Carded Mego Pocket Super Heroes

 

These scans provided by Scott Arendson and BrAin

The mego Pocket Heroes came on three different cards, the first series seemed rushed to the market for the new Superman movie and featured rather generic red cards that showed none of mego's flair for packaging.

Series two featured better designed white cards which are much more difficult to find

Series three was a limited foreign only release of four figures, below is a checklist:

Red cards

(Most commonly found) Superman, Batman, Robin, Hulk, Spiderman, Zod, Jor El and Luthor. There is tremendous surplus in this line, MOC examples can still be found averaging from $20 for the lesser characters to $50 for the main heroes. Robin is the least common. It is easy to find c8 unpunched examples of red cards, as there has been a warehouse find in the last ten years. Do not bother with AFA graded versions of these figures, mint specimens abound.

Shazam, Penguin and Joker are featured on the red card artwork but they were not released as pocket superheroes but did see release in Mego's Comic Action Heroes line (1976-1978). Zod, Luthor and Jor El are featured on the white cards but were never produced in any other packaging but the red cards. The Superman movie characters sold poorly and were closed out in stores leading up the early ninties!

Above is a Harbert Italy released Red Carded Pocket Superhero Spidey, note the change in the graphics to suit the language and the Harbert logo.

The White Cards.

White cards Superman, Batman, Robin,Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Hulk, Spiderman,Captain America, Green Goblin

It is a daunting task to find Pocket Heroes on White cards. Captain America, Aquaman, Green Goblin and Wonder Woman were created specifically for this release and were not recycled Comic Action Heroes as the first release of pocket Super heroes were. The most uncommon figures to find on White cards are the heroes previously released on the red cards. Batman and Spiderman are especially tough. The white cards were released in 1980.

Aquaman was only released on a white cardRobin saw release also on red cards but is extremely difficult to find on a white card

White carded Hulk is the easiest to obtain in the series,however the Italian card is extremely tough

Italian Carded Hulk and US Carded Hulk.

All of the heroes that are common on a red card are near impossible to find on a white card

White Carded Batman also came with a lasso occasionally

 

The Mego Denim Cards ("Pocket Heroes")

Denim or Blue Jean card checklist Superman, Batman,Hulk, Spiderman

It's not known where this series fits in, often believed to be a late release, the Spiderman variant suggests an earlier production date. I recieved them as a child around Spring 1980. It is possible that Mego created a small assortment of the figures for foreign distributors and some managed to make it into the US Market. Whatever the case may be Blue Jean Pocket Heroes (Mego dropped the "Super" for this release) are the toughest set to complete.

Mego Pocket Heroes on Blue Jean cards, finding a complete set is very difficult

For some reason the Marvel characters are featured on the back of the DC cards and Vise Versa. Denim cards feature perhaps the most innovative packaging for Mego Superheroes ever.

These cards were released by Lincoln (yes the Monster people) in the UK, note that the backers are reversed.

Grand Toys Canada release of the Mego Blue Jean Hulk and Batman had the correct backers.

There is only one known Blue Jean Spiderman

Finally! some US cards! Of course, this surfaced in the UK. Spiderman is the toughest of the set.

Mego Blue Jean Bats on an Italian (Gig or Harbert?) Card (courtesy of L'il Danny Miller!).

Original Catalog pages, Mego ads, comic book ads and order forms for the Mego Pocket Superheroes, click on them for a larger view

The Mego Forum Is the perfect place to discuss or buy sell and trade Mego Pocket Superhero Figures

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