BOOTLEG Collections! The Super Powers Comics Packaged with the Action Figures!

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[@gg92101]

As someone already mentioned, TwoMorrows' Back Issue mag (#134 from April of this year) has a short article and a breakdown of the Leaf mini-books, book-by-book. These--and I'm pretty sure the Kenner SuperPowers books--were all produced directly by DC Comics, not farmed out. In the case of the Leaf ones, all the covers were by Dick Giordano. The Back Issue article lists the artists as Don Heck & Vince Colletta on Aquaman, Joe Staton & Steve Mitchell on Green Lantern, Rich Buckler & Giordano on Superman, Don Newton & Frank McLaughlin on Batman, Don Heck on Flash, and Jose Delbo and Colletta on Wonder Woman. The only one they can't identify is Justice League, which is listed as inked by McLaughlin.

[@wescarter2891]

I guess I was the "Aquaman guy", it was the only one I had. He came with a trident... that's cool...right?🤔

[@stazjohnson8618]

The Batman art in that Secret Origins book looks like the work of Don Newton. I'm only judging that by the briefest flick through those pages in the video of course, but it certainly looked like Newton's work to me.

[@doomedhuh]

you'd think this would be something DC would do an official release for

[@crawdadnc479]

Firestorm was on the spinner racks. I bought it from the grocery store. He was in one of the versions of the Superfriends cartoon, too. These toys were really good. You're right that the quality of sculpts and materials went down not long after these. I guess the sales went down and costs went up, so corners had to be cut? Now action figures almost don't exist outside of the higher-end collector's market.

[@mpjedi212]

The $1.50 collector album was a booklet with pockets to collect and hold the comics that came with the candy. There were slots for first and second series. They covered those books in a recent BACK ISSUE...issue....Had a lot of the art and writing credits, all DC mainstays, but some were unable to be identified

[@dobidy]

The Leaf candy comics were a welcome surprise when I was a kid. I remember picking up a handful on a fishing trip from a remote tackle shop/gas station in Northern Ontario.

[@geoffyuendesign]

I remember collecting the Secret Origin mini comics from DC in 1980. They were trading card sized and had that awful flat bubblegum wrapped in wax paper. I distinctly remember the Flash comic drawn by Don Heck.

[@peterm.fitzpatrick7735]

I and my two older brothers always bought candy at the same time we bought comics. Ben Franklin had the penny candy and Smith Drugs had the spin-rack full of comics. We must have bought hundreds of those comics when we were growing kids.

[@KC-fi6rk]

I remember going to the ice cream shop with my grandpa and getting the secret origins ones. There was also a marvel version spider woman, spider man, hulk and captain America.

[@tphoto10]

I remember riding my bike around my grandparents town trying to find all of those Secret Origins comics. I feel like they came with gum or something?

[@DCMarvelMultiverse]

Fun Fact: Superman appears in more panels than WW in her own comic.

[@jamesgildersleeve]

I don't think I ever owned any of the Super Powers toys, but I remember the ad on the back cover of a lot of the DC books from those days. Another fun video!

[@doomtripper]

This video brought back early memories of getting Marvel mini comics with a kids meal toy from KFC in 1997. I was 8, so those might have been the first comics I ever owned. I remember the Hulk origin resonating with me… time to go scoop some Monster/Madness!

[@alanmorton3672]

Kirby loved Super Powers because DC paid him a royalty for using many of his characters.

[@DCMarvelMultiverse]

The capes did not have metallic rings inside them. They had soft plastic rings that fit through sewn rings in the cape so that you could fit the plastic ring through them and then fit the cape around the figure's neck. You could remove the plastic ring from the cape.

[@RyanFreshhh]

Damn, I need those collections

[@montagethemovie5947]

I still have my Flash, Joker and Steppenwolf figures. Pretty sure Steppenwolf was mail order only

[@pdoherty926]

"What kid wants Firestorm?" Firestorm was the first comic I pulled off of a spinner rack at Vic's Variety at age 5-6. 😅

[@DCMarvelMultiverse]

The current MacFarlane SP figures are inferior to these in every way. I had Aquaman but lost his trident. I gave him a painted card holder that came from a florist. It fit in his hand perfectly and looked like a hi tech version of a trident. Steppenwolf was marketed as an Aquaman nemesis in the commercials. And people loved Firestorm due to the show. Ben Franklin stores had nearly all the figures in small town locations well into the 90s at discount. So many memories and trivia.

[@russworks2882]

The EC reprint paperbacks from Ballantine (late 60's) were printed sideways, one tier per page, just like the Mad paperbacks. They're really nice, many with Frazetta covers.

[@redvitaminblue]

Great design and great formatting for a great idea. Whoever bootlegged these into a collection, give yourself a pat on the back.

[@phillytoon]

The Batman Returns Penguin figure was just a reused mold from the Super Powers figure, right?

[@ivane5110]

First off as a pre-Crisis Aquaman fan--how dare you! Lol. I think I only had 1 of the Super Power comics (Flash). I wanted them all, but was at that lame age of feeling to old to be spotted buying action figures. Had all of those candy comics (but either WW or Batman was late on) and that album, which was one of the few things I ever sent away for and of the even few things that actually showed up. Loved these. I think I still have them (except 1, probably Batman since as a teen I showed to some knuckle head who got it ground up in the metal joints of their dad's easy chair). Very good job condensing origins to just 2 panels a page. (I think Super Powers might've gotten the flow better though). The album was nice and sturdy with a good glossy sheen and inside black and white reprints of each minicomics cover showing where they went (each corner slipped into little angled slots that were murder on the left side if not carful). The thing that still stands out is that the JLA origin (which is actualky just one page or panel flashback) has no correlation to any actual origin from the proper series, but was actually more on line with Squadron Supreme's one panel origin (banding together to face a giant robot threat). Man do I want these collections. Someday I hope this or some other channel does a video on all of the mimi-comics that came with toys or video games (even the Eagle Force cardback comics).

[@drock6287]

Man I loved those mini comics!

[@joeldavidchevallier]

Around the 9:00 mark you mention the quality of the Super Powers line, and how you felt they are a gold standard in action figures. I absolutely agree. The toy biz stuff that really overtook the Super Hero figure market following this line, and the Batman Movie figures to some degree..the stuff that just preceded the collector market that began with McFarlane….felt to me as a kid at the time as pale in comparison. The sculpts to this day are the most iconic of the characters they represent. The Super Powers Batman is this post-Neal Adams Batman but made with a bit less detail and brighter colors, but heroic in his stance. The action gimmicks were eh…. I adore my Shazam figure that I finally scored decades after the fact, but before they became nearly unaffordable by most standards. I always loved my Secret Wars figures too….particularly the Falcon and Hobgoblin…but I longed for them to be made with the care and detail that their DC counterparts got. Daredevil was a favorite of mine and boy….I have never seen a character that seemed less QC’d. THe flesh color on the face always had red peaking through, and the DD logo, one of the only real painted detail aside from the face…flecked/smeared off with barely any handling. Anyhow….you guys always take me to this place. As a production artist and graphic designer who grew up with many of the same points of references (I got into comics when my dad gave me his silver age Marvel books in the second grade, around the time the Secret Wars figures were on the shelves…and the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends were on NBC. I came of age reading Marvel’s pre Image Bronze Age books graced with the talents of Lee and Portacio on X-men, Liefeld (who caught my eye on the spinner rack with Hawk and Dove before going onto..) The New Mutants, and of course, Todd McFarlane’s AMS. I was about to graduate High School when Image was coming about, and I do remember wanting to like those books…but feeling like the artist had all found ghosts to handle the heavy lifting and their styles had gotten …mature in a way I couldn’t describe then, but felt static and less alive somehow. I kept on reading Wizard and buying Daredevil out of intertia as I had since I was in grade school….but those years the bubble was bursting I was a bit MIA. I recall getting back into comics with Marvel Knights….being a Kevin Smith and DD fan…sold. Then Quesada’s pencils were nothing to scoff at. I ramble….but my day to day work now often requires press checks and setting up books for print….I’m a font nerd who now appreciates the work of the Silver Age Marvel Bullpen greats like Artie Simek and the Bronze Age work of Tom Orzechowski as much as the pencilers that I was enamored with in the form as a child. Having a channbel where these intersections are the fodder for such rich discussions with other collectors, fans and creatives….I can’t than you two enough. Once my alliteration of choice might have been Make Mine Marvel…now it’s just as likely to be “Kayfabe Keeps me Connected!” (I’m no Stan Lee, but I gave a go…) Thanks 🙏

[@russworks2882]

Now do Tom's Super Powers series. Not bootleg, but it was censored.

[@raphaelcurley]

Was the Superman with magnet in his chest and magnet kryptonite ring that knocked him down part of this? I had that one as a little boy.

[@Duwolfe]

No the Superman with the magnet gimmick was part of the brief period when Toybiz had the DC license. They did use the same tooling as the Super Powers collection.

[@gregoryguy1062]

Hey! I had the Aquaman figure...

[@exiles_dot_tv]

The Secret Origins album was lame, it was just a piece of folded cardboard with notches in it that you could slide the mini-comics into.

[@alanmorton3672]

These stories look like they were drawn by Dick Dillon & Frank Mclaughlin, JLA art team of the 70s/early 80s.

[@alanmorton3672]

... But there's also more than a touch of Irv Novick about them.

[@alanmorton3672]

That GL story looks like Don Heck.

[@LeandritoDendrito]

the art seems like Jim Aparo

[@taramavery]

The art looks a lot like Ross Andru to me. Following JLGL models of course.

[@frankiemandella9885]

Were can I get this collection at ?

[@mannydls6268]

Any chance y’all will be at SDCC???

[@toddblanchard484]

Where do I get these?

[@teetoo3790]

I like to know as well. Where can we get these?

[@ezscomicbookcollecting6244]

EBay and Etsy

[@keomgranger695]

Remember ATARI FORCE?

[@elviratenney1406]

How about doing a video on the weirdest comic ever did or the ugliest comic ever

[@frankiemandella9885]

Were can I get this. Collection at ?