Marvel may have the Avenger’s Mansion, the Baxter Building, and Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, but those three fictional landmarks together aren’t half as recognizable as DC’s Hall of Justice. Thanks to ABC’s long-running Saturday morning Super Friends cartoon, the Hall is known as home to the world’s greatest superheroes. Sure, the Batcave holds more cultural cache, but the Batcave isn’t on the back of the $20 bill now, is it?
By the mid-1970s, Mego had parlayed their DC license into big bucks: Superman, Batman, and Robin were the most popular characters in their 8-inch “World’s Greatest Super-Heroes” line (next to Marvel’s Spider-Man, of course), and the company wasted no time in developing a world for these figures to inhabit. Not only did Mego deliver a Batcopter, a Joker van, and a Green Arrowcar, but in 1976 we saw the debut of the Hall of Justice play set.
Mego’s play sets were fairly basic, more akin to carrying cases than actual play environments. Assembled from colorful cardboard inserts enclosed in clear, heat-sealed vinyl, the sturdy construction ensured that most sets long outlasted their heroic tenants. While considered crude today, the “comic art” styling worked nicely with the Mego aesthetic, and gave the figures something interesting to look at on those long car rides to grandma’s house.
The sole accessory was… a table. Hey, you’re a member of the Justice League now, you can sit on your own damn time. While the Hall was admittedly light on accessories, Mego’s design team worked wonders with the budget they did have. Consider the Disaster Console, a chronometer/crime-o-meter made entirely out of cardboard. Look, the Joker’s pulling a boner in Casablanca!
There was also the Translocation Chamber that “beamed” your hapless action figure to the scene of various crises — like into the thick of this deadly avalanche. Quick, better send Robin.
Here’s something that’s kept collectors hot and bothered for 40 years: Green Lantern featured on a Mego box. It proved to be the ultimate tease as Mego ceased producing new DC characters after it’s failed Teen Titans line. In spite of his Hall of Justice cameo, Green Lantern never successfully made the leap from page to plastic. Life’s not fair, kids — better you learn it from a cardboard box than a cold, uncaring world.
Instead of adding new DC characters to its 8-inch line, Mego instead focused valuable time and retail space on its Comic Action Heroes. The smaller scale and reduced articulation was Mego’s attempt to offset rising shipping and oil costs, but the line was hampered by ugly sculpts and sub-par paintwork. Nonetheless, the low price point insured most kids ended up with at least a few Comic Action Heroes — it was like a weird rite of passage you suffered through to become a man.
Originally slated to appear as the Hall of Justice, this set was instead issued as Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Mego had intended it to be the Hall all along, but there were concerns that retailers would confuse this item and the Hall of Justice play set meant for the 8-inch World’s Greatest Super Heroes figures. Fortunately, one walled bunker looks the same as any other, so the Hall became the Fortress and no one was the wiser.
Hey, chairs! Now here’s a team I’d want to be on. Wait, is that… a bomb? Eh, whatever, I’m sitting down.
The new scale allowed Mego do more for the JLA than flat cardboard walls: the control panels and computer monitors are actually angled out so figures can sit normally. Well, as normally as they can sit, anyway. You think someone at Mego would have taken a good, hard look and said, “Uh, what is he supposed to be doing with that hand, anyway?”
Laugh all you want, but be sure and check out that raised “S” while you’re at it — it’s been 10 years and Mattel has yet to give us a classic Superman figure with one. Oh, and if you’re planning on seeing Avengers 2, then spoiler alert:
Looks like Cap’s Kooky Quartet just got some much-needed muscle. “What’s that, Thor? You can come in today after all? Oh, don’t worry about it, we got someone to fill in for you. Who? Oh, he’s just this guy — named SUPERMAN! Stay home and do your hair tonight, Sally, we found someone without a carpentry-based power-set! Haw haw!”
With Mego closing its doors in 1982, the DC license passed to Kenner, whose Super Powers Collection went on to become the standard by which all future DC figures would be judged against. Not content on merely redefining the super hero action figure, Kenner decided it would build them a better clubhouse, to boot.
Kenner’s set was a sharp-looking if not an entirely accurate representation of the Hall of Justice. “That’s funny — I don’t recall the old place being quite so yellow.”
The Hall has a holding cell for all of your super villains (or heroes if the villains are winning) The symbolism of placing Justice above the prison door is not lost. Obviously the jail works on the honor system, as anyone smaller than Darkseid could shimmy right through those gates. Considering the free room and three meals a day, some of those villains could do worse than sticking around.
As far as the “computer command center” goes… it pretty much speaks for itself. Yes, granted, miniaturization was anticipated in the tech field, but one slot machine-sized computer console? Inner city bus stations are more hi-tech than this. Well, at least it seats three — makes it easier to watch YouTube videos together, I guess.
By the 1990s, hanging around in Halls was out, while hanging in a geosynchronous orbit 23,000 miles above Earth was in. The League had used satellite headquarters before, but the Justice League cartoon cemented the notion that the team had new digs. But how to adapt this to a play set?
Badly is the answer. Here is the perfect example of a designer’s style superseding common sense. Instead of Mattel simply creating a usable sectional play set with a table and computers for the figures to gather around (you know, like they do in every episode), they create this… I dunno, Swiss Army Bottle Opener? It’s a failure on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start.
No area within the structure can hold more than one figure — a bit of an issue when it comes to a Justice League play set. I guess they can stand around outside, but that creates more problems than it solves, doesn’t it? I’m not saying this thing isn’t interesting on its own merits, but when you consider its intended use, it’s a dismal failure.
Here, Flash pleads with his mother (off camera) for another quarter so he can “ride again.” Not that he can actually sit down inside this contraption or anything. It may seem like I’m joking but I can’t stress this enough: this is a play set designed specifically for Justice League figures, and yet the figures don’t actually fit inside it. What should have been a nice, simple environment turns into an Escher-esque nightmare in plastic.
Green Lantern’s silent protestations in vain, the Flash waits for explosive decompression to claim him. Trust us, it’s better this way.
We end on what can only loosely be described as a play set, but it’s a nice piece so we’ll take a quick peek. While everyone was buying the 6-inch Young Justice figures to include them in their DCUC displays, the 4-inch figures were being purchased for their pack-in pieces. Said pieces built this lovely Hall of Justice.
So what’s the issue? Well, this is actually more of a facade than a play set. The back is blank plastic — the only detail is what faces out, and a fair bit of that is painted on. That said, it’s a wonderful display piece, especially if you’re a serious Super Friend. And you obviously are — you’ve read this article all the way to the end!
Thanks to Rob Willard for his photos of the Mego Comic Action Heroes Hall of Justice. Check out his other amazing treasures here!
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