Who says that a girl can’t have a little adventure with her own action figure? If Steve Austin could traipse around town showing off his nifty cyber-eye and superhuman strength, certainly a female doll could show off her mechanically-enhanced espionage abilities as well. Introducing Jaimie Summers, The Bionic Woman - a gal that had some very special talents all her own.

The Bionic Woman was a spin-off from the popular show, The Six Million Dollar Man and found success in its own right. It was inevitable then that a line of toys made sense to the folks at Kenner and in 1976, the Jaime Summers doll hit the market, adorned with her familiar casual attire of jeans, sneakers and track top, as seen on the opening credits for the show. Complete with bionic ear that rivaled the hearing of your average German Shepard, a few twists of her plastic head made a sound that tried to reproduce the sound effects from the show. One of her muscular arms had a few surprises of its own. Peel the skin back and her complex (and removable) robotics were revealed. Likewise, a few panels were located on her legs that could be opened (without even removing her jeans) to reveal the mechanical wizardry behind her cheetah-like running ability.

 

More fashionable wardrobe choices would eventually follow, as well as sleek and sophisticated accessories like the “Mission Purse.” Similar in concept to her boss Oscar Goldman’s exploding briefcase, this was a bag of tricks that any respectable spy would want to own. Along with Morse code decoders and top secret maps, she also carried around the typical credit cards, money, pics of her favorite guys (Steve and Oscar) and of course, a supply of make-up. And when she needed a bit more of a make over, Kenner was happy to introduce the Bionic Beauty Salon, ensuring that this bionic beauty always looked her best.

Of course, Jamie needed every tool in her arsenal - for lurking in the shadows, ready to employ some high-tech identity theft was her arch rival, the Fembot. Complete with Jaime Summers mask which fit neatly over her Terminator-esque face, as well as another “Mystery Lady” mask, this evil fembot wielded a Paralyzer Gun, ready to freeze the Bionic Woman in her tracks as if she had come face to face with Medusa. 

But no fembot was going to defeat The Bionic Woman, not on television and certainly not during playtime. She was the super hero of the women’s lib movement, an action figure any girl could be proud of and certainly a force to be reckoned with. Steve may have kept a bionic eye on her, but she handled things just fine on her own.