Collectible of the Week: Electroman (Ideal)

In the mid-1970s, post-Watergate, post-Vietnam, post-Energy Crisis, America was looking for a few good, nostalgic superheroes; ones who could wash away the national blues with the time-honored principles of truth, justice, and the American way. On television, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman spoke meaningfully to that urgent desire, racking up high ratings and meeting with tremendous audience popularity.

On toy shelves, it was much the same story, The Six Million Dollar Man line from Kenner was big business, and left the other toy companies scrambling to compete. Mattel came up with Pulsar: The Ultimate Man of Adventure (a man in a black-and-red jogging suit with a transparent torso). Hasbro re-fitted G.I. Joe as the futuristic Super Joe. And Ideal came up with perhaps the most bizarre superhero toy of them all, the 16 inch-tall Electroman!

Described as "Ideal's amazing electronic sentinel, Electroman wears a bright red, black and yellow uniform with a dazzling "E" (for Electroman, we presume…) emblazoned on his barrel-sized torso. He also wears tall black boots and a yellow cape.

The hero's oddest fashion statement, however, remains his elaborate helmet, a clunky red affair that shoots laser beams (really just a flashlight). By adjusting a knob on the base of Electroman's neck, you can change the settings of the laser ray from Stun, to Radar, to Guard.

Toy catalogs described the settings this way: "Electroman's computer brain can detect the slightest movement and sound a warning...In radar position, he sends out flickering light that changes to a steady beam when he finds an enemy position."

Electroman's nemesis was sold separately, a brown hulking monster ("half man/half monster") with red eyes, white fangs and a reflector embedded in his head.  This villain was called  "Zogg The Terrible" and described on his black box as "A Creature so awesome only Electroman or you can defeat him."

Zogg also came with a black and red laser gun which you could use to zap him, if you didn't want to summon Electroman and his strange head gear. When hit with Electroman's laser ray, Zogg would topple over. Mission accomplished.

An odd historical footnote: Electroman actually shared his colorful costume (but not his helmet) with Black Magic Crissy, a tall African-American woman in white platform shoes. She came with five different hair attachments, but I'm not sure what her superpowers were.