Action Figure Overview: Eagle Force - Captain Eagle (Mego, 1981)

Captain Eagle: Leader of the Eagle Force! (Mego, 1982)

My first exposure to the Eagle Force was seeing the TV commercial and thinking, "WOW! These figures are AWESOME!"  My second exposure to the Eagle Force was seeing them in the store and thinking, "WOW! These figures are SMALL!"  For decades, The Eagle Force has been remembered for two things: 1) Mego's final bad idea before going out of business and 2) a poorly designed knock-off of G.I. Joe's "Real American Hero" line.  Well, the Eagle Force packaging has a copyright date of 1981 while the first release of 'Real American Hero' had a copyright date of 1982.  I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Eagle Force before G.I. Joe, but I'm not 100% sure about that (it was a long time ago).  Either way, I'm confident that Eagle Force was in development either before 'Real American Hero' or possibly at the same time, but certainly not AFTER, so Eagle Force definitely wasn't based on G.I. Joe's re-launch at all.  As for the idea of the Eagle Force being a bad concept, I thought the concept was awesome as a kid...I just wasn't crazy about the size because none of my other figures were 2.75" tall.

Captain Eagle and Talon (Mego, 1981)

Despite their size, I still wanted them.  There was no crossover with any of my other action figures, so I honestly didn't play with them as much as I might have otherwise.  But for that first year they were out, Eagle Force was definitely in my toy rotation!

Harley, Goldie Hawk, Captain Eagle with his eagle 'Talon' and Kayo.
*Note: this Captain Eagle has the wrong left leg!

The Eagle Force was led by Captain Eagle: a eye-patch wearing military man with a steel fist and a pet eagle named Talon!  I guess they wanted to make sure this guy stood out from the other golden uniformed, beret-wearing soldiers in his unit.  Seriously, some of the Eagle Force guys look so similar that it's tough to tell them apart, but only one had a patch...and a steel fist...and a pet!  Captain Eagle was originally going to be named "Captain Claw," but I guess that didn't sound heroic enough.  It does kind of make me think he would be a bad guy.  The name was changed to "Captain Eagle" pretty early on, so I don't think any art using the "Captain Claw" moniker has ever surfaced.

Captain Eagle (Mego, 1981)

Speaking of Captain Eagle's steel fist; over the years, I've owned a lot of Captain Eagle action figures and I've noticed that there was some confusion from the manufacturers about what's going on there.  I've seen three variations of paint applications for Captain Eagle's left hand: 1) unpainted, gold metal (I assume that was the intended color), 2) the flesh tone that matches his face, and 3) a brown skin color that matches Big Bro, Sgt. Brown, and Redwing...in case you didn't pick up on it by their names, they were the dark-skinned, minority characters.  I guess I can understand the flesh tone that matches the face because maybe the people painting these figures weren't paying attention to the fact that Captain Eagle had a metal fist, but the darker brown is a bit of a mystery.  If it were the entire forearm and hand on just the left arm, I would assume they thought he was wearing a glove for the eagle, but it was just the fist and the same color on both hands.

The many fists of Captain Eagle!

I'll say again that I really did love these figures as a kid and most of the odd decisions made about this line went right over my head back then.  It's only been as an adult that I've given these things much thought.  For example, it seems ridiculous that a military organization would wear reflective, gold uniforms.  I mean, it would make it immensely difficult to sneak up on the enemy.  Plus, the actors who played the part of the Eagle Force for promotion events and photo shoots appear to have been wearing gold lamé outfits; which seems like it would be an absolutely terrible material for combat.  However, I honestly never really gave that much thought as a kid.  I just thought it was cool that the figures were made of metal.

Goldie Hawk, Captain Eagle, & Stryker

One thing that I think the design team really got right was the packaging!  It may be kind of over-the-top, but even as an adult, I think the artwork looks sharp!  The comic strip on the back was an excellent touch too.  Keep in mind, these figures predate Secret Wars (which had a short comic on the back of the package), as well as Super Powers, Masters of the Universe, and all of the other series that included a mini-comic with each figure.  Since kids didn't have any idea who these characters were, I think the comic was a nice touch.  Plus, the comics were actually pretty good both in terms of artwork and story.

(right) Captain Eagle in one of several packaging variations - (left) Comic printed on package back

One of the arguments I've heard people make when talking about the failure of the Eagle Force line is that several of the figures advertised on the Eagle Force packages and included in the comics never made it to the stores in the USA.  However, the reason those figures never made it to stores here is because Mego went out of business before that group of figures hit the shelves.  Those figures were released in other countries and Eagle Force apparently did particularly well in Australia.  Additionally, the Eagle Force figures continued to be manufactured under different toy line names in the USA (including the brilliantly named "Action Figure" line of action figures), so for the next several years, these figures could be found in stores all over the world!

These are just two examples of the many different packages for these figures.

As an interesting side note, one of the creators of Eagle Force was Paul Kirchner.  I have read that Mr. Kirchner also worked on Dino-Riders and M.A.S.K.; both of which were also lines of action figures that were 2.75" tall!  I don't know for certain why he used this scale, but it's possible that the Eagle Force figures were 2.75" because apparently Mego had recently acquired the molds for a bunch of old Marx vehicles and playsets originally used with little, plastic army men.  Those toys worked pretty well with 2.75" figures, but would have been too small for 3.75" figures, which had become the standard size ever since Kenner released Star Wars figures five years earlier.  From that point, the 2.75" figure may have been a good choice for M.A.S.K. and Dino-Riders because it allowed the vehicles and dinosaurs to be smaller.  I had always assumed that the reason for their small size was to keep the material cost down since the figures were made of metal, but that may not have been a factor at all.

Eagle Force, M.A.S.K., & Dino-Riders figures were all about 2.75" tall!

Did you have Kenner Eagle Force figures as a kid?  Do you collect them now?  Which character is your favorite?

Also, if you collect toys, you should know about Toylanta, the best toy show in the Southeastern United States held annually in Georgia.  Visit Toylanta.com for more information.


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