I’ve written about Super Naturals before, but never with one of the actual toys on hand to verify that what I’m writing wasn’t based on artificially sweetened memories. This time is different, and I was right. Super Naturals is one of the best action figure lines of all time.
Made by Tonka in 1987, everything about Super Naturals was unique. Well, except for the primary gimmick of holographic images indicating each figure’s totem animal power, which it shared with Hasbro’s Visionaries collection. (Not sure who ripped off who, but for the sake of what I’m covering, let’s say that Visionaries was the copycat line.) But everything else was unique. Maybe I should rethink this paragraph.
Due to its lack of a corresponding animated series, a recap of the storyline is in order. The Super Naturals were groups of heroic and evil warriors who escaped their foreboding spirit world to war against each other on Earth. (Conveniently, the spirits escaped from the eerie “Tomb of Doom,” which doubled as the line’s only playset.)
You know how most action figure lines include more than a few “loser figures” that you wouldn’t dream of buying unless you’d already collected everyone else? That wasn’t the case here — all of the figures felt like stars.
Still, even the lousiest Super Naturals figure was worth the money, all due to those righteous holograms. Each figure’s torso was saturated with a holographic lenticularistic wonder that alternated images between the character’s natural state (like, a king or a pirate) and the character’s secret power state, represented by everything from snakes to lions to creatures made entirely of lightning. The holograms were extremely effective in making Super Naturals feel like they should’ve cost far more than whatever their original MSRP was.
I said that all Super Naturals figures felt like stars, but this guy was my favorite by far. Not just from this collection, but out of the hundreds of action figures I’ve owned throughout my sad and meager existence. “Burnheart” is his name, and despite his positively leaderesque look, he somehow played second fiddle in the pecking order to another one of the villain characters. I call bullshit.
During my youth, all toy-related adventures were staged from within a series of action figure playsets that were set side by side, connected by cardboard bridges and any other available materials. (It was the only way to identify Castle Greyskull and the Ewok Village as a singular entity.) A group of villain figures from various lines shared control of this ultimate fortress, including the six characters shown above: Jabba the Hutt, Mumm-Ra, Cravex, Megatron, Louie the Plumber (he looked more impressive after you ripped his hat off) and Emperor Palpatine. Burnheart was part of this elite and exclusive club, which ran my toy universe without issue for years and years.
There were power struggles, of course. I recall one storyline where Jabba and Mumm-Ra had a tiff and tried to separate the Superstar Seven into factions. Jabba enlisted Palpatine (they felt they shared a bond) and Cravex, while Mumm-Ra allied with Louie and Megatron. Burnheart would’ve been the deciding vote, but he refused to take sides, ultimately coaxing everyone to work together again. He was that special to me. He got to be the problem solver.
The holograms were amazing. They worked really well, and they seemed somehow “adult” with their realistic visages that felt like they were pulled from a bunch of creepy old horror movies. Burnheart’s hologram switches from a zombie knight to a hideous fire monster. Since most of the other Super Naturals characters morphed into eagles and simple shit like that, I always put my money on the guy who turned into fire-with-eyes.
Beyond the six original figures shown above, there were also Super Naturals Ghostlings, which shared the hologram gimmick but lacked legs. (Seriously, they were the top halves of action figures…no legs.) All of the figures came with some kind of glow-in-the-dark weapon, but larger ones like Burnheart also included a holographic shield.
Truly one of the most unsung collections of my childhood, there’s never been better proof that toys need corresponding TV shows and movies to have a chance at success. Super Naturals were not popular toys. They don’t even have a Wiki article. Even those of you who are the same age as me might not remember them, and this makes me sad.
Super Naturals’ connection to Halloween may be tenuous, but I dunno. They’re spooky, they’re kinda scary, and they came packaged with a little sweepstakes form that allowed kids to enter for the chance to win a “Halloween Vacation” to Los Angeles. I do not feel that I’m stretching things. Tomorrow, when I write about my disdain for orange Tic-Tacs and call it Halloweeny due to the color connection, then I’ll be stretching things. But not tonight. Tonight I have done my duty.
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
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I never mixed worlds like that. Cobra could never invade Ewok Village and the Transformers couldn’t terrorize Lego Land. They had their own boxes and 5-gallon ice cream buckets.