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.
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 Mego Corporation and Mattel 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).
In all, three series of figures and accessories were released from 1984 to 1986, but after three years of production, the line collapsed.
