figures, the toy company had the license to a wide range of characters, from Marvel to DC Comics, from The Planet of the Apes to The Wizard of Oz and many, many more. In 1974 the company acquired the license for the TV series Star Trek. Over the subsequent two years, fourteen Star Trek figures were released in total with varying quality and rarity. Now, over thirty years after Mego stopped producing these figures, Diamond Select is releasing replicas that are an exact match. The Star Trek Retro line is being released in sets of two, featuring an Enterprise crew member and an alien in each set. The first one we are going to take a look at includes Dr. McCoy and a Romulan.
The Packaging
The packaging is the most welcome surprise in these sets. At first glance the figures appear to be housed in the same old blister packs of yore, but that is not entirely accurate. The figures are carded, however both the card and figure are encased in a sturdy outer plastic case that simulates blister packaging, but, once a thin strip is cut off on all sides, the clear case is resealable. This allows you to keep the card intact, remove the figure to play with (yes, I know, the horror) and have a safe and easy way to store your toy. I am simply stunned at how useful a feature this is and now wish every figure came encased as such. Brilliant design by Diamond Select.
The front of the card is a very close recreation of the ones that the original figures came with, using the original artwork albeit slightly rearranged and minus the Mego logo. The back of the card has the first wave of figures posed much like they would be in a commercial from the 70’s along with a short text piece about the history of the figures.
All-in-all, the packaging is top-notch. My only complaint would be that cutting off the necessary parts of the plastic case is pretty difficult and can be frustrating the first time you do it. But that is a very minor and perhaps unnecessary quibble.
The Figures
The figures are unbelievably impressive. Personally, I can’t tell the difference between these new figures and the way I remember the originals. I imagine these must have been manufactured in a completely different way, but the care and attention that went into making them as accurate as possible is clearly evident. I plan on tracking down at least one of the originals to do a side by side comparison, but I dare say it’s really not needed.
The Romulan comes with that same fantastic removable gold helmet and the red phaser, communicator, and tricorder of the original. The removable outfit and boots feel like they were made of the same material as that of thirty years ago, but perhaps just a bit thicker and sturdier. The outfit even has the same type of snaps.
Doctor McCoy has his blue colored accessories (phaser, communicator, tricorder) and removable clothe Starfleet uniform. The big improvement here over the original (and I’m assuming it’s been done with all the Enterprise crew figures) is with the Starfleet symbol on the shirts. Originally, the symbol was made of a sturdy piece affixed to the shirt with a thin silver foil on the front. Inevitably the silver foil would easily come off with only minimal handling of the figure. A much thicker and better adhered silver material was used this time, thankfully. My only nitpick with the McCoy figure is that I’m almost certain that the original had gold rank braids on the sleeves, like in the show, and this one has silver. That may just be Diamond’s way of marking these as remakes, but I wish that had used gold instead.
The ball joints used in the articulation points seems to be a bit stronger and the construction of the waists seems much hardier than the originals, but that may just be my muddled memory. Again, at the risk of becoming a broken record, I give high praise to the attention to detail in these recreations, right down the the phasers being very loose in the utility belts. That annoyed me as a kid, but just made me smile now the first time phaser fell out.
The Nostalgia
If you ever owned any original Mego figures these recreations will make you grin like the kid you were back in the day. I imagine that the folks working on this project were just such kids who got the originals when they first came out. I’m eager to check out the rest of the sets and I’m very curious if Diamond plans on making Mego-like figures for the crew that wasn’t in the 1970’s sets (Sulu, Chekov anyone?). Or if they will recreate the playsets, too. Have a new version of the Enterprise playset would be a dream. In the meantime, I’ll be happy with these figures and fondly remembered afternoons from my childhood.
Thank you to Diamond Select Toys for providing the review samples for this article. You can purchase your own Mego recreations here!