25 years ago, Kenner launched a line of DC super-hero action figures under the name Super Powers. Today, Crisis on Earth-Blog unites fourteen sites in celebrating this landmark toy line. In particular, check out Crimson Lightning’s week-long coverage, starting with a review of the Flash mini-comic. (“Mini-comic,” you ask? Read on!)

The Super Powers figures were 6″ toys with a twist — sometimes literally. They really were action figures. Each figure would perform an action if manipulated, usually by squeezing the arms or legs. Squeeze Superman’s legs and he’d throw a punch. Hawkman’s wings would flap. Robin would do a karate chop, and Wonder Woman would lift her bracelets to block bullets. If you squeezed Red Tornado’s arms, his lower body would spin.

Naturally, if you squeezed the Flash’s arms, he would run.

Mini-Comics

Each figure starred in his (or her) own miniature 16-page comic book, around 4 inches high. To keep things readable they typically had only one or two panels per page. Villains and other heroes were pulled from the rest of the toy line, along with a couple of playsets and vehicles.

The Flash (Barry Allen) appeared in four of the mini-comics.

• Flash (of course) – in which he single-handedly rescued half the JLA from Braniac (Reviewed at Crimson Lightning).
• Green Arrow – in which the Scarlet Speedster and Emerald Archer teamed up with the Martian Manhunter to fight Darkseid’s son, Kalibak (Scanned and reviewed at Dispatches from the Arrow Cave).
• Aquaman – in which the speedster and King of the Seas fought the Penguin (Read it at Aquaman Shrine).
• Hawkman – in which the Flash, Hawkman and Green Lantern team-up against Lex Luthor (Reviewed at Being Carter Hall).

While reading these it really struck me how heavily Jack Kirby’s New Gods were involved with Super Friends and Super Powers. Certainly in the later seasons, and the toys, and the Super Powers comic books that spun out of the series, Darkseid and his allies on Apokolips were major villains. Considering that the characters were created in the 1970s, that meant they had only been around for 10-15 years at the time. (For comparison: Bart Allen appeared as Impulse roughly 15 years ago.)

Something else I found interesting was the effort made to work the vehicles into the comics. Why would Superman need an aircraft to fight Lex Luthor? The Supermobile blocks Kryptonite beams. Why, in the Green Arrow comic, would Flash run out and hop in the “Delta Probe” instead of punching Kalibak 1,000 times a second?

Um….let me get back to you on that one.

Missed Opportunities

In organizing this event, Shag provided some reference links including a site covering the unproduced fourth wave of figures in the line. Among the proposed figures were Kid Flash and the Reverse Flash, which would have rounded out the major Earth-One speedsters. To the best of my knowledge, neither Kid Flash nor Professor Zoom appeared as an action figure until the late 1990s.

Memories

Oddly enough, even though I was in the prime demographic, I don’t remember having more than one or two of the toys. I would have been eight years old when the first wave hit, and had been watching the Super Friends cartoons on TV. The Super Powers toys first hit in 1984, the same year that I got hooked on The New Teen Titans — my “gateway drug” to the wider world of DC Comics. I was very excited to learn that one of the Titans, Cyborg, was going to appear on TV in new Super Friends episodes.

For whatever reason, the only Super Powers figure I remember for certain was Robin. It wasn’t that I didn’t have many toys at the time. I had a collection of Star Wars figures (helped along, no doubt, by my parents’ Star Wars fandom), and Masters of the Universe, and Transformers. But only the one DC figure. (G.I. Joe is another one I almost missed. I only remember having Zartan.)

I might have had Lex Luthor too, but I’m not sure.

Maybe it was that, until the Cyborg figure appeared in the third wave, Robin was the only Teen Titan in the set, and that was where my main interest was.

By the time I started reading The Flash in 1987, the Super Powers line had shut down. By the time DC started licensing new action figures a few years, I’d stopped playing with them, and I didn’t start collecting them until the launch of DC Direct.

I did eventually track down an unboxed Flash figure from the line, though it’s in storage right now with a lot of my random memorabilia.

Multiverse of Viewpoints

But wait! There’s more! A whole slew of blogs, organized by Shag of Once Upon a Geek, are also writing about the Super-Powers action figures today. Stop by and see what everyone else is saying about Super Powers! Collect the whole set!

• Aquaman Shrine dives with the King of the Seas.
• Bat-Blog covers Batman and his villains.
• Being Carter Hall handles Hawkman.
• Crimson Lightning is going all-out with a Flash extravaganza.
• Dispatches from the Arrow Cave aims at Green Arrow
• Love Dat Joker brings in the laughs with the Clown Prince of Crime
• Justice League Detroit follows a set of knock-off figures from the era.
• The Idol-Head of Diabolu has only begun to cover Martian Manhunter
• …nurgh… reviews the entire series of mini-comics
• Doom Patrol Blog takes a spin with Red Tornado
• Fortress of Baileytude – Superman
• Firestorm Fan follows the Nuclear Man.
• Once Upon A Geek covers Dr. Fate and the unproduced Blue Devil & Shockwave figures
• Update: Legion Omnicom has joined the event in with a page on Tyr.

Thanks to Shag of Once Upon a Geek for organizing the event and providing scans of the minicomics. Thanks also to Toy Otter’s Super Powers Archive for the images of the figures themselves.

Comics in Crisis is running a series on Cartoon Heroes. The first installment includes video clips from the Filmation cartoons from the 1960s (which I reviewed when it came out on DVD) and Super-Friends.

Toys R Us will have (among other items) an exclusive Flash action figure at Comic-Con International.

Wednesday Comics

The Weekly Crisis wants to know: Will you be buying Wednesday Comics?

Karl Kerschl is running a contest: He’s hidden an image of The Abominable Charles Christopher in a panel of the Flash story in Wednesday Comics (he’s not saying which week). When you spot it, email him a photo of yourself pointing to the yeti, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for an original sketch.

When Worlds Collide’s Timothy Callahan is wildly enthusiastic about the series, and compares it to Solo. He also notes that the reasons he liked Solo and is looking forward to Wednesday Comics — get a bunch of top-tier artists and writers and let them loose on DC’s characters — is exactly why Solo sold so poorly.

Speaking of Solo, I didn’t buy every issue, but I did pick up three or four. I bought the ones by artists I wanted to read. Darwyn Cooke, Sergio Aragonés, I forget who else.

Comics Worth Reading reviews the All-New Super-Friends Hour.

CBR talks with Marc Guggenheim about “Character Assassination” in Spider-Man

The Comics Journal reprints an angry letter from Carmine Infantino regarding payments for some use of Black Canary. (via The Beat)

Comics in Crisis discusses the Worst-Kept Secret Identities, including Flash Wally West.

Comic Book Kingdom quotes a scene from Middleman in which the two leads discuss comic books, in particular the Flash.

And a bit off-topic, this list of Geek Gods tries to re-imagine the Greek/Roman pantheon with geek icons of today, with Stan Lee as Zeus, Majel Barret Roddenberry as Hera, Wil Wheaton as Hemes, and so forth.

The Flash (or Kid Flash) appears in two DVD sets being released this week, as well as one upcoming release and a whole set of digital downloads.

Teen Titans

The review by Comics Worth Reading reminds me that Teen Titans season 5 is out on DVD this week. This features the episode, “Lightspeed,” in which the animated version of Kid Flash goes up against the Hive Five and makes a special connection with Jinx. While it’s never been made clear just how Teen Titans relates to Justice League Unlimited, they did cast Michael Rosenbaum, the voice of the Flash on that series, as Kid Flash.

I’ve got this one on pre-order. At the time it aired, I wasn’t watching the show, but I made a point to watch “Lightspeed” and enjoyed it. I’ve since seen the other 4 seasons on DVD, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the fifth.

The Batman & Filmation

Comic Bloc poster BESTBUY points out that The Batman season 5 (2007-2008) is also out this week, featuring several episodes with the Justice League as well as “A Mirror Darkly,” in which Batman and Robin team up with the Flash against Mirror Master.

He also mentions the upcoming DVD release of DC Superheroes: The Filmation Adventures, set for August 12. These are cartoons from 1967, featuring DC’s classic cast of heroes, the Flash included. I’ve never seen them myself — my experience with DC-based animation starts with the early 1980s and Super-Friends. From what I understand, these originally aired as part of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure.

Super Friends Go Digital

Finally, Blog@Newsarama reports that iTunes now has a number of classic DC cartoons, including Super Friends and Season 2 of Superman: The Animated Series. That’s the season that includes “Speed Demons,” the episode that introduced the DCAU Flash in 1997.

• DC Animated Classics
• Superman: The Animated Series: “Speed Demons”
• Super Friends

Thinking about it, it was probably Super Friends that first introduced me to DC’s heroes. I certainly was watching the show long before I started reading comics. I remember very little of the cartoons now, except for the general tone, and a few moments like Superman trying to pronounce Mxytzptlk, or me getting confused as to why Cyborg’s voice was so high in the commercial (by the time he was introduced, I’d started reading The New Teen Titans) — it turned out they’d run one of Wonder Woman’s lines over a picture of his face. And while I remembered the additional super-heroes like Apache Chief and Samurai, I’d completely forgotten the standard Hanna Barbera additions like Wendy and Marvin, or the Wonder Twins and Gleek, until I started reading commentary about the show online a decade later. I still can’t bring to mind any of their voices, though I imagine Marvin sounding like Shaggy from Scooby Doo