Invisible Hombre - Mexico's Cyborg!

[GUYx1]

Many kids growing up in the 1970's may remember the Mattel Action Figure BIG JIM. (Released in the 70's in the UK as Mark Strong, then later as Big Jim)

Jim was smaller than Gi Joe/Action Man and Bigger than Mego.
This rugged adventure doll was made for adventure.
Hunting, Fishing, Cow Punching, camping and more!

While Big Jim had more varied adventure in Europe (including an exciting Space series in the 1980's), one of the most interesting variations was released by the company Cipsa in Mexico.

In Mexico, The Big Jim's Pack was turned into Esquadron Lobo and featured many interesting characters.



The Characters we are concerned with here today are Hombre Invisible & Hombre Bionico.

I have heard stories of Kids in the UK pretending that their Cyborg was the invisible man, as the Cyborg was the same size as a Mego Figure. In Mexico, Hombre Invisible could be in his visible, human disguise, or swap heads to turn invisible.





Hombre Bionico was of course the Bionic Man. The hair had this white blonde look to it that bears a striking resemblence to another 70's cyborg favorite from Mattel, PULSAR.



I have tried to show a few of the variations. As with Most Mexican toys, there are more variations than there are collectors to document them.

Cheers,
Guy

[howieh]

I like the Skeletor-like character. These toys are a hoot! Thanks for sharing!

[johnnyhaggis]

Crazy mexicans! Are most of those from when you were a kid, or did you get them later? Invisible guy with normal head and clothes is such a great idea!

[hypnotator]

Beautiful, Guy! Are these all yours?

Mark Strong was fairly short lived here, as I remember. Big Jim was around in France much later and we got very excited to see them on holiday. I got a Big Jack and I also had a Whip (or "Mr. Whip") from a trip to Sicily. The one I saw, never got and always wanted was Captain Drake, who was pretty close to the skull faced one with the big hood that you show except he had a chest tattoo and, I think, a medallion. Doesn't he have two faces? I always thought maybe they rotated like Man-e-faces, but does one clip on top of another?

The transparent and bionic ones were completely unknown to me, and are very exciting. Any close ups of the bionic ones' chests unclad?

The alien was also unknown to me. Is he really a Big Jim figure? He's wild!

[GUYx1]

In the 1970’s, figures with costumes were extremely popular. Especially toys which were NON WAR oriented in nature.
That is how the Cyborg toyline came about in the first place. Here was this great articulated figure called GI JOE and all Hasbro was doing with it was making army toys. Cyborg took that concept and went crazy with it,
Similar to Captain Action, The Henshin Cyborg could be dressed up in many different outfits based on licensed & unlicensed characters.

Big Jim also had a vast range of costumes. Big Jim had pretty limited adventures in the USA (Doing Manly things, or riding the dirt bike & dune buggy with his P.A.C.K.). In Europe, Big Jim covered all the adventure genres.


Figures were issued as Costumes and some were issued packaged as individual figures.
Big Jim found the most popularity in Germany & Belgium.


Big Jim did have a few licensed characters, but most of this was overseas.

In the USA, there was Tarzan, in Japan, a web climbing mechanism was added to the body and Spiderman was created and released with the 1970’s TV show. In Europe the Middle Eastern Superhero Sailor “SANDOKAN” was issued, a Captain Future doll was made, as well as a James Bond 007 doll. This is where the aforementioned face changing mechanism came in. The Pirates had just two faces, however James bond came with a briefcase full of various masks. Pop off the head and insert the mask of choice. By rotating the arm, the face would be turned around and show the MASK face instead of the standard Big Jim face. (In the USA, crank up the arm to provide tension and press a button on the back, for a split second automated face flip).



Actually, I believe the Roger Moore face only got released in Mexico (they are good at issuing items that would have cost steep licensing fees on other parts of the world.)

Yes the Glow in the Dark Space alien is really a Big Jim figure, HOWEVER, Nokton was actually a reworked figure from Mattel's Space 1999 series , which never saw a release in the USA. In Mexico he was released on a green Big Jim body.
Did I have these when I was a kid? I wish! As Close as Mexico may SEEM to the USA, finding out information on their toylines is pretty difficult unless you know people living in Mexico who are WILLING to get involved with your hobby search. What makes things even more complicated is that Mexico has a system of social classes which is even more divided than in England.
Don’t even THINK of finding Mexican toys Mint in the Box. Finding them at all is hard enough.
Thankfully the Internet has evened things out a bit there.

If you want to learn more, here is the biggest Big Jim website in the world:
www.bigjimnews.de/

Cheers,
- Guy