The Super Powers Collection was a line of action figures based on DC Comics superheroes and supervillains that was created by Kenner Products in the 1980s.
History
In 1984, DC Comics awarded the master toy license of their characters to Kenner Products, hot on the heels of Mattel's "action feature" heavy Masters of the Universe toy line. The initial pitch seemed to be heavily influenced by Kenner's popular Star Wars toyline with multiple playsets dedicated to individual franchises like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Lois Lane, and the Super Jrs. Winning the license away from Knickerbocker and Mattel in 1982 with an emphasis on action and art, Kenner devised hidden mechanisms within the figures that would trigger an action when the figure's legs or arms were squeezed. This emphasis on each figure's "super power" led to the naming of the line: "The Super Powers Collection". Each figure in the first two series were also packaged with a mini-comic featuring an adventure with a spotlight on that character.
With his Apokoliptian New Gods characters like Darkseid judged ideal antagonists for the line, comic creator Jack 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. Ed Hannigan had already redesigned Brainiac in Action Comics the previous year (June 1983). Most of the other designs (and much of the packaging artwork) were based on José Luis García-López' classic DC Style Guides (other artwork used appears to be the work of Dick Giordano, who was known to ink Garcia-Lopez' art for the publications, and Mike DeCarlo). Alex Saviuk provided box art for the line save Shazam.
In all, three series of figures and accessories were released from 1984 to 1986. The line was abruptly cancelled in February 1986. Two toys pictured on the back of the third wave packages were never produced: the All-Terrain Trapper Vehicle and the Darkseid's Tower of Darkness playset.
Tie-ins
Once the line was on the market, a vigorous merchandising campaign took place, with DC Comics and Kenner striving for the Super Powers logo to become ubiquitous. DC Comics produced three comic book mini-series featuring characters from the toyline, one during each year of the toyline's existence. The first series of comics in 1984 was plotted by Jack Kirby, who also provided covers, wrote and penciled the last issue, and went on to pencil the second series. (These two series were collected and reprinted in 2013 in The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 2, in 2018 in Super Powers by Jack Kirby, and in 2019 in DC Universe: Bronze Age Omnibus by Jack Kirby). The third and final series was penciled by Carmine Infantino. In 1986, DC Comics published The Super Friends: Super Powers which reprinted "Bad Weather for Supergirl!" from Super Friends #37 (October 1980) along with coloring pages on the inside front and back covers illustrated by José Luis García-López of Batman and Robin and Wonder Woman, respectfully. The cover of the comic reprints that of the Super Friends issue but with the addition of the Super Powers bursting stars logo.
The same year the first series was published, Federal Comics in Australia also published the original issues and the first issue of the second series but numbered it as the series' sixth issue. Beginning in 1985, French publisher Arédit reprinted the first mini-series to start off its DC Flash series. From 1986 to 1996, Brazilian publisher Editora Abril reprinted various DC Comics in a book called Super Powers for 37 issues, so far as using the Super Powers logo (or a variation of it) for the first ten issues. In 2017, the original Jack Kirby series was reprinted by Panini Brasil in Lendas do Universo DC: Super Powers. Tom Scioli produced a Super Powers back-up series in the pages of Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye in 2016. Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani created a Super Powers mini-series in 2017 as a follow-up to their Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures.