Often, products that don't fare too well on the market become among the most sought after of collectibles. Take, for example, the case of the Super Queens. The Super Queens were created by Ideal Toys in the mid '60s to try to capitalize on two phenomenon of the day: the huge popularity of superhero action figures and the huge popularity of dolls such as Barbie. And just because superheroines weren't too popular in the comics, they thought, didn't mean they wouldn't be a huge success in the toy market.

So, they created a series of "comic heroines" based on DC Comics' Supergirl, Batgirl, Wonder Woman and Mera, Queen of Atlantis. They were developed as the "Supergirl Series", but became known as the Super Queens. At 11 ½" tall, these dolls came in fun comic-art boxes, had real hair and plenty of clothes - from their super-costumes with all their accessories to fabulous cotton halter dresses for their alter-egos (with the exception, of course, of Mera). In fact, the advertising for the Super Queens even suggested they could wear the clothes of other similar 11 ½" dolls. Of course, the Super Queens weren't just a bunch of well-dressed girly-girls. Ideal took advantage of the growing popularity of women's lib and their advertising showed it. The Super Queens were touted as proof "that anything the crime busting men can do, the women can do better."

Unfortunately, the Queens were a major flop. Boys thought they were too girly, and girls thought they were too boyish. So much so, that the girls who did have them were likely to toss their super-clothes and dress them up like Barbie. So, as you can imagine, that means that finding complete sets of these dolls today is incredibly difficult. This, coupled with the fact that a very limited number of them were manufactured in the first place, makes them among the most rare and valuable of collectibles.

You can learn all about the Super Queens in Chapter Six Michael Eury's fantastic Captain Action - the Original Super-hero Action Figure (see Scoop 1-10-03 for more).