An Ode to my Mego Spider-Man

The Masters of the Universe toys became my obsession after I was first exposed to them, but my first love was Spider-Man.  And that love originated because someone gave me a Mego brand Spider-Man figure when I was very young.  The toy featured in the picture is my figure.  It has seen better days, but for a 41 year old toy that was very well loved it's holding up quite well.

I don't claim to be a MEGO expert.  I had exactly one MEGO toy in my lifetime, and you're looking at it and reading about it.  

There was a lot to love about this toy.  First off it has a fabric costume over top of it's plastic body.  I loved that costume.  As you can see the fabric is worse for wear, but it's still in tact and in fact the costume is the only thing that holds the left lower leg in place because it's completely busted at the knee joint.

Knowing what I know now about fabric and clothing production makes me appreciate the costume even more today.  I can picture factories full of women in 1977 Hong Kong hunched over tiny sewing machines trying to line up the webbing at the shoulder seams.

I can't say I'm as crazy about the head.  Don't get me wrong, it's got realistic proportions and the eyes look great.  But the fact that it's a soft plastic or rubber material instead of a hard plastic Peter Parker head with a fabric mask always bummed me out.  It would have helped if the mask has the black lines for the web, but considering that would have required hand panting I get why it wasn't done that way.

This toy provides my Mom a story that she enjoys telling about the time when I left him at the local discount store (for those of you from the Pittsburgh area you may remember Murphy's Mart).  I don't remember the events she describes, but the way she tells it when I realized I lost him I became hysterical.  She went back to the store and someone had turned it in to the Lost and Found because they could tell it was a "well loved" toy and that someone would surely be missing it soon.

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