NOTE: I tend to write very long, intricate reviews, so I’m going to break this one up by posting the reviews in regular text and the “flavor text” in italics. If you just want to get right to my assessment of the toys, skip the italics. If you want to be fascinated by engaging, brilliant prose, read Tender is the Night. But if you want to read some mildly interesting commentary on the action figure industry, then by all means read the italicized text.

Back in the 1980s, Kenner produced a fondly-remembered action figure line called Super Powers, which featured DC heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, as well as more obscure characters such as New Gods Orion and Darkseid. At the same time, Mattel–home of Barbie and the then-hugely popular Masters of the Universe line–put out a line of Marvel superhero action figures called Secret Wars.

Fast-forward twenty years. Last year, Hasbro (who absorbed Kenner in the 1990s) took over the Marvel license from ToyBiz and resumed production of its long-lived line of six-inch figures, Marvel Legends. Mattel, on the other hand, had already gotten the Batman and Superman toy rights, and last year they secured the rights to the entire DC comics pantheon. After some growing pains–their Batman line morphed into the combination Batman/Superman DC Superheroes line, and then into DC Universe Classics–Mattel hit their stride with their own six-inch superhero line. So now the roles have been reversed–Kenner/Hasbro now plasticizes Marvel superheroes for the mass market, while Mattel gives us six-inch totems of Superman, Batman, and…Etrigan? (more…)