by Joshua H. Stulman

Holy Double Vision, Batman! That’s right, the mystery of the Twin Batmans is finally solved!

The story begins almost two decades ago when I was completing my Super Powers collection. Having collected the entire line and even the rare Riddler foreign release from Pacipa, I was starting to sell all my extra’s that I had acquired along the way.

Going through my box of doubles I came across both a Superman and Batman figures, but as I was getting ready to photograph them, I realized something was different. The paint applications were “off” and Batman’s chest symbol didn’t look quite right. In general, my “Mystery” Batman figure had a sculpt that was much more defined with deeper cuts in the muscles, especially noticeable in the rip cage (with extra rib striation marks). The utility belts were also different as the “Mystery” Batman was more squared and defined. “Upon closer inspection, both “Mystery” Batman and Superman were missing their Date Stamps, which should have been found on their upper leg.

I pulled out my Super Powers figures for comparison, and sure enough these were not the standard release. So what were these? Well there aren’t too many options. My first thought was that these were foreign released figures like the Riddler from Pacipa. But when I examined my Riddler figure, I saw that he had date stamps from the original Green Lantern mold that the figure was based on. Also, the Riddler figure itself was not as good a quality in terms of the sculpt as the US released figures (although clearly not as bad as bootleg quality).

In 2002, this was about as far as I could get because frankly there just wasn’t alot of information out there on the internet. And so the mystery  went unsolved for a decade later, when again I revisited the history of the Super Powers line.

When I picked up the case again around 2012, I had learned a little more about the foreign release of Super Powers in Spanish speaking countries, called both Super Poderes and Super Amigos. There were four companies that leased the rights from Kenner to make “Super Powers” figures for international sale in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. The demand for DC toys were very high due to 1989 Batman movie that spawned the “Bat Craze” of the 1990’s. I was already familiar with the Argentina companies Playful & Pacipa’s who co-distributed the “Super Amigos” line because of their unique release of The Riddler, “El Acertijo.” There were also two other companies that produced foreign Super Powers figures under the line “Super Poderes.” These were the Spanish company, General Mills Juguetes, and Colombian company, Gulliver.

From second hand descriptions of the “Super Poderes” figures by GMJ, I learned that these were produced with double date stamps on the legs. Something, I was able to confirm when I purchased a Super Poderes GMJ Batman a couple years ago. The only other company to produce “Super Powers” after the original Kenner run concluded was the Colombian company, Gulliver. It doesn’t take much after looking at a Gulliver “Super Powers” to immediately discount it as knock-off quality production. The Gulliver figures lack knee articulation and include plastic vinyl capes. So my mystery Batman couldn’t have been from any of these companies!

After I posed the mystery to fellow collectors, I got back two interesting suggestions. The first was a possibility that the Batman was a “Test Shot” from Kenner itself. A “test shot” would be a pre-production figure produced in-house as a test of either the mold itself or paint applications. Test shots were not produced with Country of Origin (COO) markings or Date Stamps. It would account for the differences in both the mold and paint applications from the US released Kenner figures. But if these weren’t released at retail how did I get one? Ebay, would be the likely culprit, but still, a test shot figure could only be sold by a former Kenner employee or serious collector and they would surely have known and advertised this fact. It would be highly unlikely that someone had a “test shot” and not know it?!

The second suggestion, was that the mystery Batman was produced by the Mexican company Lili Ledy contemporaneously to Kenner’s original release of Super Powers. Lili Ledy is known by Vintage Star Wars collectors for having produced a number of running changes that differed from the USA Hasbro releases, such as the Burgundy coat Bib Fortuna and removable hood Jawa. The Super Poderes figures from Lili Ledy were the only public release figures to include Superman and Batman without the date stamp markings.

Since my original investigation back in 2002, the collector market has grown so much for 80’s action figures that it has become so much easier to identify once obscure variations. I recently purchased yet a second Batman that was identical to my “mystery” Batman- everything down to the mold, paint details and action feature- and of course, no date stamp. This spurred me to revisit Lili Ledy’s Batman. It just happened that I found a dealer who was selling unused factory overstock parts from Lili Ledy Super Poderes Batman. The pics of these parts perfectly matched my now 2 copies of the “Mystery” Batman, and sealed the deal that these were in fact Lili Ledy Super Poderes Batman figures and not Kenner Test Shots.

So how did a Lili Ledy Batman make its way to me from Mexico? Well it turns out that after the initial Kenner production run of Hong Kong made figures in 1984, there was such a demand for the Super Powers figures that Kenner needed a “Fill-In” wave of Superman, Batman, and Flash immediately. So Kenner made a deal with Lili Ledy that allowed them to manufacture Super Powers for the USA in American packaging under the Kenner brand name. In the packaging, these are only distinguished from the Hong Kong versions with a note on the back that reads “Made In Mexico” and were only produced on the 23- Figure Back version of the figure packaging in 1985. These figures would become the Lili Ledy “Super Poderes” produced from the original Kenner prototype molds that had no date stamp. While Hong Kong resumed producing the standard American Super Powers with Date Stamp, Lili Ledy continued to produce the Mexican “Super Poderes” for distribution in South America.

If you were a child of the 80’s then you are well familiar with Kenner’s Super Powers toyline. The toyline was produced by Kenner from 1984-1986 and spanned the DC Universe of characters. Super Powers was based on the Super Friends cartoon series and developed in conjunction with Jack Kirby. It featured a comic series of the same name by Jack Kirby that tied the Justice League of America to Kirby’s Fourth World storyline and Darkseid.

The Super Powers line grew to 33 characters from the Batman, Super Man and JLA family as well as original characters created for the line. 8 vehicles were produced for including a Batmobile, Bat Copter and Super-Plane as well as a Hall Of Justice playset. It was the most comprehensive representation the DC Universe in action figure form until the  Justice League animated toyline (2003-2012) and DC Universe Classics (2003-2019). The success of the Super Powers line had an immediate influence on subsequent DC toylines produced by Kenner including both the Swamp Thing toyline and most notably, The Batman: Dark Knight Collection and Batman Returns Movie line.

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Joshua H. Stulman

Owner, Brooklyn Comic Shop