Following the Flash, the fastest man alive!
The Super Powers Collection is celebrated to this day and the reasons for its success are many yet also quite simple. Kenner's range of action figures was extensive, mixing famous comic icons with lesser known heroes and villains. It also debuted at a pivotal moment in the marketing of DC Comics's characters. Rob of the Aquaman Shrine astutely observes the importance of Kenner's fortuitous timing, noting that "by 1984, the debut of the line, the long-running Hanna-Barbera Super Friends cartoon show was wrapping up its run." Truly, as in so many great successes stories, Super Powers offered a well-produced product marketed and distributed at just the right cultural moment. Bee of Love Dat Joker succinctly describes the genius inherent to the line's design: "The Super Powers Collection were marked out by a hidden mechanism they featured that would trigger a particular 'trademark' action when the arms or legs were squeezed--that they were hidden meant that the figures themselves remained unmarred by visible levers or buttons, retaining a purity of resemblance to the characters they were based on."
Take it from a boy who remembers, these toys were irresistible. The value associated with the figures and accessories today can be directly correlated to the cherished memories the children of the 1980s have for the Super Powers toys. I still own a sizable sampling of the collection. Tucked away in a box in my closet are Superman, Batman, Robin, Aquaman, Firestorm, the Joker, the Penguin, and others--though, quite tragically, I seem to have lost my Hall of Justice playset at some point during the last two decades! As I noted yetsterday, the Hawkman figure was a particular favorite of mine. Carter Hall's broad "Power Action Flight Wings" were just so awe-inspiring and majestic, even at four inches!
Super Powers Collection #4: The Flash
Commentary: Produced as a tie-in packaged with Kenner's celebrated Super Powers Collection of action figures, the fourth of twenty-three Super Powers mini-comics stars none other than the Flash. Let's make one thing clear up front: this pocket-sized book is little more than a flagrant marketing gimmick, a comic book story written and illustrated in order to encourage kids to both purchase and play with Kenner's extensive line of toys. That being said, the story is masterfully crafted to achieve that effect, thematically echoing and exploring the very acts children would come to associate with the action figures themselves. The story stars the scarlet speedster but, like all other mini-comics in the series, makes sure to include a number of his superfriends as well. If they didn't already own them, any child reading this mini-comic was sure to want to add the likes of Superman, Batman, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman to his or her collection. (I'm living proof. I had them all, though I was particularly fond of the Hawkman figure with its majestic, flapping wings!) In fact, the story's chief villain, the recently redesigned Brainiac, has assumed the role of a collector himself in the pursuance of his evil plans. The alien supervillain is desperate to collect a complete set of superheroes, as is evident when he exclaims upon spying the scarlet speedster, "There is the Flash! He shall be my next prize!" In their glass suspension tubes, the captured members of the Justice League clearly resemble action figures in mint-condition blister packs. Each scene, each individual panel of the adventure imaginatively simulates the sort of play we'd associate with the toys. From a marketing perspective, at least, this is an impressively presented scenario.
High-Speed Highlight: Demonstrating one of his trademark high-speed stunts whilst striving to save the victims of a maritime disaster, the monarch of motion dashes across the surface of a lake, skipping like a stone, much to the amazement of Brainiac, who covets such a wonderful super power.
"Fireflies are soft-bodied beetles with a luminous organ in the abdomen. It is believed the flashing of these insects enables them to find mates."
"Since the stars comprising the Great Bear Constellation (Big Dipper) are moving with varying speeds in various directions, the constellation will be completely unrecognizable 100,000 years from now."
"If the combined energy of all the lightning flashes that strike over the Earth every hour could be harnessed, it would be greater than the entire output of Niagara Falls."
More than a year after the release of The Dark Knight, it looks as though things are finally beginning to line up as they should over at Warner Bros. Though the journey has ironically been slow and drawn-out, some promising progress is being made on The Flash feature film. Geoff Johns has submitted a script treatment for the film and has also signed on as a producer. Additionally, both Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman have been hired by the studio to act as consultants on various upcoming DC Comics superhero movies. It looks as if the next epic Warner Bros. release to hit theaters, however, will be Green Lantern. The long-awaited comic adaptation has a brilliant, accomplished director at the helm in the form of Martin Campbell. And in a development that will fluster most fans of the fastest man alive, none other than Ryan Reynolds, the man hand-picked by David Goyer as the perfect match for Wally West, an actor who campaigned for years to win the role of the scarlet speedster, has been cast as hero Hal Jordan!
"It takes twenty-five days for the sun to complete a rotation on its axis about the equator, but thirty-four days near its north and south poles."
.jpg)
