Mego Adds Invisible Man, Nosferatu and Freddy Krueger to its Horror Figure Line

Whenever I see an action figure line that leads with Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and a Wolf Man, I usually expect other classic Universal monsters to follow (The Mummy, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Bride of Frankenstein, etc.). Yet as recent announcements indicate, Mego has different plans for its new monster figures.

The new Mego horror figure line consists of six figures. Three of the figures are re-releases: reworks of the previously released Dracula and Screaming Werewolf figures, and a glow-in-the-dark version of their previously released Frankenstein's Monster figure. The other three figures are new to Mego: The Invisible Man, Nosferatu, and Freddy Krueger.

As I've posted before, Mego's new line of figures based on horror icons isn't so much a line of monsters from a specific studio (Universal) or a specific subgenre (slashers) as it is a patchwork of licenses that it could secure to cobble together a line of figures that collectors might want. Of this set so far, the only actual Universal monster is the Dracula figure because it bears the likeness of Bela Lugosi.

Like the Frankenstein's Monster figure, Mego opted to make its Invisible Man figure generic enough that it could use the Invisible Man name without running into copyright problems with Universal. Previous Invisible Man figures were based on how this character appeared in Universal's 1933 adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel. While the cardback art vaguely suggests a connection to Universal's character, Mego's new Invisible Man figure has head and hand pieces that are molded in transparent plastic.

I haven't seen any pictures of the rest of the figure's sculpt to know whether the whole thing has been molded in transparent plastic, but I'm guessing that it probably is. This is a clever way to release an Invisible Man figure without having to deal with Universal, although I'm not sure how many Invisible Man collectors are interested in purchasing a figure that does not bear the likeness of Claude Rains' iconic interpretation of the character.

On the other hand, the sculpts of the Nosferatu and Freddy Krueger figures look like accurate representation of their silver screen namesakes. Mego-like figures of Nosferatu and Freddy Krueger have been produced before by companies such as Sideshow Collectibles, Distinctive Dummies and NECA, but the new figures are the first official Mego versions of these characters. Then again, with Mego's dubious methods of skirting legal issues to release figures based on classic creature feature characters, it's very fitting that it's adding Nosferatu to its inventory. After all, the 1922 Nosferatu movie was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, so much so that almost all copies of the film were destroyed as the result of a successful lawsuit filed by Stoker's heirs.

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