While little is known about the company Nibo based out of Uruguay, one thing we know is they released a Super Powers Penguin.  Perhaps they were doing a test run on a non-hero figure for some reason, perhaps they received a shipment of overstock Penguins with no cardbacks and decided to make their own, or maybe Penguin is extremely popular in Uruguay that they put all their stock into doing a short run of their favorite figure.  And it’s entirely possible that Penguin was very unpopular in Uruguay and all the kids opened up Batman, Superman, Joker, etc, and Penguin ended up being the peg-warmer that no one ever opened and played with, thus the sole survivor 30 years later.  We may never know.  But one thing we know is they made a Penguin, and that’s good enough for me.

A few curious things about Nibo, these were released in 1987, a year after Kenner cancelled the line in the US.  There were 15 figures on the back, including Shazam, which was released in 1986 as part of series 3.  This suggests more figures were planned for future release.  Another thing that suggests more figures were planned is the fact that the character name is not printed on the cardback, it’s simply a sticker that’s placed on.  Stickers have been found placed both straight and diagonally on the cardback, likely just a quality control matter, but still worth documenting.  Until we find several more examples of these, we won’t really know which is likely the correct one.