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Post by tarkintino on Feb 24, 2023 9:34:05 GMT -5
Incidentally, at the time, there was a peculiar “cross-pollination” between the series and the 60s Filmation cartoons. Some Filmation cartoons (Superman, Superboy, Batman, and Aquaman) were released on videotapes with “Super Powers” branding: The one and only Super Powers branded merchandise worth my dollars...and it had nothing to do with Super Powers.
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Post by tonebone on Feb 24, 2023 10:07:32 GMT -5
Between the two series, I was all-in for Secret Wars, and put off by Kirby's art on Super Powers. Yes, even at the time, I knew he was a legend, but his art on that series was not his best, by any stretch of the imagination. Secret Wars had Mike Zeck, and teased (and fulfilled) some actual changes to the characters. They might not have lasted forever (thank God), but there were changes. I felt like Super Powers was outside of continuity and didn't "matter" (this was important to me at the time). As far as the action figures go... didn't care... I was in high school, and hadn't bought an action figure in forever. I do concede that the Super Powers action figures are superior, in hindsight. Secret Wars was the product of Marvel's intensifying direction at the time: bloated and overblown would-be "epics" (probably inspired by equally bloated sci-fi and action films of the same period) which certainly informed the coming disasters of the publisher's late 80s / 1990s era. There was not a thing about SW that warranted its over-advertised existence, and for all of the implications suggested by the regular titles which sent the various heroes off on the adventure, SW was meaningless. I don't care how many Marvel fanboys/girls recall SW being "aaawwweesommme", it was not.
Super Powers was almost as heartless; DC already tried a toy tie-in comic with 1968's Captain Action, but that short-lived series' stories were not (just?) thinly-veiled sales pitches for Ideal's action figure line--there was some attempt to give life and heart to the heroes. That cannot be said of Super Powers (GAH! That title!), which was the equivalent of lighting a brick of firecrackers: once its blown out (oh wow...), there's nothing of interest left, but there's an unpleasant odor. That's all. As tonebone noted, Kirby's cover art was off-putting: he simply was a shadow of his former self with no Shores, et al., to add softening humanity to the big action. Interior artist Adrian Gonzales was the textbook definition of "generic comic book action", and if one compared him to artists most associated with certain characters of the period, Gonzales' work was doomed to be seen as 2nd rate.
Both miniseries are among the comics I've never had an interest in revisiting because the experiences were so awful.
Well, it wasn't Shakespeare, but comics-reader-me, back in the day, thought it was exciting and loved that it was "bloated"... I would have called it "jam-packed". I was a simple boy, with simple tastes... I just wanted as many heroes and villains as possible, punching the hell out of each other, and looking good in the process. In that respect, I was happy with my purchase. I mean, I could have spent 75 cents watching Daredevil mope around, or watch 200 costumed freaks pounding on each other... that's the way my brain worked at the time!
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Post by jason on Feb 24, 2023 12:22:26 GMT -5
It's funny that Secret Wars was meant as a toy tie-in since half the characters involved didnt even have toys in the line (not to mention those "magic shields", fun at the time, but looking back, truly disapointing that we didnt get Cap's actual shield). The second wave of the line was the opposite problem, we got Black costume Spidey, Falcon, Daredevil, Hobgoblin, Baron Zemo, Electro (overseas only), Iceman (same), and Constrictor (same here), none of whom, save for Black Spidey, were in the miniseries (at least Daredevil was in a Secret Wars II crossover). No Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, Mr Fantastic, Cyclops, Molecule Man, Klaw, Galactus, and of course zero female figures.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2023 12:37:25 GMT -5
It's funny that Secret Wars was meant as a toy tie-in since half the characters involved didnt even have toys in the line (not to mention those "magic shields", fun at the time, but looking back, truly disapointing that we didnt get Cap's actual shield). The second wave of the line was the opposite problem, we got Black costume Spidey, Falcon, Daredevil, Hobgoblin, Baron Zemo, Electro (overseas only), Iceman (same), and Constrictor (same here), none of whom, save for Black Spidey, were in the miniseries (at least Daredevil was in a Secret Wars II crossover). No Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, Mr Fantastic, Cyclops, Molecule Man, Klaw, Galactus, and of course zero female figures. Exactly! Even as a kid, I was wondering why the likes of Hobgoblin and Constrictor were getting toys. Great characters, but I’d have much rather had a Hulk figure. And Mister Fantastic.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 24, 2023 12:46:41 GMT -5
Brilliant strategy for selecting / producing figures: a Marvel-based toy line tied to a comic book without the character who--at the time--was still fighting for the most popular Marvel character to general audiences (and had his own NBC cartoon debut in 1982).
Because:
[Some 1980s Marvel fans] "ewww. Who wants girls?"[/Some 1980s Marvel fans]
..and before someone says, "In the 80s, it was not uncommon for no female characters to be added to action figure lines", the first, 1981 Masters of the Universe wave had Teela, the '83 wave released Evil Lyn, while the G.I. Joe (Real American Hero) series' first wave had Scarlett, just to name two toy lines.
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Post by badwolf on Feb 24, 2023 12:54:47 GMT -5
You'd think the female figures would be more popular among adolescents at least...
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Post by berkley on Feb 24, 2023 13:00:38 GMT -5
Between the two series, I was all-in for Secret Wars, and put off by Kirby's art on Super Powers I also don't care too much for Kirby's art on this series and imagine I would have felt the same then, though if the story attracted me enough I'd probably overlook it. Kirby only drew the covers and the final issue of the series. The other four were drawn by Adrian Gonzalez with inks by Pablo Marcos, Alan Kupperberg, and Gonzales himself. So if you didn't like the art on most of the series, that's fine, but it mostly wasn't Kirby. Kirby did draw one of the sequels, but driver1980 specifically referred to the 1984 series. And the last series was drawn by Carmine Infantino, so again, not Kirby.
Probably I'm mixing it up with the later sequel - I didn't even know there was more than one series. I wasn't aware of Super Powers at the time and have only vague impressions of it now from images I've seen online over the years.
Secret Wars I think I did notice on the stands but had no interest in reading it - or in fact anything else from Marvel by the time it came out.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Feb 24, 2023 13:40:04 GMT -5
I've not read either one. I haven't even heard of Super Powers. And the only thing I know about Secret Wars is that's where Spiderman got the symboite costume. Which Marvel has milked for all it's worth. Whoever had that idea I bet had no idea where it would go in the future of the company.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 24, 2023 16:24:36 GMT -5
But the thing with Secret Wars for me was that, back then, it seemed like a really exciting event, in the days before such "events" became commonplace. It felt like you were reading something important, something that really mattered to the continuity of the Marvel Universe. Of course, as it turned out, it was mostly the "illusion of change" rather than real change to the status quo – Spidey's new suit, the Thing temporarily leaving the Fantastic Four, and the introduction of Titania and the new Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) notwithstanding. That's what it was, but it went one step further that the usual illusion of change (Peter Parker having a new girlfriend or Rhodey replacing Tony as Iron man, say): it was the illusion of significant change. As a regular Marvel reader back then, I really didn't like the idea of massive and permanent changes; I liked my toy box just the way it was. That a maxi-series advertised as a Major Thing promised to change evrything forever certainly caught my attention and got me invested in the material, even if the plot was mostly Star Trek's Arena with more characters. We shouldn't forget that at the time, Marvel was just trying to make as much money as it could in the short term, not really planning for the future; that led to a lot of toy tie-ins and to things like the No-Prize Book (which turned out to be pretty cool anyway). The Everything Changes was just a gimmick to make a few more bucks for a few months. As Sir Sic says at the end of his videos "I have something super important to tell you! It's life or death! this will change everything forever! No, wait... it's gone. Oh, well. Probably wasn't important". As a reader I didn't realize it and would have felt used if I had known, but that was the reality of publishing those floppy things sold for a few pennies. Gotta give ot to Shooter, though... the scene in which Doom steals the Beyonder's power is one of the badassest ones in the good doctor's career. Of Super Powers, I don't know much; I only bought the final issue. It had Darkseid in it, and I thought it was a little demeaning for such a grand cosmic villain to engage in such petty shenanigans. (I only knew Darkseid because of Legion of Super-Heroes at the time, and I viewd him as someone who's on par with Satan!)
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Post by commond on Feb 24, 2023 17:02:34 GMT -5
Doom vs. The Beyonder was awesome, especially that cover to issue 10:
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 24, 2023 22:48:24 GMT -5
Incidentally, at the time, there was a peculiar “cross-pollination” between the series and the 60s Filmation cartoons. Some Filmation cartoons (Superman, Superboy, Batman, and Aquaman) were released on videotapes with “Super Powers” branding: I think that was largely due to WB outright owning those cartoons, based on how the contracts were structured with Filmation (similar to paramount owning the Star Trek cartoons). The HB contacts, for Super friends, I don't think gave DC/Warner total ownership, until Warner merged with Turner Broadcasting, who had bought out H-B. I was kind of miffed that they only had single volumes, as there were so many more cartoons to put out. As far as either series, I was way too old for the toy lines (I was graduating high school and going to college) and skipped both minis. I've tried reading Secret Wars but it doesn't really grab me.
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Post by jason on Feb 24, 2023 23:24:52 GMT -5
You'd think the female figures would be more popular among adolescents at least... Here's a video about the lack of female characters in 80s toy lines (though Secret Wars isnt brought up) (putting this in spoilers due to the thumbnail) {Spoiler: Click to show}https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaAQg4xWyUg
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Post by jason on Feb 24, 2023 23:34:43 GMT -5
I think Secret Wars could have been more interesting if they did the same thing they'd do later with Acts of Vengeance where the heroes are matched up against villains they rarely/never fight, like Hulk vs Dr. Octopus or Spider-Man vs Molecule Man. I always liked when those oddball battles happened. SW had some of that stuff, but not enough for my tastes.
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Post by berkley on Feb 25, 2023 0:15:39 GMT -5
It's hard for me to tell how I would have felt about it if I'd been an 8 or 10 or 12-year old when it came out. From this distance, it feels to me (as does most of Shooter's stuff) more like a DC kind of story, something I found out pretty early on in my comics reading days that I didn't like. So from that perspective, I feel that I probably wouldn't have cared for it much even at a younger age.
But on the other hand, if there wasn't any alternative at the time for a young comics reader who liked superhero stories, if I had nothing better or even just different to compare it with, it seems probable that I would have gotten into it to some degree unless I just wouldn't have gotten into superhero comics at all, which I doubt.
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Post by Cei-U! on Feb 25, 2023 4:13:54 GMT -5
Or had Falcon replace the Wasp. At least we would've been spared that awful scene where Jan whored herself out to gather intel from Magneto. Friggin' Shooter and his obsession with turning Marvel's ladies into sluts.
On another note, I was already out of college and working in the private sector when I started collecting the Super Powers figures. It was years before I even knew there'd been a tie-in comic series. I bought 'em because they looked cool lined up on the bookshelf above my desk. I ignored the Secret Wars figures because, unlike the Super Powers set, they weren't comics-accurate (and I hadn't thought much of the series).
Cei-U! Wish I still had them!
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