Posted By Dan Greenfield on Aug 11, 2024 | 3 comments

PART 8 — the finale of a daily feature on August’s Super Powers variant cover line-up…

Throughout August, DC Comics is publishing eight variant covers in honor of the 40th anniversary of Kenner’s Super Powers line of action figures, vehicles and playsets. Artists Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and Alex Saviuk combined forces to create covers that homage the packaging, with the kicker being that none of the figures shown were actually made — though they should have been. (Geyer did the figures and the packaging; Saviuk, who was similarly involved in the original Super Powers line, did the “Style Guide” art.)

Our hope is that McFarlane Toys — which has revived Super Powers — will pick up this baton and actually make the figures. (And they’re not saying no. By coincidence, they’ve already made the Gold Superman that’s in the variant set.)

Since we can’t get enough of this whole project, we’ve been featuring Jason Geyer’s development art for each cover, every day for eight days, along with the final versions — backs and fronts. (His commentary is adapted from Facebook posts he’s done.) We published them in the order they will be released by DC, with this installment the finale:

POWER GIRL (Power Girl #12, due Aug. 28):

“There are a lot of comics characters with convoluted origins, but Power Girl kind of takes the cake,” Jason said. “Earth-Two Kryptonian? New Earth Atlantean? I’m not going to even attempt to explain it here, just know that with these action figures being hypothetically from the mid-’80s, we went with her then-current, post-Crisis genesis of being Arion’s great-granddaughter (or something).

“I took her look mainly from the 1988 mini-series by Paul Kupperberg and Rick Hoberg (with covers by Kerry Gammill ) with the big, fluffy ’80s hair. Which does visually throw off the proportions a bit, because the hair makes her taller than most of the guys!”

Thanks, Jason!

No offense to our pal Paul Kupperberg but I never bought the Arion/Power Girl thing. She’s too interesting as an alternate, brassier version of Superman’s cousin, Supergirl, and I’m glad they’ve gone back to that. (Or at least I think they have.) Anyway, given that preference, this is a case where I’d like to see a McFarlane figure done in what’s really become her classic look — Amanda Conner’s version from some years back:

Though they’d probably have to tone down her, uh, proportions a bit.

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MORE

— KID FLASH: One of Comics’ Greatest Looks Deserves to Be a SUPER POWERS Figure. Click here.

— The WONDER GIRL SUPER POWERS Variant Cover is a Red Hot Design. Click here.