The Holy Grail of DC Action Figures is On eBay Right Now For the First Time in Years

Ideal’s short-lived Super Queens toy line has long commanded premium prices from DC Comics collectors. Produced in 1967, the line was the first time that iconic super-heroines Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Mera, and the newly debuted Batgirl were ever made available in articulated action figure form.

Although loose and carded samples of Batgirl and Supergirl appear on eBay and at auction houses with some regularity, Wonder Woman and Mera are considerably rarer – especially mint in-package. Right now, all four Super Queens figures are available as an eBay lot, giving you an instant, complete collection… If you can afford the $200k asking price.

What Are DC’s Super Queens Toys?

With bodies taken from Ideal’s Tammy and Misty dolls (a competitor to Mattel’s Barbie), these figures were intended as companions to Ideal’s line of Captain Action figures, which featured both Marvel and DC superheroes. Each figure came packaged with character-specific accessories and – save for Mera – an alternate, interchangeable outfit to represent their secret identity.

Ideal took some liberties with Wonder Woman, who includes a shield borrowed from the Captain Action series Captain America and a nurse’s uniform (Diana Prince has had many occupations, but she was never a nurse). Perhaps the best accessory in the line belongs to Supergirl, who comes with an unarticulated-but-no-less-adorable Krypto the Superdog figurine.

The (relatively) more common Supergirl and Batgirl sell on eBay for between one and three thousand dollars in package, depending heavily on condition. It’s difficult to gauge Mera and Wonder Woman’s value accurately, given how rarely these figures are available. A 2002 Heritage auction for a boxed Wonder Woman sold for almost five thousand dollars, with the listing mentioning an eight thousand dollar offer made on the figure in 2012.

In the same 2002 Heritage auction, a Super Queens Mera sold for a comparative bargain of $2,700, even with a damaged box. Hakes sold a mint-condition boxed Mera for $10k in 2020. While these prices are by no means negligible, it is a far cry from the $200k asking price on this listing for Wonder Woman and her companions. The key selling point is their condition. 

What Makes These Figures So Collectible?

The most remarkable aspect of this auction is the condition these figures are in, given that the brittle cardboard packaging is prone to crushing and bowing on its sides. Not only have their cardboard boxes held up relatively well, but all four figures are still in their original plastic shrink-wrap, which is nearly unheard of, especially in the case of Mera and Wonder Woman. Mera’s packaging has some light warping around the sides, while Batgirl’s crushed box is indicative of the usual condition these figures are found in. Crucially, and almost miraculously, Wonder Woman’s packaging is mint. The figure looks as if it is case-fresh from 1967. 

If 200k still seems steep, there’s at least one buyer that disagrees: at the time of writing, this lot is “in one cart,” meaning that there’s a well-heeled DC Comics collector at least giving this one-in-a-lifetime listing some serious consideration.

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