Captains America

On last Friday's Friday Breakage at Articulated Discussion Wes called me out on my description of my recent Marx Marvel Superheroes finds, saying "There’s a part of me that strongly doubts the reported size of these things — size comparisons with modern 6″ figures would have been awesome — but they’re still pretty cool finds." 

You dare question the great and powerful BubbaShelby?!?!?! Haha just kidding, a size comparison would have been keen, right?

Right.

So here ya' go:

Here's the Marx Captain America and the Marvel Legends 1st appearance Captain America side by side!

I tried my best to pose Cap like Cap to show that yes, these guys are for all intents and purposes in the same scale.

No trick photography here folks. That's how big these things really are!

Would I lie to you?

Avengers Assemble!

The final bunch of stuff I hauled away from the swap meet this past Saturday literally gave me the shakes, I was so excited to find them!

6" Marvel superheroes by Marx! Thor, Iron Man and Captain America - Avengers Assemble!
Made of solid plastic and molded like your typical little green army man, these toys were originally manufactured by Marx in 1967. I believe the first run of these guys was a silver/grey plastic, and that these colorful guys were a later release from some time around 1971 or so.

There I was at the swap meet last Saturday when I spotted a pile of six colorful toys from a few feet away. I casually made my way towards them and walking up to them asked the vendor how much he wanted. He said "$3" and I said "for all of them?" He said "Yes" and I could barely contain my excitement! Now understand the pile had six figures in it, so without inspection or any delays whatsoever I grabbed them all and payed and skipped away like Gollum having just secured his precious. I later discovered three of them were in pretty sad shape, with their fingers chewed to the point that they look more like Arthritics than Avengers. I won't show them here because treating toys as such is blasphemy here at Toyriffic, but they would have been pretty sweet if they (2 Spider-Mans and a Daredevil) weren't used as a teething ring for some dumb kid. I hope he got lead poisoning, whoever he is!

But I digress. Let's turn our attention back to the three great examples I got - still more than worth the three bucks I paid for them! 

First up is Iron Man! Stark is showing off by breaking a chain in an awfully strange manner. Yeah that was impressive in 1938 when Superman did it first, dude.

Iron Man is a little roughed up around the head but is otherwise in great shape. It's fun to imagine this toy being one of the first toys of Iron Man back then, having been sculpted a mere four years after Iron Man was introduced in the comics! And what a sculpt - you can even see Tony Stark's eyes inside the mask's eye holes! What must kids have thought of this strange metal man, and what could they have foretold of his pop culture destiny at the time?

Next up is the good Captain America. The Cap gets a pretty sweet sculpt here too, with his shield being held out in front of him in a defensive posture instead of stationary at his side, which would have been a lot easier to pull off I imagine.

If I had an old car I'd cast this in chrome and make it my hood ornament.

The final of the big three and the figure that is surprisingly (given some dumb kid's penchant for sticking his toys in his mouth and all the nice chewable parts sticking out of this one) in the best shape of them all is the God of Thunder himself, THOR!

I love how all these guys are not overly musclebound, reflecting the art and aesthetics of the times the toys were were made. You will never see a skinny Thor in this day and age, that's for sure! Plus, whosoever holds that version of Mjolnir, be he worthy, is probably hanging a picture in his girlfriend's apartment or repairing a broken wheel on a small wooden toy duck, not calling down thunder from the heavens! I love it!

These Marx plastic superheroes have amazing sculpts and are a fun look at the type of toys kids of yesterday would have played and cemented their love for superhero lore with. They were before my time, but I know some of my readers are a little older than I am; I'd love to hear from those of you who had these or remember them from your youth!

Smilodon, darn ya', Smilodon!

This little kitty is a Smilodon, more commonly referred to as a Saber-toothed Tiger.


He was manufactured by Marx sometime in the sixties and was originally available in boxed or bagged sets of prehistoric animals. Any boy who grew up in the sixties, seventies and eighties had tons of little plastic dinosaurs all over the place, and I imagine future excavations of our civilization will ironically yield tons of toy dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures.


The Sabre-Toothed Tiger was always my favorite prehistoric animal, next to old T-Rex himself. I mean, who wouldn't marvel at a giant feline with fangs the size of butcher knives!


Toys like these also remind me of the "good old days" when we thought dinosaurs walked upright, dragging their snakelike tails, lumbering like giant slow lizards. I recall hours and hours of play in the house and in the yard with handfuls of colorful plastic creatures. My era was a heyday for cheap plastic toys - army men, knights, fantasy creatures, dinosaurs, aliens - we had it all. If you can even find a set of cheap plastic toys nowadays you're lucky if they're army men or dinosaurs, and they have little charm after having been cast and recast and copied fifty thousand generations after the original molds.

Also, kids today seem to prefer the squishy rubber toy frogs and bugs and stuff which were solid or hard plastic in my day. Sheesh - kids!


"I want tuna, I want liver, I want a Mastadon, please deliver!"


No, he didn't roll over for a tummy rub - I'm just showing his markings which read "Smilodon" and "9' Long"

See, in my day toys even taught you something!