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The 17th episode of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST is now available for your listening pleasure! THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST is the official podcast of FIRESTORM FAN and THE AQUAMAN SHRINE.
BECAUSE THE LISTENERS DEMANDED IT! This episode Rob and Shag take a look back at one of the most important superhero toy lines of all time – Kenner’s Super Powers Collection! The entire action figure line is discussed, including: the origin of the line, each wave of figures, the packaging, and the planned-but-unproduced figures!
For more on the Super Powers Collection action figures:
- Click here to visit Jason Geyer’s Super Powers Archive.
- Click here for a direct link to the figures on the Super Powers Archive.
- Click here for a direct link to the amazing unproduced action figures on the Super Powers Archive, including “Power Plus” Fire Flash Firestorm!
- Finally, click here for our own FIRESTORM FAN coverage of the Firestorm Super Powers Collection action figure!
You can find the 17th episode of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST on iTunes. While you’re there, please drop us a review on the iTunes page. Every comment helps! Alternatively, you may download the podcast by right-clicking here, choosing “Save Target/Link As”, and selecting a location on your computer to save the file (44 MB).
As always, thanks to my co-host Rob Kelly, Sea King of THE AQUAMAN SHRINE, for doing all the post-production on these episodes! Special thanks to Daniel Adams and his band The Bad Mamma Jammas for our super-cool outro theme!
Have a question or comment? Send us an e-mail at: firewaterpodcast@comcast.net
Check out these awesome Super Powers Collection action figures!
Thanks for listening! Fan the Flame and Ride the Wave!
Loved the show!
These toys have been near and dear to me for a long time, and it was great to hear all about the fourth wave. I wish some of them would have been produced, especially Blue Devil.
By the way, Rob had a moment of sheer genius when he suggested the transparent Dr. Stein head on a stick as an accessory for the Firestorm figure. In fact, I think I have an idea for my halloween costume this year. Thanks Rob!
Keep up the great work!
I’m an idea man.
1. I traded my Secret Wars Dr. Doom for SP Superman under duress. I never really liked the figure, and he was never Superman in my play time. He was always a smirking evil Russian thug.
2. Green Lantern was beautifully sculpted. I remember sitting under a tree and just marveling at Hal’s design. Never actually enjoyed playing with him much, though.
3. Flash is boring.
4. I had a capeless Batman for some reason. I never liked it much.
5. I somehow managed to rip the head off my Mego Pocket Heroes Robin, so he ended up becoming my badass headless assassin called “The Executer.” After I lost him, SP Robin and his sadistic smile replaced him in the role. How I associated bare legs and booties with a master killer escapes me, though I recall one had a hand made to hold a G.I. Joe M-16.
6. Hawkman was another cool looking sculpted, and I liked working his wings, but he was otherwise worthless to me as a toy.
7. I never had an Aquaman. He seemed kind of lame.
8. I bought a Wonder Woman, because girl figures were hard to come by. She tended to be a generic damsel in distress, unfortunately. I guess I wasn’t progressive as a kid.
9. I never wanted anything to do with Red Tornado.
10. Obviously love for Martian Manhunter.
11. Never owned a Firestorm. He was cheesy looking.
12. No Green Arrow for me, even though he seemed cool.
13. I had a Dr. Fate, but I think he got stolen early on. He looked neat. I like collars on heroes.
14. Darkseid was my big bad, and it was nice that he could hang with He-Man onb occasion. I remember wowing my first girlfriend by showing off the Omega Effect on a balcony under the summer sun.
15. Never bothered with Lex Luthor. His armor was dorky.
16. No Brainiac. Didn’t dig the villains, and he didn’t look like he did on the Superman cartoon at all.
17. I may have had a Joker. The mallet seems familiar. Didn’t last long.
18. My brother had a Penguin. He suffered much abuse. He replaced my Boss Hogg as the dastardly fat guy.
19. I don’t think I could ever find a Steppenwolf. That’s my only explanation for not having such a clearly rad toy.
20. My brother might have had a Kalibak, but I rarely/never played with it if he did.
21. I definitely had a Parademen. He was a serious nasty. Kind of a precursor to Etrigan for me.
22. My brother had DeSaad. He was another good henchman.
23. Mantis looked stupid.
24. I don’t remember Shazam at all. His head looks weird.
25. I think I could have bought I Cyborg, and debated about it, but didn’t. Strange, since Mark Waid found his in Lubbock. It would have gotten stolen, anyway.
26. Golden Pharoh looked lame as all hell.
27. I think Cyclotron is who I debated buying over Cyborg, since I loved figures with removable masks. Ended up with neither, though.
28. Orion was fairly ridiculous. My brother had Man-E-Faces. I did not.
29. No to Samurai. Sorry to every non-white figure in this line. It wasn’t a race thing, though. If you weren’t Cyborg, you just kind of sucked.
30. Mr. Miracle was always a dagger to the eye of aesthetics.
31. I sort of hated Plastic Man as a kid, but I still bought this cheap because I wanted to play with the Power Action Stretching Neck.
32. My brother had Mr. Freeze, but I think his was from Toy Biz.
33. Tyr was pretty bitchin’. but I had to rig up so many toys as amputees once they lost limbs to playing, I couldn’t justify buying one that way (no matter how boss his Fu Manchu/mohawk combination was.)
34. I love the SP-ified Podcast logo.
35. I didn’t see Super Powers as a Secret Wars rip-off, since I had seen those characters cohabited at Mego (specifically the Pocket Heroes which you guys Rob could do a segment on. My problem was that I a) preferred the Marvel characters offered, and b) thought the action features were a worse gimmick than the lenticular shields, since they interfered with the construction of the figures. The SPs were so rigid looking, and I liked the SWs postures better. However, SP eventually won out over the breadth of the line, the better sculpting, the mini-comics, and knee joints.
36. There were two Mego Lex Luthors. They just weren’t in the main line. He showed up in his “Challenge of the Super Friends” duds in a 12″ doll and as a Pocket Hero.
37. I like how Shag kept saving “schtick” like some sort of vaudevillian.
38. Further SP reading related to this podcast introduced me to the Cyborg mini-comic. Thought I’d share.
39. I resented the comics when the gnarly SP Kirby figures turned out to be so lame in their source environment.
40. Darkseid was the Skeletor/Cobra Commander/Darth Vader to build the other villains around. It worked, but I would kill a man for a Super Powers Commander Blanx & Mr. V (as mentioned on Manhunter’s card.)
41. I picture Shag looking at himself in the mirror after every podcast, sweat on his brow, slapping himself and saying “new-cu-lar… new-clear… new-cle-ur… damn it!”
42. I suppose if the third series was the senior class, that explains their rairly showing up to class.
43. I don’t recall ever being consciously aware of the lack of a SP Atom. That’s a shame, but at least I got my nice Kenner JLA figure.
44. Is it just me, or is the opening music on those SP ads creepy?
45. For some reason, I also really like El Dorado, probably because he was suave and had unique powers. Black Vulcan was Black Lighting in an equally bad costume. Samurai was just ugh. Apache Chief was silly.
46. I read exactly one issue of the Super Powers comic as a kid, and Janus figured heavily into it. A bunch of characters “died,” and I felt cheated when they turned up alive later on.
47. Man-Bat sucks, and this is speaking as a guy who had the Power Record.
48. Shockwave and Quadrex totally make sense as toys. I’d have wanted to play with them. As for Silicon, well, how did Crystar do, exactly?
49. Blue Devil’s Diabolical Dubstep? Want! Shag and I need to team up for a Blue Devil blog. Mark Waid really screwed the pooch on Dan Cassidy.
50. Kev O’Neil is disturbing, and I love him for it. Where’s my Marshal Law line?
51. Creeper was all about the suction cups, which is a swell idea if you’re high. He looks like Plunger-Man.
52. Love Metallo, in his Blue Devil appearance.
53. I used Executioner for my fake Detroit Super Amigos mini-comic teaming Vixen with Memín Pinguín. That says it all.
54. I’d have loved Supergirl and especially John Stewart.
55. Manhunter turned up on some Super Amigos merchandise. Maybe he was big in Latin America?
56. Vigilante was probably where “The Executer” came from, although he was more like Deathstroke, who I hadn’t been exposed to. The Terminator would have made a totally rad figure.
57. Obsidian was well designed, and it would have been neat to have a gay SP.
58. Whew, that got long, but I want to hear the rest.
59. Where did that QVC Aquaman comment come from?
[…] started the week talking about the Super Powers Collection action figures. Seems like a good idea to keep that Super Powers love flowing! In 1985 the Super Friends cartoon […]
Wow Frank. That has to be something of a record for the most comments ever on a podcast episode.
I just started listening to the episode, but I wanted to make a few quick comments about the Super Powers.
–I remember getting Flash one day from my father “just cause” and I vividly remember looking at the cover to his minicomic, even though I don’t remember reading it. Flash was my favorite SP toy as a kid and remains one of my absolute favorites. Other favorites were Aquaman and Green Lantern.
–I also had Martian Manhunter and Dr. Fate, although I had absolutely no idea who they were or what their powers were, and wouldn’t know who they were until the mid-90s when I became a DC reader. Unfortunately I don’t know what happened to their capes.
–My brother had Hawkman, and I SO WANTED HIM. And even though he never used him all that much, he was “his guy” so I never played with him. I eventually got ahold of him when I got all of the Super Powers toys, and now he stands tall on my shelf of Hawkman toys. One of the first posts I did on Being Carter Hall was my retrospective on the SP Hawkman toy.
–I had both Lex Luthor and Darkseid, and loved both of them. Just great toys all around and I loved the light-piping on Darkseid’s eyes. I am always partial to Lex’s armor because of that toy.
–My brother used Mantis as his Predator toy for years and years.
–My brother had Kalibak, but unfortunately his action arm came off of his body. For years, we assumed that Kalibak’s Arm was behind the hutch in my brother’s room. So when my brother moved out, we moved that hutch expecting Kalibak’s arm… and nothing! So the mystery of Kalibak’s arm raged on. Eventually my brother found it and Kalibak was re-armed once again!
Can’t wait to hear the rest of the show.
Everytime I talk or thinkg about the Super Powers, I fall into a “I wish I knew now what I know now” situation. I liked the toys (along with the Secret Wars), and watched the Superfriends (along with Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends), both “live” and on tape (my Dad used to tape cartoons for us to watch), but I never translated the enjoyment of the toys and toons to the comics. So while I read comics as a kid I didn’t start “seriously” collecting until 1988 or so when I started buying Silver Surfer irregularly, and then 1991 or so when I started buying The Toxic Avenger.
In retrospect I wish I had made the mental connection and bought some Flash comics or something when I was a kid and I would have the memories of reading superhero comics as a little kid like you guys do.
Oh well.
Cloth capes were the greatest thing ever! I remember back in the day (Jr high), Wizard magazine used to constantly harp on how Toy Biz would use plastic capes on their Marvel toys and pine for the return of the cloth capes. And the way that they were each unique was even more amazing. I don’t have any of the cloth capes for any of the figures, and they are hard to find, even on eBay. So I feel your pain, Shag, as my Dr. Fate also is lacking his cape, as I said.
My brother had the SP Penguin, while a few years later I got the Toy Biz one, which for a classic Penguin is pretty cool. I also had the Toy Biz Riddler to go with him (no Super Amigos for me!). I like the Penguin thanks to Burgess Meredith (of course) so I dug both versions of the figure; the Toy Biz Riddler had no action features but was a cool toy nonetheless.
I had the Clark Kent figure (so did my brother), and he’s a classic. Whenever Scott Gardner says “Have you accepted Clark Kent as your Lord and Savior?” I always think of the Super Powers Clark Kent. I remember the commercials with the actor holding both the Superman and Clark figures and talking about how we’re seeing Superman and Clark Kent together! Heh!
Joker’s “Madcap Mallet” attack is not really a punch, it’s designed so that he can swing his big ole hammer. I always liked that the hammer could go over people’s heads, too. I remember clearly my brother grabbing his Batman, Robin, Joker, and Penguin toys when we would watch Batman (1966) on reruns on WPIX.
Rob talked about pegwarmers with the Mego FF figures. My favorite pegwarmer of all time is Secret Wars Kang! I was still finding Secret Wars Kang in Kay Bee and Toys R Us when I was in high school in the 90s. I don’t have anything against Kang — heck, I LIKE Kang — but poor Secret Wars Kang just couldn’t sell!
As far as Super Powers/Superfriends toys in the DCU Classics line, for Super Powers Anniversary, they did a whole bunch of these toys, including: El Dorado, Black Vulcan, Samurai, Golden Pharaoh, and Cyclotron. There was also a Build-A-Figure of Apache Chief! (We also got a Superfriends style Toyman.) I came across a Cyclotron in Marshalls a few months back at deep discount, but ultimately passed. But you had better believe I considered it!
Really quick, Cyborg was actually not painted with shiny paint, he was an early figure with vac-metal (as was Brainiac). Toy Biz would really run with these concept in the 90s, including the awesome Iron Man toy line which used lots vac-metal.
Web of Howizter was a decent little book. Certainly a lot better than his 90s revamp, that’s for sure… 😉 Rocketman makes me think of the leader of the Force of July, Major Victory. The Force of July were one of the rival teams to the Outsiders.
Good show dudes! If you’re not busy later, we’re going to meet up over at the Golden Pharaoh over off of Woodruff… 😉
Totally my fave toys ever. Totally sweet episode guys. Thanks!
Thanks for all the feedback guys! Y’all totally rock! We read much of this on episode #18 during Listener Feedback. Thanks again! And we’re definitely going to do a second part to SUPER POWERS!