Challenge of the Super Friends might be my favorite of the classic iterations of the show, though they do get creative toward the end. It's in Challenge of the Super Friends that the true comic book geek gets to drink deeply as the Super Friends are at long last a full complement of Justice League members with Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Flash being regulars alongside newly fashioned Apache Chief, Black Vulcan,and Samurai to some much needed ethnic diversity to the team. (I assumed Black Vulcan replaced Black Lightning and Samurai replaced Red Tornado in so far their roles and powers went.)
The real thrill is the Legion of Doom filled with legit bad guys and gals from the dark recesses of the comics themselves. Lex Luthor (decked out in his then current super suit) leads Brainiac, Toyman, Cheetah, Black Manta, Captain Cold, Scarecrow, Giganta, Sinestro, Gorilla Grodd, Bizarro and the always entertaining Solomon Grundy. And in every episode some scheme was hatched and these baddies fought the Super Friends for riches, power, or something else. Great stuff to see so many familiar characters jumping around on the small screen.
Alongside each of these was more of what had come the previous year with the core group of Super Friends still saving the world with the help of the Wonder Twins. It's very odd how these shows were part of the same package yet not and their dvd presentation shows that in spades. I didn't immediately know I didn't have all of the season until research of the series tipped me off. Luckily I was still able to grab hold of these more typical Super Friends adventures which themselves seem to be inspired by specific movie genres and in fact specific films. The classic Toho feature Rodan is revised and retold and westerns and horror flicks get a new take.
We also get a look at the Supermobile which shows up several times when Superman has a Kryptonite problem. Pretty fun all said and done.
NOTE: This is classic post which first appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo.
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I remember that Danny Dark (Superman’s voice artist) kept mispronouncing the Supermobile! Instead of making it sound like “automobile” he made it sound like “Mobil” the gas station. Why did no one else in the booth correct him?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they didn't know. I did catch that too. Still it was fun to see the Supermobile get some airtime even if it was to sell toys.
DeleteYup even Superman’s regular books featured it.
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