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MUSCLE 28-Packs
 28-packs cost $6.99 in the 80s (according to scans of the 1986 Sears Wishbook at Action Figure Archive; I also saw a 28-pack with a Bradlee's price tag with the same price). Four 28-packs were offered:
Thug Busters, Cosmic Crunchers, Mighty Maulers, and Cosmic Showdown.
The MUSCLE packaging states, "The 28-packs contain figures not available in the other two sets." Whether that statement is intended to mean all the figures in the 28-packs were exclusive or just a portion is somewhat unclear. Goriki and Darrin Garrison may have found some 28-pack figures in sealed 4-packs (assuming the 4-packs weren't tampered with), so the latter may be true.
The only difference in the packaging of the 28 packs were the colors of the
"explosion" behind Muscleman on the front and the colors of the sides of the
box. For instance, the Thug Busters set had a green explosion
and green sides. Also, there's a packaging variation: the Muscleman illustration on the front of some 28-packs had a Kinniku-symbol on the forehead, while others don't (see the Cosmic Crunchers scan below for an example of a set without the Kinniku-symbol).
As with any other MUSCLE set, the 28-packs were first available with all-pink MUSCLEs, then with half-pink and half-colored MUSCLEs, and in the final wave, with all-colored MUSCLEs. This awesome thread over at the Little Rubber Guys forums has a discussion on which colors were available in the 28-packs.
As can be expected, the MUSCLEs available in the 28-packs were from specific Kinnikuman Parts. Trees within those parts were not broken up for different 28-packs. So, for example, all figures from Part 2, Tree 1 were included with the Thug Busters. (For an explanation of MUSCLE trees, click on the "Which M.U.S.C.L.E.s were available in which colors?" question in the Collecting FAQs.) A listing of the 28-pack contents broken down by Kinnikuman Parts follows (thanks to Soupie's MUSCLE Colors Image Archive).
MUSCLEs Included:
Packaging Color: Green
Kinnikuman Trees and Parts: (compiled using Soupie's MUSCLE Colors Image Archive)
- Part 2, Tree 1 - 17, 21, 26, 43, 44, 54, 67, 103
- Part 2, Tree 2 - 10, 13, 24, 25, 38, 48, 49, 51, 53
- Part 3, Tree 3 - 161
- Part 5, Tree 3 - 64, 72, 76, 90, 232
- Part 6, Tree 1 - 70, 78, 91
- Part 7, Tree 1 - 84, 95
- Soupie's graphical breakdown of the rarity of the Thug Busters figures.
MUSCLEs Included:
Packaging Color: Red
Kinnikuman Trees and Parts: (compiled using Soupie's MUSCLE Colors Image Archive)
- Part 5, Tree 2 - 45, 83, 88, 89
- Part 5, Tree 4 - 79, 81, 132, 144
- Part 7, Tree 3 - 18, 47, 86, 92, 97, 114
- Part 10, Tree 1 - 120, 128, 129, 184
- Part 19, Tree 1 - 105, 188, 192, 196, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 205
- Soupie's graphical breakdown of the rarity of the Cosmic Crunchers figures.
MUSCLEs Included:
Packaging Color: Purple
Kinnikuman Trees and Parts: (compiled using Soupie's MUSCLE Colors Image Archive)
- Part 4, Tree 1 - 5, 6, 12, 52, 57, 59, 63, 74, 226, 230
- Part 6, Tree 2 - 80, 94
- Part 7, Tree 2 - 87, 115
- Part 17, Tree 2 - 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176
- Part 18, Tree 1 - 193, 194, 204, 207
- Part 20, Tree 2 - 209, 212, 214, 218
- Soupie's graphical breakdown of the rarity of the Mighty Maulers figures.
MUSCLEs Included:
Packaging Color: Yellow
Kinnikuman Trees and Parts: (compiled using Soupie's MUSCLE Colors Image Archive)
- Part 3, Tree 1 - 4, 7, 8, 62, 122
- Part 3, Tree 2 - 65, 66, 69, 130, 233
- Part 8, Tree 2 - 98, 99, 148, 150
- Part 8, Tree 4 - 37, 158, 160, 162
- Part 9, Tree 2 - 9, 146, 147, 159
- Part 12, Tree 1 - 32, 119, 121, 127, 137, 142
- Soupie's graphical breakdown of the rarity of the Cosmic Showdown figures.
The back of the box had a M.U.S.C.L.E. comic strip with the
title, "The M.U.S.C.L.E. Story! Now it can be told!" On an interesting note, in the last panel
of the strip you can see Brokken Man in the upper-left hand corner. Brokken Man is a Japanese Kinnikuman
character that was never made as a figure in the American M.U.S.C.L.E. line.
Also, the back of the box featured an ad for the MUSCLE Wrestling Ring, as well as an offer for the M.U.S.C.L.E. poster with a picture of it.
But it was different from the poster that we all know and love! See below for details.
Stack of all four 28-packs
(note that the Cosmic Showdown set has blue sides, presumably so that the yellow text
wouldn't blend in with the yellow packaging theme)
The poster shown on the back of the 28-pack was drastically different from the one that was produced. First, the design is less "explosion" oriented, and more like a wrestling ring. Second, the number of figures on the poster is completely different. While the normal poster only showed 233 MUSCLEs, the 28-pack poster seems to feature 20 columns of MUSCLEs with 21 rows, for a total of 420 MUSCLEs! That number seems to reflect the number of Japanese Kinnikuman Kinkeshi, so it's possible that Mattel had planned on releasing the entire Kinkeshi line as MUSCLEs in America at one time.
So what figures exactly are shown on the 28-pack poster? Alas, we may never know. While it appears that there are definite figures on the 28-pack poster, when it's scanned at high resolution, you don't see much additional detail. Rather, you see more of that dot-printing technique than anything. This picture of the poster seems to be best viewed at a distance, but if you're curious, here's a high-resolution scan.
The Cosmic Crunchers, Mighty Maulers, and Cosmic Showdown sets are correctly numbered
because they came from a factory sealed case... thanks to Tyler Larkins for his help
with these sets. Thanks also to Scott Andrew Hutchins for his help with The Thug Busters set numbers.
And thanks once more to Soupie of MuscleCIA for providing the data to find the numbers for
the Kinnikuman parts. And although I worked through finding the MUSCLE numbers in each Kinnikuman
part and tree myself, Universal Ruler Supreme did so a few months beforehand on the Little Rubber Guys forums.
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M.U.S.C.L.E.
