Retrospective 1984

Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show

In 1984, Kenner got serious about action figures and Super Friends was renamed and rebranded with the Super Powers moniker. This incarnation saw the introductions of Darkseid and Firestorm as new main characters for the show. The other Friends were redesigned as well as the basis for their action figures with action grips.

Sheena

1984 gave us a pair of female oriented superhero bombs. Up first, was Sheena. Interesting fact: Sheena was the first female comic book character with her own title, though Rima (another jungle girl) as seen in Super Friends was created as in the literary world before Sheena. I think the trailer pretty much speaks for itself. Sheena made less than $6 million, probably making Supergirl not look so bad after all.

Supergirl

A couple of months after Sheena came Supergirl. What better way to follow-up 1983's disappointing Superman 3 than with a film focusing on the Man of Steel's cousin Supergirl? "Adventure runs in the family." Hmm, well, I guess the idea itself wasn't that bad, but this movie itself sure was. Basically, Supergirl lived in a place called Argo City which was in another dimension but also seemed to be somewhere underwater in Lake Michigan. Not sure where the costume came from.

Anyway, she lost a piece of technology called the Omegahedron which was found and used by a witch on Earth. The witch and Supergirl end up fighting over a school groundskeeper (not named Willie). Yeah, like I said, not a great way to redeem the "Super" franchise- though to its credit, there was another entry in the Superman series after Supergirl. The movie made $14 million.

When all was said and done,I think its fair to say 1984 won't be long remembered, or at least not remembered fondly.