The Surprise

When I first started collecting toys in 1989, I remember being shocked to find out that Kenner had made action figures of such characters as Cyborg and Shazam, to say nothing of obscure figures like Desaad and Samurai. I couldn't fathom that these were actually mass market toys. Until I found a carded 3rd series figure, I had no idea who else had been included in the line. As the years went on and I found out more and more about the history of the Super Powers Collection, I decided to make these Archives as a resource for other collectors so that they wouldn't have to hunt like I did to find out that information. To my surprise, the archive became so popular that people started sending me pictures and info of things that had previously been unseen to the general collecting community. I've been thrilled that because of these kind souls that I've been able to break the news on Man-Bat, Captain Ray, and other tidbits of what could have been had the line continued.

But as we approached the 20th anniversary of the Collection's debut (and the 10th anniversary of this archive!) it seemed as if everything there was to know about the line had been reported. Even the last big magazine article had only shown the disputed Catwoman prototype, which has been on this archive since 1997 (more on her later). Sure, little bits of old concept art still trickle out from time to time, but not of anything that was in the works when the line died.

And then I got a phone call. And an e-mail. And some pictures...

It seems that in quick succession some ex-Kenner designers found a few old boxes of long hidden items, which contained among other things the original pitch to DC Comics for the license, the actual presentation that detailed the final two years of the line, and amazingly, 8 never before seen prototypes. For the first time, we now have definitive word on what the next series was going to be, what direction the line was taking, and a glimpse of what the original concept for the line might have been. I'm going to do my best to make sense of everything, but be warned that there is a LOT of material, and some pages have many pictures on them and might take awhile to load. I tried to break it down into section the best I could, but some of it still skips around.

Before I jump into the very deep well of material here, I need to say a few things. First, although a few of my sources insist on anonymity, I have to give a million thanks to "Sallah", who has not only been indispensable for this article, but also many past "scoops" at ToyOtter. Also, major thanks go to The Earth Toy Mall, who are letting me show the pictures of the prototypes. They also have tons of Star Wars prototypes, and lots of toys, so go check them out at the banners on top of these pages. A special thanks to "General Zod" for his assist in some of the figure descriptions. And last, I have to thank Julius Marx (of Action Figure Times) and Matt Cauley (of Iron-Cow Productions) for making the amazing customs that help illustrate this article. They will soon be running a special contest where a few lucky collectors can win a few of the carded custom figures of the never made 4th wave shown below. So go check out their websites after reading the article! And click on the cards for a larger view! Finally, although I'm usually a pretty nice guy about letting other sites use the images on the archive, at the request of my sources I have to ask that no one take anything shown in this article. The images are just being loaned to me, so to speak, and are not mine to give out. Thanks.

Wave Four & Beyond

Much like they did for the never produced last year of Star Wars toys, in 1985 Kenner made an internal presentation for the designers to show the execs their plans for the next few waves of the line. And just like Star Wars, these were color concepts pasted on presentation boards that represented the final choices for production. The subpages below make up the entirety of that presentation. Since nothing is ordered or numbered, it would be hard to say for sure what was supposed to be made first. Judging from this and other presentations like it, we can pretty well guess that after this was pitched they sectioned off the choices into waves. Normally, that's where the guessing would stop. But amazingly, the prototypes that have turned up (independently of the presentation, I might add) gives us a great insight as to the other choices.

The biggest surprise is the character choice itself. We would have gotten more Hanna-Barbera Super Friends based figures, more Kenner created superheroes, more New Gods characters, and for the first time a line of Deluxe figures and even some variants. We would see the dependence on repaints and deluxe figures dominate Kenner/Hasbro strategy over the next decade, but it's amazing to learn that Super Powers (which many collectors hold up as a "pure" line of only unique figures) was the start of the trend.

But it's maybe even more interesting what isn't in the presentation.No Blue Beetle, no Swamp Thing, no Solomon Grundy, no Clark Kent. And no Catwoman. I'll have to admit, I've heard a lot of possible choices over the years, and am just as guilty of including them in my reporting. But I was wrong. The magazines were wrong. Other websites are wrong. They just weren't going to be part of the line. There is a (very) outside chance that Clark Kent might have made it, and wasn't included in the presentation due to having an existing sculpt. But in reality, no "civilian" characters had been made in a superhero line up to that point that had not been exclusives. Kenner most likely could see that there wasn't much mass market potential in Clark Kent, and in fact he was offered in the second series, making him a logical inclusion in the third series, not the fourth.

As for Catwoman, it can now be clearly seen that I have been right from the start, and that she wasn't planned for the line. Sure, she was probably mentioned, and in fact she was slated to be included in the original pitch (shown way down below). But so was Lois Lane. And yes, they did design an unused "Cat Crawler" vehicle...in 1983. There are two things that really put the nail in her coffin: One, the final pitch for the 4th & 5th waves was created in 1985, to allow time for the product to be made and appear on store shelves in 1987. All the artwork is clearly dated 1985 on each piece. However, the costume of the Catwoman prototype is from the Miller/Mazzuchelli "Batman:Year One" mini-series that first was published in early 1987. Until then, she still wore her purple outfit with the green cape. And that's point number two: everything in these pitches used the 1982 DC Style Guide (with art by José Luis Garcia-Lopéz) as the source material. The only changes to these style guides for the next few years were inserts that reflected character changes due to Super Powers, such as Luthor's Battlesuit and the Supermobile. However, even when a character like Supergirl was modified in the style guide, Kenner was still using the 1982 version they started with, and didn't update Supergirl in their pitch in 1985! Add to this the recollections of designers from the time, and you pretty much come to the conclusion that the Catwoman prototype was most likely an early attempt for the Batman Returns line, or a failed attempts at another comprehensive DC line circa 1990, when Kenner won the license back from Toy Biz.

So, on to what you've been waiting for, the presentation. The first series of characters are the ones that were actually sculpted, followed by some guesses at what was left, and then all the rest. The Power Plus line was a separate "Deluxe" set of figures that used existing body parts with new torsos that had light-ups, interchangeable parts, or larger mechanisms. Various vehicles and miscellaneous concepts follow. I include all available art and photos with each character, so the stuff that is art only is only how far it got. I also have a picture of the known prototypes down below that I've colored by computer using the concept art as a guide, and arranged with custom figures as they might have appeared on the fourth series card backs. Also, most of the art either uses existing style guide poses (get used to those) with new characters traced over or they're taken straight from Who's Who, which only had a few issues on the stands at the time of the presentation.

The pages below have large graphic files, and may take a few minutes to load. Please be patient!

The Figures


Man-Bat	El Dorado	Quadrex	Shockwave

Silicon	Blue Devil	Bizarro	Creeper

Metallo	Executioner	Supergirl	John Stewart

Kid Flash	Manhunter	Vigilante	Mister Mxyzptlk


Black Vulcan	Reverse Flash	Deathstroke	Obsidian

Black Racer	Atomic Knight	Superman Variants	Howitzer

The Power Plus Line


Superman	Batman	Firestorm	Cyborg

Rocketman	Jayna	Zan	Robin

Hawkperson?

Vehicles


Brainiac Brain Ship	Cyborg Crawler	Fist Fighter	Jump Jet

Snooper Scout	Super Glider	Plastic Man Car

Superman's Golden Anniversary

Figure, Case & Vehicle

The Original Pitch

Although it didn't continue past wave three, the Super Powers Collection still had a very admirable run. To get that far, Kenner had to beat out a number of companies for the DC license in the first place. Part of what accomplished that was the other big find, the original presentation to DC Comics by Kenner that won them the rights to make toys of the DC Universe.

Even though Kenner was doing well at the time with Star Wars, getting the DC rights was not walk in the park. In large part, Kenner won them by demonstrating that they understood that the design and the artwork were major factors in the line's eventual success. As detailed in Tomart's magazine, Kenner went into the pitch with a modified Mego Pocket Hero Batman that would punch when you spun the wheel on it's back, demonstrating their concept for an "action feature" to be imbedded in every figure. They also brought a Shazam that was repainted from a Star Wars figure, and was attached to a stick that allowed it to "fly". While the execution wasn't terribly impressive, the ideas were. Both of these mock-ups are shown below.

Another major part of the pitch was Kenner's vision for the line's future. This included three tentative line-ups of figures, notable in that not only were the assortments much smaller than what would eventually be made, but they also deviated from the assortments we know by sticking mainly to the big hitters of DC and Batman/Superman villains. The third series was an entire Teen Titans wave, which makes sense as Teen Titans was DC's top selling title of the time.

Part of what is most interesting is that it is pretty obvious looking at it now that Kenner was unsure at the time of what direction to take the license. it's almost as if they wanted to cover all the bases, and break it into sub categories by characters. Thus Green Lantern gets some playsets and vehicles, Wonder Woman get her plane, Superman has a few vehicles that turned out very different then the produced items, and Batman gets an enormous amount of vehicle, playsets, and role-playing items.They also played with other toy ideas, like Lois Lane fashion dolls, "Jr. Superheroes" (which would be revived in the aborted 4 series pitch above) and a take-off of the Star Wars Micro Sets.

So, on to the pitch. I do want to point out a few more things: One, although some of these pieces of concepts art have appeared elsewhere and been claimed as items that were still on the drawing board when the series was cancelled, every item is dated 1982, the year of the initial presentation. A good rule of thumb is that if it has an individual superhero logo on the art, and not the Super Powers logo, it was from the pitch and never actually slated for the line. This goes for the Teen Titans art, the 12" figures, etc. Also, I include a few pieces of miscellaneous art that were included, but probably came from later in the process. This included the Delta Probe One mock-up, with obviously was made after winning the license. And last, there are a few more pieces that are not here, but have appeared in both Tomart's magazine and on Mike Mensinger's Super Powers page, although a lot of this material has not been seen before. Between all these sources, you should have a pretty good look at what Kenner's thoughts were like when they went after the license. However, due to the fact that there are missing pieces of artwork, the possibility of more showing up down the road is still likely. Not to mention all the discarded concepts that came about during the life of the line.

The Pitch (in no particular order)