Mayfair Games 25mm Super Heroes: Justice League

Back in about 1984 or 85, Mayfair Games released a superhero rpg called DC Heroes. For a kid who loved dungeons and dragons and comic books, this was fantastic. They also released a bunch of boxes of 25mm superheroes and villains. 

I recently bought the Justice League box to see what they were like. Straight out of the box, these were hugely disappointing, being very small 25mm figures with very flat and static poses. After some work, though, they started to grow on me. 

The heroes in this box were Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Hawkman, the Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow. The lack of Wonder Woman is notable, but not as notable as the insane pose they gave Batman (which looked way worse on bare metal).

In the end, I was reasonably happy with the results. There is some nice detail on Hawkman and the rest do well with simple, bold colours and a quick wash.

 

I presume the Bat-wahtuzzi or whatever the hell is happening here is an homage to the campy Batman of the 1960s and 1970s so I painted him in those colours. Th eGreen Arrow sculpt was super dissatisfying but then suddenly came alive with some paint.

I struggled with Sup's chest emblem and finally decided that this the best I can do (you are seeing him at least 2x) and he looks fine on the table. Ditto Green Lantern's emblem.

The backs of the figures are also pretty decent in terms of detail and animation.

The only modern comparator I could find in a matching pose is Green Arrow, with a heroclix on the left. He'd probably about 32mm and you can really see the effects of scale creep over the 25mm 1980s standard.

The box also contained four "super" villains.

Sinestero is an okay pose, I guess, and the Joker is fine enough (again, evoking the 1960s and 1970s renderings).

Brainiac is a pretty nice sculpt that I struggled to paint up with the detail of the comics. Darkseid, a villain I have always hated, is just an awful figure and three tries (with different colour palettes) and this was the best effect I could get (the sculpt is just terrible, terrible work, even by 1980s standards).

Overall, I had a fun time with these guys and, if I see the other boxes for a decent price (especially the Titans and the Outsiders), I will definitely pick them up.