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Super Powers Collection
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The Super Powers Collection was a line of action figures based on DC Comics superheroes and supervillains that was created by Kenner Toys in the 1980s.
984, DC Comics awarded the license of their characters to Kenner toys, hot on the heels of Mattel's "action feature" heavy He-Man toy line.
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Encyclopedia
The Super Powers Collection was a line of action figures based on DC Comics superheroes and supervillains that was created by Kenner Toys in the 1980s.
Origin of the line
In 1984, DC Comics awarded the license of their characters to Kenner toys, hot on the heels of Mattel's "action feature" heavy He-Man toy line. Winning the license away from Mego Corporation and Mattel with their emphasis on action and art, Kenner devised hidden mechanisms within the figures that would trigger an action when the figures legs or arms were squeezed. This emphasis on each figure's "super power" led to the naming of the line The Super Powers Collection. Once the line was in full force a merchandising frenzy took place, with DC Comics and Kenner slapping a Super Powers logo on whatever they possibly could. Three series of figures and accessories were released: in 1984, 1985, and 1986.
Tie-ins
Hanna Barbera also produced two animated series (a refreshing of the venerable Super Friends concept, called Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians) and three comic book mini-series in support of the Super Powers line. Warner Home Video used the opportunity to issue episodes of Superman, Batman, Superboy, and Aquaman produced by Filmation in 1966 on video cassette in 1985 under the Super Powers label, reissuing them again in 1996. Only the toy line carried the "Collection" tag; all other merchandise would have a solo "Super Powers" logo. Each figure in the first two series were also packaged with a mini-comic featuring that character's adventures. A detailed list of these minicomics can be found at List of Super Powers Minicomics
Figures
Based on definitive style guide artwork, with moderate articulation and hidden action features, the Super Powers Collection eventually released 33 figures. A mail-in exclusive Clark Kent, eight vehicles and one playset were also released before the end of the line.
The checklist of figures:
Rare figures
A Clark Kent exclusive feature was available as a mail-in only figure. Latin American producers introduced two more characters: The Riddler, which was a Green Lantern repaint released in Argentina, and Captain Ray, an exclusive character released in Colombia..
A collectible is born
Highly prized today, Kenner's distribution practices of including up to 18 of one character in a case of 24 led to a glut of the core characters throughout the life of the line, and a rapid demise. Due to this practice, certain figures such as Cyborg, Golden Pharaoh, and Plastic Man remain rare to this day while the Flash and Superman are easily found. Another reason the Super Powers Collection is so highly sought after is the inclusion of both popular and little-known characters throughout the line. While the First Series featured well-known characters, the Second Series concentrated on figures from Jack Kirby's New Gods Saga, and the Third Series mixed both DC Comics acquisitions from other companies and figures created solely for the line. On a side note, Kirby received some of the only royalties of his long career for redesigning his characters for Kenner. Artist George Pérez also received royalties for his design of Cyborg and redesign of Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Most all other designs (and much of the packaging artwork) is based on José Luis García-López's classic DC Style Guides. Other artwork used appears to be the work of Dick Giordano.
End
After three years of production the line collapsed. The same year, coincidentally, Kenner's Star Wars line stopped shipping to stores. After 10 years of chronicling the history of the Super Powers Collection, in 2003 toy historian Jason Geyer's ToyOtter website revealed the never seen designs for the unmade Series Four, Five, and Six, along with vehicles, playsets and a deluxe "Power Plus" figure line. The most famous of these is the Man-Bat figure, of which an actual prototype was created.
Changing Licensing Practices
Secret Wars, by Mattel came onto the retail toy scene as direct competition for the Kenner line, unlike the Mego Corporation Worlds Greatest Superhero series where one manufacturer would license both DC and Marvel characters. That trend would continue to today. These figures, similar in scale to the Super Powers Collection, introduced a completing marketing strategy between manufacturers of Marvel and DC action figures, continuing to separate the comic book publishers' character licenses.
Toybiz DC Superheroes Line
The DC Super Powers line, in many ways inspired the 1989 Toy Biz DC Super Heroes toyline in design. This line, merging with the Batman (1989 film) toyline would borrow design elements from many of the Kenner figures, most notably superman, robin, and penguin who were near identical copies of the Kenner figures.
External links
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