Years ago on eBay I picked up a trio of coloring books that came out during the time of Super Powers. If you are wondering why I would refer to the three years and change where you could go to your local toy or department store and buy Super Powers figures as a “time” then I guess I have to explain how much I loved and continue to love that line of action figures and vehicles. So…I loved and continue to love the Super Powers line. Like a lot. Like a whole lot.
I hope that was a sufficient explanation
Because it was the eighties and because any successful toy line would have additional merchandise beyond the toys themselves there were always stickers and lunch boxes and things that manufacturers would slap the logo from the toy line on in an attempt to make some extra money. Being a capitalist I fully support such behavior. A few years ago I found some Superman related Super Powers coloring books on eBay. The lot they came in was a weird too. It had the Superman book, the Lex Luthor book and…the Penguin. Figuring I could always track down the Batman book to go along with the Penguin one and factoring in the fact that I paid next to nothing for the books I was happy when I won the auction. When they arrived I was pleased to discover that the Superman and Lex books have absolutely beautiful covers.
I don’t know if that is straight up Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (praise be his name) art or redrawn to look like JLGL (pbhn) but either way these are fantastic. Lex’s armored look never fails to bring a smile to my face and it looks particularly awesome here. This art would later get re-purposed for the Superman vs. Lex Luthor trade paperback.
The insides of these coloring books are rather neat too and at some point I may do scans of those. I am still insanely picky with it comes to coloring books despite the fact that I haven’t colored in one for several decades. I like iconic shots of the characters and you get plenty of those in these books. The creepy part comes when you look at the back cover.
On the surface these are awesome face shots of the characters and I suppose if I were a kid it would be cool to have a Superman or Lex mask. As an adult all I can see is what happens after you cut the masks out. See, you have to cut the eyes out too leaving you with a soulless, eyeless Superman or Lex Luthor. And that’s creepy. These masks were big in the eighties (I distinctly remember the ones on the back of that Star Wars cereal) so I can understand why they included them but man they just weird me out.
Other than that these are pretty darn cool. I am glad to have them in the collection. If I was a different sort of guy I would bust out a 64 pack of crayons and get to work. I am not that sort of guy. I’m the sort of guy that puts stuff in a drawer and takes it out from time to time to look at it. Part of me wishes I could get over myself and color these bad boys but I know I would end up screwing up a page and then regretting the whole thing. So back in the drawer they go.
For now.
The Superman face-mask seems to be a Dick Giordano drawing/inking, looking at the paintbrush style.
Are you going to scan the interior images? I would love to sit with my kids during this pandemic and do something other than look at phones or laptops