ORIGINS OF A COMIC BOOK JUNKIE: SuperPowers The One That Got Away
BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO
When I was 11, the SuperPowers line of action figures began coming out and I was immediately jealous of my little cousin, Matt, because he was still young enough to be allowed to play with action figures. As I watched his collection of superheroes grow, I kept wondering, "Why can't I collect these superheroes?"

You have to understand, we didn't have a lot of big stores where I lived. I am in a small town and most of the stores that carried toys, only carried main things like "MatchBox Cars, Barbies, Mr. Potato Head, Legos" and things like that. You couldn't go to the store and get the latest action figure or things like that. You had to go out of town to get those kinds of things. So, I couldn't sneak to Murphy's Mart and get some of these action figures. I could only see them at the mall or at the Toys 'R' Us, which was around 45 minutes away.

But my little cousin Matt lived in Washington PA where just about every store had SuperPowers action figures. His family came to visit around once a month and he would bring a bin of action figures to play with each time. His parent had good jobs and bought him new action figures and toys all the time. So each time his case would be a little more full with heroes, vehicles and other accessories. And each time he visited I wanted to try to keep one or more of his action figures. I never did, but that Samurai, Firestorm, Red Tornado, Captain Marvel and Mr. Miracle were just SO tempting. By the end of the SuperPowers run, he had every single action figure EXCEPT the Riddler and Cyborg.

He stood with my family for a few weeks one winter when his maternal grandfather had an unexpected heart attack and died. He was four or five years old. Our family went shopping the one day and we saw Cyborg at Toys 'R' Us, but couldn't convince my mom to buy it for him. Well, I was the Teen Titans uber fan and I was the one who really wanted it, but it was a "no go." That was the only time we EVER saw that figure in person at a store. Matt begged and begged his parents to get it for him. I know they searched all over his area and had his aunts and uncles search, but it was never found.

Matt's around 29 now and we still talk about the on that got away … maybe someday I'll find it for him as a surprise, you never know!

What was the first toy franchise that you were "too big" to collect? Do you have any of them now?

I still have both Hawkman, and Flash from the SuperPowers toys.

The Hawkman is one of my favorite examples of poor toy design. It has flappy wing action, and the wings stick straight out from his back and flap by coming closer together but the button to flap the wings is right in between the wings so you can't really operate them.

I'm old enough to remember the old MEGO action figures line. Even living in New York City they were very hard to find at first, but then they were everywhere! One thing I remember about them was that the arms and legs were connected to the main body with a kind of elastic that sometimes broke. When that happened, my mom would use her crochet hook to thread new elastic through the body to put the figure back together. This happened quite a few times with my Hulk figure!

One other thing that was cool about the MEGO figures was the ability to exchange clothes between figures to make almost new characters. I used to put Iron Man's clothing onto my Star Trek Klingon figure and imagine he was a new villain with powers enough to threaten whoever I threw him against! (Not literally, of course.) I remember one of my favorite accessories was an old Toss Across game I used to use as a giant deathtrap of hidden traps and movable floors!

Thanks for reminding me of what it was like to have fun as a kid!

BTW, when I was living in Rochester in 1988 or so and I had a "real job", I came across those Super Powers figures and I scooped them right up! Ah, to have that kind of disposable income again...

The Hasbro G.I. Joe and Cobra toys were launched when I was getting out of High School. I was lucky enough to enjoy them inthe 90's with my son. Yes I have some now, the 25th anniversary figures were to good to pass up. Of course I also have my Air Adventurer with Kung-Fu Grip!