Secret Wars

Posted in Identify Help

So, I registered for this site hoping someone can help me out with a memory seared into my brain that I cannot seem to confirm with any independent, outside source. Years ago, not long after the first Batman film came out (1989), I remember there was a comic book store in my Grandmom's old neighborhood in Glenside, PA called the C.A.V.E. (don't ask me what those letters were supposed to stand for; I didn't know then and I don't know now). Anyway, this store was the first place that I ever saw the ToyBiz Batman/D.C. Super Heroes line for sale at retail (I wanted a "black costumed" Batman so badly I could taste it), so I think I can firmly place that as the winter of 1989 (to my great frustration, ToyBiz was late with the Batman toys in much the same way Kenner had been late with the Star Wars toys a decade earlier). Some time after that, I would say, there appeared, on the shelves where they kept "new" action figures, Secret Wars figures. To this day, I dimly recall hearing the idea that the Secret Wars line was briefly re-launched in 1990 or so, in essentially the same format, but I've never seen any reference to this on the internet anywhere. It's always listed as a toy line that went from 1984-1985. But I'm 100% sure I saw Secret Wars toys there (my recollection is that I saw Dr. Octopus for sale), and that they were not simply after market toys being sold in a specialty shop --- they were pretty much out where all the other "new" toys were, and I don't recall the price as reflecting their "collector's items" status. Surely the proprietors of this shop, even in 1990, would have been savvy enough to know that after-market figures could be marked up. At this point, I feel like I must be mistaken, but does anyone on here know if it's possible that I'm right, that the Secret Wars toys were briefly re-released in 1990 (perhaps as a way to keep the suddenly hot-again DC toys from owning the market?)?

As an interesting addendum to this story, in the very first issue of Wizard magazine, which I got for free at another comic shop in 1991 (and I believe I still have somewhere), there is a mention of "new" Secret Wars toys popping up in South America, IIRC. If I think of it later, perhaps I will see if I can dig out that magazine and quote the article. It's the only issue of Wizard Magazine I ever got.