1987? Fourth Wave Rumors NEWSFLASH!!! Regarding the guesses and conjecture below, it turns out I was wrong on a whole bunch of it! Now, exclusive to ToyOtter, I finally have the word on what was planned before the line was cancelled. Go here to check it out! I'm leaving the text below alone for now in the sake of historical curiosity, but the new page takes precedence. -Jason Rumors of what was on the drawing board for 1987 have been flying around since the untimely demise of the Super Powers Collection. Two different sources have named plausible fourth wave characters, the first set being: Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Batgirl, Man-Bat, Solomon Grundy, and Swamp Thing. This is believable as at the time these were proposed, the Justice League comic had been reborn and featured Booster Gold and Blue Beetle prominently, as it also did such third wave figures as Mr. Miracle and shazam! (Captain Marvel). I converted a Flash to Blue Beetle myself, pictured at right. Swamp Thing lends the most credence to this assortment, having shown up later in his own line. The figure fits in with the Super Powers Collection quite well, and demonstrates his own "super power", a winch hand. No other figure in the Swamp Thing line had such actions built in, leading one to assume the Swamp Thing had been held over from an unused mold. Reports have surfaced of a prototype existing with knee joints. Also, the emergence of the Man-bat prototype below at least points toward him being included. The other listing was seen in a magazine interview in the mid-80's with a DC personage who named such figures as Metron, Lightray, Power Girl, and again Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. The first two were members in good standing of the New Gods and would fit in just fine. Power Girl had just been redesigned and would also be a logical choice. Other names have been floated from time to time. In the letter column of the Blue Devil comic, issue 18, editor Alan Gold states that a Blue Devil figure was in line to be produced in 1986 (which would have put in in the 1987 assortment). No other mention of this character being made has surfaced, but we can assume that the creators of such a character would be informed, being a new character and the creators still employed at DC. There were also reliable reports of a four-armed "Barbarian" character prototype existing, having been developed at Kenner like Golden Pharaoh. This has turned out to be "Quadrex". Click on his icon below to get the full story. Another hint at what may have been considered comes from Steve Lightle, longtime comic artist. This came from an interview on RTM: Steve's first experience with the toy world came back when he was the regular artist on DC's Legion of Super-Heroes. He was contacted by the design team for Kenner's DC Super Powers Collection. Unfortunately, Steve's work never made it to the shelves. "I was asked to come up with a trademark symbol for ...can you believe it...Dream Girl! I gave them the design, but the toy was never made. Another one that they told me about that never came out was Dawnstar. Wouldn't that have been a fantastic figure?" Would the fourth series cardback have looked like this? Will we ever see these prototypes, if in fact they do exist? I'm working on it, but if you have any info, drop me a line. In the meantime, Hasbro did release a figure that can be considered almost a spiritual cousin to the Super Powers Collection. In 1999, Wal-Mart carried an exclusive line of batman repaints called "World of batman". While most were forgettable, they did resculpt "comic style" heads for the Joker and Bruce Wayne. The Joker wasn't any better than the existing Super Powers version, but since we never got a Bruce Wayne, this one fits in pretty well with the line. The scale is the same as Super Powers figures. Below are three genuine prototypes that have been uncovered; Man-Bat was in fact from the Super Powers line, the other two can be considered direct descendants of the line, if not in fact actual members of it. Man-bat Prototype! Quadrex Prototype! Catwoman "Prototype"! TV Flash Prototype! For more info on toys that never were, go find copies of Tomart's Action figure Digest # 87 and #88. A word to the wise: Tomart states that the concept art shown in these issues was for items in some stage of production, or being planned for inclusion in the line. But most of it was just made for pitches that were never seriously considered for inclusion. All toy lines go through many, many rounds of concepting, during which this type of artwork is produced to generate ideas. Some of the items would have been made, but not as many as Tomart's would have you believe. More prototypes and concept art can also be seen at Michael Mensinger's Super Protos page.