Coming Soon: Distinctive Dummies' Incredible Melting Man Retro Mego Style Figure




In today's world of monster toy collectibles, it seems like nothing is too obscure for the action figure treatment.

Distinctive Dummies (DD for short) has been releasing 8-inch Mego-style action figures for years now, focusing on characters from horror films between the silent era and the 1980s. I've never bought any of DD's products but from what I've seen, they do a limited run of a set of figures before moving on to do another limited run of a new set of figures, and so on. The latest film freak DD has added to its collectibles roster is the titular character from The Incredible Melting Man, a z-grade creature feature from 1977. This figure is part of DD's new "Science Gone Wrong!" set, which will also include figures based on characters from The Manster (1959), Monster on the Campus (1958) and The Wasp Woman (1959).

The only thing that anyone can honestly recommend about the Melting Man movie are the makeup effects that were done be Rick Baker, and I suspect that his impressive work is what keeps the film going in home video circulation to this day. Even the stuff Baker was forced to do on the cheap still holds up, and it obviously paved the way for the parade of splatter-happy gore fests that would follow during the 1980s (e.g., Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead, Society, etc.). However, licensed Melting Man merchandise has been in short supply over the years. Outside of DD's latest figure, that only other Melting Man collectibles I've seen are a resin portrait bust and a garage model kit. It's a shame that a major toy company hasn't pick up the Melting Man license yet: I could imagine one making a figure that comes with packs of red slime to put in the figure's torso, so kids could press a button to watch the "melting" effect happen before their eyes over and over again.

DD's Melting Man figure has a Mego-style body type and cloth suit. The head and hand sculpts look fairly accurate, although the blood and other bodily discharge on the suit looks like it has been painted on with a brush. Then again, the Mego figure template was never known to capture precise details (heck, even Mego's Thing figure from the Fantastic Four used a cloth suit for his rocky orange body), so monster toy collectors who have a preference for Mego probably won't be disappointed.

I'm not sure where collectors can pre-order their Melting Man figure, since the only place I know of that sells them, Monsters in Motion, has already sold out its supply. On the other hand, if you want something more screen accurate, you can also buy Melting Man candles--or "Melting Mandles"--by Stexe on Etsy. Not only are these replicas cheaper than DD's figure, but they actually melt.


The Incredible Melting Man + Sixteen Candles = Melting Mandles.


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