Backyard Battlegrounds!

Long before sophisticated video game platforms could stage spectacular, ultra-realistic comic book battles, young comic book fans of the early to mid-1970's resorted to drastic measures when it came to simulated superheroics. We used our imaginations!  

You see, since Atari's PONG (left) was the only thing close to a video game we had at the time, there were basically two non-electronic, imagination-fueled options for reenacting epic comic book clashes. One was to use Mego's line of comic book action figures (not dolls, mind you!):

The Mego figures sparked hours and hours of surreal adventures that only the addled minds of 8 year-old boys could cook up. However, the Mego figures were a little pricey for a mid-70's allowance, and tracking down the full variety of characters was tough before the advent of internet shopping...so as cool as the Mego figures were, we usually turned to the second (and much cheaper) option of improvisational make-believe.

At the insistence of our moms, these elaborate battle royales were staged outside...beginning with each kid loudly declaring which character he was about to play. Next, we shook down our dad's garages for items that could approximate our character's superpowers and/or equipment...such as:

• garbage can lid = Captain America's shield (duh)

• tennis balls = Human Torch fireballs (or any matter or energy-based projectiles)

• sledgehammer (or, in a pinch, a regular hammer) = Mjolnir, hammer of Thor

• rope = Spider-Man's webbing, a bolt of electricity from his enemy Electro, or (if a girl happened to be playing) Wonder Woman's lasso.

• frisbee = Batarang

• ski goggles = the visor of Cyclops (X-Men), along with tennis balls to simulate his force beam.

Get the idea?  Whatever we could get our hands on usually became some sort of imaginary weapon, magic talisman, energy bolt, or piece of high-tech equipment (to the occasional chagrin of a dad wondering what happened to his funnel, welder's mask, or measuring tape).

Satisfied that we'd approximated our hero or villain's powers, we'd then try to agree upon some kind of simple plot to set the tone of the battle...such as "Electro robs a bank, then Captain America fights him" (we also liked sticking heroes with villains from outside their regular "rogue's gallery").  But, sometimes we'd bypass the context-setting scenario and just start mock-fighting.

Once our epic clashes were underway, I remember how we'd even imitate the "battle banter" we read in the comic books...which included grandiose threats from the villains or snappy quips from the hero. Why I remember this, I have no idea...but a favorite pejorative of ours was "Joyboy", which the Spider-Man of mid-70's Gerry Conway scripts would often lob at villains.

Of course, as with all things of childhood summers, we eventually outgrew our "backyard battles" and went on to find new challenges for our imaginations and boyish energy (like girls). Ahh, but I still smile whenever I think about those grandiose (mock) slugfests...and can still sometimes hear the echoes of Batarang frisbees clashing against garbage lid shields and mighty falsetto-voiced oaths.

P.S.: Speaking of summer, be sure to take a crack at my Summer Heat contest...and possibly win a copy of Comic Books 101!  Midnight tomorrow (Wednesday) is the deadline to submit your guesses!

Comments

[Nimbus]

sledgehammer (or, in a pinch, a regular hammer) = Mjolnir, hammer of Thor

Blimey! Your mock battles must have been a bit dangerous. I don't think that garbage can lid would've done much to stop that "weapon".

[Mark Engblom]

LOL! I should clarify: I don't recall any of us actually hurling the hammer at anyone else (though it's entirely possible that we did). I think we usually just posed dramatically with it and summoned lightning or tornados to dispatch our enemies.

[Pat Curley]

Heheh, we were a little older so we just had the "The Flash would vibrate his molecules until he was inside Thor's body and then stop and Thor would explode," arguments.

[zubzwank]

My buddy and I used to go to the community pool
and pretend we were Sub-mariner and Aquaman.
I liked Namor better because he was super strong. Aquaman just seemed to have regular stregth and my friend was bigger and stronger than me. Also, Aquaman wore too much clothing in the water.

[David Morefield]

My dad made a batarang for my brother and me out of plywood, with a hole in it to loop a length of twine. We had a walk-up attic and in the cooler months it became our Bat-Cave. An old TV was the "batcomputer" and there was a even a vertical pipe to use as a "bat-pole" (but only the one, so "Bruce" and "Dick" had to take turns!)

An old refrigerator box made for a great Batmobile. The only glitch was we had to go *downstairs* to exit the "cave" and fight crime, which was a bit backwards.

Those Megos really were great for sparking the imagination. After all, if Batman could pretend a pair of oven mitts were "gloves," then we could pretend too, right?

[Ralph C.]

Mego were the best toys I've ever owned. I had lots of them when I was a kid in the 1970s. I was lucky to have a grandmother who spoiled me. Every month she received a Social Security check and the first Saturday after that we'd head out on grocery shopping day and she would buy me a toy, or two, and many times it was a Mego super-hero. We went to the Thruway Market (at the foot of Oak Street, in Walden, N.Y.). I used to keep old shoe boxes and take things from around the house and set them up like a room, then get two Mego dolls (I called them dolls back then) and they would have a battle, knocking over everything! I loved those toys.

Back in the 1990s I went to a comic book show in Ramapo, N.Y. and found a boxed Mego Spiderman (from Mexico). I paid $40 bucks for it, got it home.... then took it out of the box & played with it! Must have been in my late-20s when I did that-- and I feel no shame in doing so!! :-)

Also, when I was a kid, my dad had a job for a few years delivering linens and such for a company called Johnson's Laundry so we would have extra sheets around the house. I would take those sheets and make masks and capes out of them. I used, instead of a trash can lid, a metal pizza pie pan with cardboard handles taped to it as a Captain America shield. It didn't hold up too well as the tape came off quick enough.

Make Mine Mego!!!