Your Own Task Force

In 1952, an ad ran through numerous publishers' comics, including Ziff/Davis, Harvey, Fiction House, Quality, and Comic Media. A company called Fighting Force was offering 50 Combat Plastic Action Toys for a single buck, along with a free six-inch long die-cut shooting cannon. The toys were all flat molded styrene silhouettes of soldiers, sailors, tanks, jeeps, jets, battleships, and cannons. The ad proclaims the buyer could have "your own task force", but unless you were sending the troops out battle two-dimensional stationary enemies that were about an inch tall, then you would really need to overdo your imagination to relive any thrilling real battle moments. The working deluxe cannon claims to shoot harmless bombs, but given the tiny scale of all these pieces, its more than likely that it would be a major choking hazard as buyers of the old Boba Fett action figures could attest to.

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