Kenner Super Powers
Ep. 224 is live!
Awesome Anniversary Month slides nicely into week 2, and my god am I jazzed! We are covering my FAVORITE toy line of all time and celebrating its 40th anniversary, it's Kenner Super Powers! Now, I realize that comes as a shock to many who have been following our shows for awhile, even back to the Ernest days. Many would assume my number one with a bullet is Masters of the Universe. While MOTU is my favorite brand, for a number of reasons we will dissect down the line, Super Powers is hands down my absolute favorite toy lines from the 80's. What's the difference? Well, MOTU was a massive cross market brand that consisted of a toy line, of course, as well as a cartoon and comics. There was also a great deal of ephemeral items that REALLY added to the brand as a whole. Bed sheets, TV Trays, plastic plates, mugs, and bowls, jelly glasses...all of these little things coupled with how this brand came to be is what makes MOTU my favorite brand. Super Powers on the other hand? While the history of the line and how it came to market is interesting, and the ephemeral items are fun and interesting as well, this line comes down to the toys. They say it's hard to pick a favorite, but my word does Super Powers manage to make it slightly easier. Lets get into it, shall we? Super Powers made its debut from Kenner in 1984. Kenner needed a new hot toy line to keep the revenue stream going hard, and DC wanted to stand alone on the toy shelves, seperating from Marvel after leaving Mego. What we were treated to was nothing short of incredible.
Just look at all of that! From the designs, the vehicles, the card and box art, the queues taken from Jack Kirby, George Perez, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez...the line is a slam dunk. You're a kid in the mid 80's walking through the toy aisle and you see these brightly colored blister cards with some of your favorite heroes on them? Or that Batmobile box art? Please, you're going to go ham over them. Super Powers was the first vintage line I started collecting way back during the summer between my senior year of highschool and freshman year of college. And it all started in an odd fashion; by way of the first promos for Cartoon Network's Boomerang! The Nostalgia bug was starting to grip me even then, and Super Powers would be the line to really dive in as a plethora of core memories unlocked when that promo ran. Flickers of memories with my mom and seeing short carded figures in gas stations, standard carded figures in different stores...my old neighbor JR's bashed to hell Batmobile and Batman that would fall apart...the time my friend Branson Martin stayed the night and brought his mixed collection of Super Powers and DC Comics Super Heroes from ToyBiz. It was like the promo said, "it's all coming back to you." I remember it being the first vintage line I OBSESSED over, and still do in many ways. Discovering Jason Geyer and his (now defunct) Toy Otter website. He would go on to start his own endeavor, Long Box Heroes that is inspired by the Super Powers aesthetic. There is of course the lore surrounding what we could have had in the line, which is truly jaw dropping. From playsets to figures and additional toys, Kenner had big plans for this line.
Sadly, though, the line would be cut in 86, dwindling from shelves in 87. That third wave naturally became INSANELY spendy. Someday, Cyborg, you will be mine, someday. Over the years, even decades, the Super Powers logo would show up on licensed material. Then all of a sudden, with really little to no head's up, McFarlane Toys started releasing a new retro wave of Super Powers figures in 2022. Initially a Wal-Mart exclusive, similar to MOTU Origins, the line has since become available with several online retailers such as Big Bad Toys Store, Entertainment Earth, and Game Stop (the retailer does carry them in store, also). This new line has given us some of the characters and vehicles we didn't get, along with some we didn't ask for and SEVERAL Batman variants, a staple move by way of the ToddFather. Much like the original line, our only lady so far is Wonder Woman. Fans hold out hope for the likes of Black Canary, Zatanna, Hawkgirl, Supergirl, Batgirl, Catwoman, and many more. In the meantime, the figures and vehicles that have been released are pretty spectacular.
That is going to wrap things up this week for the write up side of things here at Yesterdaze, but won't you join us next week as Awesome Anniversary Month continues when we cover a big one...I can barely contain myself over this...next week we celebrate 35 years of Batman '89, with VERY special guest Ben White a.k.a. THE FOURTH MAN! This will be his podcast debut, and I can tell you right now Ben came prepared for some Bat You know how to find us! Same Bat-Day, same Bat-Podcast-feed...we'll see you next Monday! In the meantime, pop on over to 80's Tees and treat yourself to some Super Powers swag by way of our custom link.
