Legion Toywatch: Prequel, part 5 (Slurpee cups)

I think this is my 250th entry. Happy quatermilleniblogipost!

Legion merchandising, a look back (part 5): Slurpee Cups!

Practically anyone who was born in the late 60's will remember going to their local 7-11 for a Slurpee in the early 70's as a kid. In 1974, they had the coolest thing - buy a Slurpee and get a free super-hero cup with it. Forget about those wimpy Marvel heroes, we wanted classic DC heroes like Superman, Batman, Ms. Shazam and Shazam Jr., Tarzan, Jonathan Kent, etc.

There were 60 different cups that summer... and that's a LOT of flavored crushed ice drinks. There were so many that they even issued a checklist so you could keep track and maybe even request those female character cups which were so popular among the under-10 crowd. Hidden among all the Jonathan Kents and Mr. Tawky Tawnys were a number of Legionnaire cups, drawn by Dave Cockrum (the same figures that are on the recent Archives covers, in fact... they came from his character studies and model sheets). The Legionnaires were Mon-el, Lightning Lad, Brainiac 5, Cosmic Boy, Chameleon Boy, and Saturn Girl, though you could stretch things and get the non-Legionnaire series Superboy and Supergirl, and even Reservists Lana Lang and Jimmy Olsen. Here are a few:

Sidne Ward has scans of the cups on her page (there's a block of text on the back of each up, that's printed out on the page) along with the checklist. The cups go for under about $5 each or so, but if you buy them, don't put them in the dishwasher or you'll lose the image. No clue about the checklist, I've never seen one for sale.


click to enlarge