Mego's Aquaman vs. The Great White Shark is one of the Holy Grails of Aquaman collecting; a big flop at the time, the set went on to become extremely scarce and consequently extremely expensive to find, in any condition. Case in point: this set, which looks like it got stepped on by King Kong, had a starting bid price of three grand!
I think my favorite pic from the auction was this one:
The Mego Aquaman doll was never a big seller, and Mego kept pushing it almost up until the end of the line in 1982 because they had so many left over; I'm guessing after the Jaws movies they figured it was a good, cheap way of moving some old product by tying it in to something hot. Personally, I love that shot of Aquaman about to take on an absurdly ferocious-looking shark.
I may be sort of goofing on this eBay seller, but rest assured if I was filthy rich I would have bought it, crushed box or no.
For Further Reading: Check out the Mego Museum's Aquaman vs. The Great White Shark page!
7 comments:
I'd like to think it was Aquaman chomping on the shark fin when they were battling one another... Perhaps it was an evil shark... ;^)
True Story: When I was little I had several Megos- Suoerman, Batman and Robin, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Spider-Man, Mr. Mxyzptlk (I must not have played much with him, i still have him in good shape). But I was a HUGE Super Friends fan and I desperately wanted Aquaman. As a little blonde boy who loved to swim and daydreamed of subadiving, he was my fave. I begged my mom to get me an Aquaman. By some cruel twist of fate our local stores never had any. One day at our local Hills store, I saw it. Aquaman vs. the Great White Shark!! I pointed it out to Mom and reminded her of her promise. However, my mother wasn't going to pay the exorbitant price of like $5 for Aquaman "with a stupid shark".
This past Christmas, my Mom got me the WGSH book. I opened up to the page with the Aquaman vs. the Great White Shark page and told her what it sells for now. She looked a little sick.
Oh GWB - That's great! My mom feels the same way when I point out to her the price all those comic books of mine that she threw out are fetching now. I include copies of several pages of Overstreet when I send her a Mother's Day card.
If I had this toy I'd make them be friends, and the GWS (not to be confused with GWB) would carry Aquaman around from place to place gently in her mouth.
it's amazing to me that one of the only Mego items I had as a child turns out to be one of the most valuable. Makes that trip to the river when I lost it suck all that much more. :(
Aa-
Love that story. I mean, it breaks my heart, but I love it.
JBS--I would buy an Aquaman vs. GWB playset, whether it was George W. Bush or George Washington Bridge. Both would be fun, for different reasons.
Those "nibbles" could actually be the dreaded Melt that sometimes happened when different plastics of that era were in contact with each other for too long...
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