Super Powers Mini-Comics

By | Thursday, August 20, 2009 6 comments
Completely by accident, I stumbled across some mini-comics from the old Super Powers toy line last night. Each figure in the line came with a small (2.75" x 4.25") 16 page booklet with a short comic focusing on the character the toy replicated. I thought I'd scan and share the ones I found...

A few items of note...
  • There are more drawings of Superman in Wonder Woman's comic than there are drawings of Wonder Woman.
  • Robin's cape is colored incorrectly in his logo.
  • Superman appears on the cover of Robin's comic, but not on the story inside.
  • Superman is under mind-control in two of these three comics.
No writing or art credits are given for any of the comics, though I suspect they were done by an ad agency hired out by Kenner. Although some of José Luis García-López's and Dick Giordano's work was used throughout the Super Powers line, these comics don't seem to bear any of their artistic hallmarks.
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6 comments:

I loved these! Also, Happy Birthday!

Sean D. said...

The Wonder Woman looks a little like Alex Saviuk(sp?) while the Doctor Fate one reminds me of Paul Kupperberg (again SP?). I think both were doing the odd DC book around that time and could have been tapped by the Special Projects department. The Robin one I couldn't see any of the usual tells for the artists who would do things like this for DC. (For example the eyes on a Don Heck character, mouths by George Tuska and the jawline on late Ross Andru figures.)

A. J. Payler said...

Paul Kupperberg is a writer, Alan Kupperberg is an artist. Not that I'm saying he did this work; it's difficult to tell because the scans are so badly pixelated.

Sean D. said...

Ouch. I always would confuse the two. Pixelated as it is, it reminds me of a Justice League/Justice Society two parter ALAN drew around that time.

Sean D.

While it seems clear to me that Dick Giordano had a hand in the WW and Robin books, the Doc Fate art is definitely Alex Saviuk's work.

Unknown said...

It would have been appropriate color if it was the Tim Drake Robin.

And couldn't have Wonder Woman, when catching Superman in her lasso, forced him to admit that he wasn't really evil? (this worked this way twice on old Superfriends episodes, oddly enough, both involved snapping Wondie out of mind control). But...I guess forcing Brainiac to undo all his deeds was probably more productive.