Action Jackson’s 18 primary outfits are to this day somewhat ubiquitous, and in a variety of packages.
The first series came in the illustrated boxes, featuring full color paintings of the character in action (below, left). It is believed that when the line failed the numerous costume sets were “dumped” in Canada. The boxes were slapped with a sticker advertising them as Outfits for Superheroes.(bottom)
Presumably, the generic AJ box was used when the initial print run of illustrated boxes was used up. While illustrated boxes are still common, the generic boxes are the ones that tend to be found in bulk to this day.
In the UK, AJ was renamed Johnnie Jackson to avoid conflict with Action Man. Action Jackson also had a bit of a following in Italy as L’Amico Jackson. In France, he was Luc L’Adventure (translation it’s “Luke Adventure”, it sounds wonky to anglais)
The early packages featured wonderfully painted images of Action Jackson acting out the adventure being sold.
The painted boxes were replaced with a standard stock image that was generic. .
Produced exclusively in Canada by Mego distributor Parkdale Novelty, who by the mid 1970s realised they had an overstock issue with the AJ outfits. Their attempt to lessen the inventory was to tie them into Mego’s more current lines such as Planet of the Apes, Mad Monsters and the World’s Greatest Superheroes. This is not truly a package variation as the existing inventory was merely stickered over with this bilingual header. These sets were marketed in the Canadian Sears and Eaton’s Catalogs.
In the UK< Mego distributor Cecil Coleman removed the “Action” (most likely to remove confusion between Palitoy’s “Action Man line) and AJ became JJ. Coleman also distributed the first waves of WGSH into the UK.. .
In France, Action Jackson was known as Luc L’Adventure. .