Super Powers #4
Super Powers Vol. 3 #4 is the concluding chapter of the entire Super Powers comic franchise — the final issue of a three-year, three-mini-series collaboration between DC Comics and Kenner's action-figure line. The issue is historically notable for ending on a deliberately unresolved cliffhanger: Darkseid, disguised as the hero Janus, departs with his own son Orion, a thread that was never followed up because the toy line and its associated media ended simultaneously. As the closing installment of the only Super Powers series not penciled by Jack Kirby, it also marks the full creative handoff of New Gods mythology to a new generation of talent, with Carmine Infantino providing a distinctly different visual register from Kirby's bombastic cosmicism.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The third Super Powers mini-series (September–December 1986) was assembled by writer Paul Kupperberg returning from the Kirby-penciled second series, now paired with Carmine Infantino on pencils and Pablo Marcos on inks — the same Marcos who had inked the very first Super Powers series in 1984. DC published it expressly as a companion to Kenner's third wave of action figures, and the series was designed to introduce those new toys' characters to readers who might be new to comics. Unlike the first two series, this volume was never collected in the Jack Kirby Omnibus or any subsequent DC trade paperback, largely because Kirby had no involvement.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Written by Paul Kupperberg, penciled by Carmine Infantino, and inked by Pablo Marcos; cover date December 1986.
- The story, titled 'A World Divided,' depicts the Super Friends storming Apokolips, where Darkseid loyalists are attempting to retake power from Orion.
- The issue ends the entire Super Powers comic run on an unresolved cliffhanger: Darkseid, in his disguise as the hero Janus (son of Jupiter), departs with Orion — a plot thread the franchise never resolved.
- Golden Pharaoh (real name Ashley Halberstam) and Cyclotron were characters created by Kenner rather than DC Comics, making the entire Vol. 3 series their only comic-book appearances.
- Samurai (Toshio Eto), a character who originated on the Super Friends animated series, received his comics origin story across this four-issue series.
- The series is set in the Super Friends / Earth-Thirty-Two universe and is explicitly non-canonical to the main DC continuity.
- This is the third and final DC Comics mini-series tied to the Kenner Super Powers Collection toy line; DC produced one series per year for each of the toy line's three waves (1984, 1985, 1986).
- Unlike the first two Super Powers series (which were reprinted in The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 2, Super Powers by Jack Kirby in 2018, and DC Universe: Bronze Age Omnibus in 2019), the third series featuring Infantino's art has not been collected in a DC trade paperback.