Category: Superfriends

Banded Together From Distant Galaxies

The Time Trap

Buckle up kids, because things are about to get dumb.

Opening, as always, at Fort Vadershroom, this week it’s Bizarro doing the complaining. “Me sick of losing to Super Friends. Me going to back Bizarro World where everything backwards. There, Losing mean WINNING!”

Bizarro has the best dialogue in this show.

Anyway, it’s Grodds turn for expositing their evil plan this week, and he’s built a TIME MACHINE that looks like a key ring fob.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE

The Superfriends receive a call form Black Manta, who announces that he is presently robbing a boat. It’s obviously part of a Legion plan to lure them away, but I like to think that Manta just calls them up to announce his evil plans from time to time just so Aquaman feels more helpful.

Anyway, of course it’s a trap, and Aquaman and Apache Chief (no idea why he came along), along with Black Manta and Giganta are all sent to 70-Million BC by Grodds Car Starter/Time Machine.

Apache Chief figures that they travelled through a time vortex and is immediately proven right when a WATER DINOSAUR (it looks like a pleisiosaur, except with vampire fangs) shows up to eat them! Manta and Giganta (or Gimanta. Ooooh, that’s a shipping name!) leave them to their fate to dig up buried prehistoric treasure!

Anyhow the dinosaur ceases to be a problem the moment Aquaman remembers that controlling sea creatures is, like, the only thing he can do. He also figures that the best way to employ this is to control all the nearby fish, rather then the dinosaurs for reasons that are best left to the imagination of the viewer.

Meanwhile, Manta goes ahead and starts stealing diamonds from the site of future diamond mines while the Super Friends are distracted. I’m not really sure if that counts as a crime? I mean, sure, the whole Butterfly Effect thing comes into play, but certainly no more severely then it would have for the dinosaur fight a minute ago.

Anyway, when a supervillain is doing anything, so a superhero has to stop them. So Apache Chief and Giganta fight. Or at least she knocks down some rocks and then she and Manta travel back to the present, leaving Apache Chief and Aquaman in prehistory.

MEANWHILE, AT MOUNT RUSHMORE

Captain Cold is going to… erm… steal… it.

He is going to steal Mount Rushmore, one head at a time.

Anyway, this time Samurai and Green Lantern are on the case, and again, they wind up falling into a TIME DOOR, winding up in Camelot!

Which is also in North Dakota? I guess?

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE

Batman and Robin get word (from the chief of police, because Gordon was on lunch or something, presumeably) that Gorilla Grodd and Solomon Grundy are breaking into the Gotham City Treasury.

Anyway, it is YET AGAIN, a trap to leave several Superfriends in the distant past, this time, Ancient Rome (Which was DEFINITELY not in Gotham City) where Batman and Robin are immediately pursued by Legionary Soldiers. At around this time, the rest of the Superfriends realize that they’re co-workers have all vanished off the face of the earth.

MEANWHILE, IN THE TIME OF KING ARTHUR

Captain Cold and Sinestro sneak into Camelot and rob King Arthur of all his gold coins. Green Lantern tries to stop them but, well, he’s awful at his job, so he does not. Moreover, the Knights of the Round Table arrest him for the theft.
MEANWHILE, IN ANCIENT ROME

Grodd just stole a statue. Which is much less impressive then Cold stealing an entire mountain, five minutes ago, but it’s still a crime so Batman tries to arrest him.

Which of course, fails due to Grodds time machine and Batman too is blamed for the theft.

“Grodd did a masterful job of framing us” Batman says. And, you know, he’s not wrong. Green Lantern, sure, I could see him being mistaken for the thief since the odds of there being two brightly colored magic ring-wielding people running around Feudal England are remote. But it’s very difficult to mistake Batman for a literal giant gorilla who can talk.

Anyway, Julius Ceaser decides to sentence them to being eaten alive by lions.

MEANWHILE, AT THE LEGION OF DOOM!

Grodd is pretty pleased with himself, since his plan has managed to get the legion a mountain full of diamonds, chests full of gold and a statue, AND he managed to get rid of half the Justice League. Not a bad days work by any measure. But Grodd doesn’t like just call it a day when he’s done a pretty good job at crime, so he sends the Legion back in time to the Gold Rush and steals all of Californias gold!

MEANWHILE, IN THE AGE OF DINOSAURS

Aquaman actually manages to save the day when he and Apache Chief find the future site of the Hall of Justice, and Aquaman buries his communicator (with its one-hundred-million-year battery) in the ground with an alarm set to go off in 70,001,978 years and 252 days.

The Internet tells me that he set the alarm to got off on September 9th, 1978

Anyway, it works, and when Superman finds a buried radio he immediately figures that the Superfriends have been kidnapped and left for dead in prehistory. And, knowing that, Superman just zips around the planet so fast he winds up in 70 Million BC and rescues Aquaman and Apache Chief.

Which means that Bizarro can as well, so it’s a bit of a mystery why Grodd needed to build a time machine at all.

Anyhow, now that they know what’s happened Superman uses a Geiger counter to find the batteries in the Superfriends’ radios (which were presumably buried with them, wherever they died in the past?) in order to track them down, go back in time to save them before they died.

And if Superman can travel back through time this easily to right wrongs, then, well… it kind of raises some questions about how he chooses to operate.

Anyway, with the Superfriends reunited, the Justice League computer announces that the Legion is probably going to rob the gold out of California, so the Superfriends use Green Lanterns ring to go back there and thwart them.

Anyway, there’s the usual no-stakes-raised fight scene, and AGAIN, the Legion gets away (the Superfriends just plum forgot that Grodd had a time machine…)

Green Lantern just watches them leave (because he’s awful) and vows to stop them… in the future.

Banded Together from Distant Galaxies!


The World’s Deadliest Game!

Look, I didn’t put that apostrophe there. If it bugs you, take it up with the Hanna Barbara of 1978.

As per usual, Fort Vadershroom emerges from The Dismal Swamp (with different stock footage!) and a new meeting of the Legion of Doom is called to order; and this time it’s Brainiacs turn to be the plan-guy; a plan that will kill the Super Friends and have everyone pay them to do it!

First, with Black Vulcan, Hawkman and Wonder Woman are building a space station for Nasa, in space, and Brainiac uses an Inviso-ray to make the entire Earth vanish and, while they’re distracted by that, The Toyman will lure them away to an ENTIRE PLANET HE BUILT! INSIDE A BLACK HOLE! FILLED WITH TOY-TRAPS!

I have no flippin’ damn idea how he managed to do any part of that!

And while THAT’S going on, The Riddler will lure all the rest out of the Superfirends on “a wild goose chase that ends OUTSIDE THE UNIVERSE!”

So the Legion is definitely thinking big this week.

So anyway, phase one works fine, the Earth completely disappears and the three Superfriends opt to just head off in the direction of Toymans fake distress call rather then double-check to see if the Earths still there. I mean, the moon is still there, nothing changed its orbit or anything. And they’re able to move faster then the speed of light anyway, so its not like it would take long just to look around…

But anyway, the Superfriends travel to the distress call and SURPRISE it’s a black hole, and it’s got a planet in it. And that planet is full of deadly traps. Because the blackhole wasn’t good enough for Toyman.

“If my instincts are right, this must be the work of The Toyman” muses Wonder Woman, wandering through a giant, murderous pinball machine on a remote-control planet built into the middle of a black hole.

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE…

The rest of the superfriends are getting worried since Hawkman, Wonder Woman and Black Vulcan haven’t been seen in hours, and also the Earth turned invisible for a short while, when The Riddler hijacks their TV to taunt them with a fiendish puzzle!

Riddler wasn’t trying very hard this time, so Batman pretty much figures out immediately that “A Million years ago it was a trickle, hurry or your friends won’t be worth a nickel!” means that they have to hurry to the Grand Canyon, and the nickel mine buried within it.

And so they rush off not thinking for one second that maybe, JUST MAYBE, Riddler wasn’t just tattling on the Legion for no apparent reason, and that leading the entire Justice League to the bottom of a mineshaft could possibly be a trap.

So anyway, leading the entire Justice League to the bottom of a mine was a trap, and Captain Cold and Scarecrow (why Scarecrow?) bury them all alive and also dump a tidal wave on them for good measure.

The Legion also forgot that the Superfriends have at least three super-strong dudes on screen at any given time, and one guy for whom “Swims real good” is his entire deal. And apparently the Superfriends did as well, since Green Lantern is the one who saves the day here.

After they escape, the Riddler offers his next sinister clue; “You better tighten your belt!”.

Which of course, means that the Superfriends are to travel to space and explore Orions Belt.

MEANWHILE, IN THE MYSTERIOUS BLACK SPACE PLANET!

The captive Superfriends are still exploring Planet Murder Toy when they come across a giant dollhouse which is, of course, home to a gigantic mechanical baby. They flee the Giant Mecha Baby by running into the house where Toyman shows up in person (somehow?!?) to taunt them; The black hole is about to close, trapping them on Planet Murder Toy… FOREVER!

MEANWHILE, ON ORIONS BELT, IN A PLANET ORBITTING ITS HOTTEST STAR

The rest of the Superfriends are having difficulty finding their captive pals since, well, they aren’t there. And The Riddler would never lie, so it can’t be that, but then they get help from Empress Zana, ruler of Orions Belt. Deadly help! For Empress Zana sprays them all with pollen that will turn them to stone! Luckily, The Flash and his molecules are too fast to turn to stone, so he spins around everyone until their molecules also speed up and then everyone leaves, like nothing happened.

What is even going on in this episode?

As they leave the not-even-pretending-there’s-drama-with-a-commercial-break-perfil of Orions Belt when the rest of the Superfriends run smack dab into a satellite with the Riddlers face;

“Follow your noses and you’ll hit your mark, somewhere out in the dark!”

So now everyone knows to start searching in black holes because why the hell WOULDN’T Batman just immediately guess the answer to the Riddlers puzzles, regardless of how dumb they are.

MEANWHILE, AT THE LEGION OF DOOM!

Lex Luthor calls up… the entire human race, and announces that he’s taken the Super Friends hostage, and he’ll free them in exchange for All the Money in Every Bank!

“And it won’t be PLAY money” cackles the Toyman, and I’m glad he doesn’t show up more often. His voice is really annoying.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN SPACE!

Superman and the Green Lantern just pop into the middle of the black hole like it isn’t any big deal and, using GLs power ring, they fuse together into Super Greenman (this is a thing Green Lantern can do?) and NOW they have enough power to just mosey on back out of the black hole.

Finally reunited, the Superfriends return to Earth, and visit the International Airport, where the Legion is having all their ill-gotten gains sent. There’s the usual non-violent fight (Superman picks up and throws the entire airport at one point), but Brainiac uses his inviso-ray to turn the Legion invisible so they all get away again.

Justice Has Prevailed! But… for HOW LONG!

Banded Together From Distant Galaxies

Invasion of the Fearians!

Opening as per usual, in the Mushroom-Vader Legion Base, Gorilla Grodd is complaining about Luthors leadership, and is bored with the boring and predictable crimes they’ve committed so far. Bear in mind that this is the second episode, and the first involved hypnotizing the entire Justice League to commit felonies so they’d be arrested, and using their absence to mutate/put a hat on every single human being so they could steal the entire planets commercial wealth.

So… Grodds got some pretty friggin’ high standards. But then again, he’s a super-intelligent ape from the invisible utopia of Gorilla City. So… I guess he has a different standard on what would be considered “imaginative”.

Luckily, Captain Cold has a solution to their problems, as he’s been in contact with the Fearians, the natives from the planet Venus. I… don’t know how or why he would be doing this. There’s a bunch of Legion members who hang out in space all the time, but not him. He just shoots ice at stuff.

Anyhow, the Fearians have some pretty simple requests; make the planet hotter, wetter and more full of vegetation, like Venus, so they can conquer it. more easily, and in exchange, they will help the Legion defeat the Superfriends.

The Legion was really only paying attention to those last four words, so they go right ahead with it.

Captain Cold starts off by building a giant version of his ice beam and uses it to freeze… like… the entire continental United States. Seriously, like, five or six cities encased in glaciers before anyone said “Hey… HEY! Quit it!”

Since Cold is Flashs enemy, he runs over and save the day by… well… running around everything really really fast until he changes theirs molecules. That’s pretty much all Flash knows how to do in this show, and BY GOLLY it works. “COMPLETELY UNAWARE”, says the narrator, whom I love, “THAT HE’S CREATING VAST QUANTITIES OF STEAM!”

And, of course, this was only phase one, phase two involves Black Manta… well… I’m not really sure how to phrase this… so I’m going to just come out and say it…

Black Manta sets… the pacific ocean… on fire

S-somehow?

So anyway, Aquaman leaps at the chance to be useful and, after crashing Mantas ship, he puts out the flaming water by using his AQUATIC TELEPATHY to summon whales to make tidal waves capable to extinguishing flames. Also, coincidentally, flooding the entire West coast.

That’s not me being snarky, this is literally what happens. This is plot-relevant. Aquaman destroyed the entire pacific rim.

The Superfriends are AWFUL at their jobs.

Anyhow, plan 3 involves Sinestro using his Yellow Power Ring to summon dozens of giant asteroids to smash the planet. And so, Hal Jordan, the one Superfriend who is vulnerable to the color yellow and one of at least four who can travel through space, decides to save the day. Because he’s a damn idiot.

Sinestro also locks Hal into a yellow-light prison and starts spinning him super fast because… he’s… a jerk? But this plan backfires because he got spinning so fast he entered blue-shift, so Hal could break free easily.

And I will tip my hat to you on that, Superfriends writers. That was nicely done.

Anyway, Hal still can’t do anything about the meteors so he just opts to use his ring to move the Entire Earth a a bit over so they miss it entirely. And then he forgets to put it back.

Man… Hal… man…

That ain’t like forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge, you know?

Anyhow, back at the Hall of Justice, and after congratulating themselves for the worst imaginable job of saving the planet, the Superfriends realize that, no, they’ve actually been doing a terrible job of saving the planet this week, and they’ve successfully transformed the Earth into Venus 2. (The actual term used, and yet another reason I love this stupid show.)

“It’s almost as though we’ve been responsible for all that’s been happening” exclaims a shocked Aquaman.

Also, the Justice League Computer has a thermostat reading the current temperatures of Canada, Russia, Taiwan and New Jersey.

Hell of a thorough computer you built there, Batman.

Anyhow, making good on their end of the bargain, the Fearian leader shows up and encases the Superfriends in an indestructible force-field and just, you know, leaves them there while the Legion takes over Washington DC. Also, Brainiac made robot duplicates of all the world leaders… because… the writers wanted to remind the kids at home that the Legion has an evil robot man on staff?

Anyway, to make up for his gigantic idiocy from earlier, Hal uses his power ring to turn the Superfriends invisible, tricking the Fearian Leader into thinking they escaped, so he’d drop the forcefield. Which works, and he gets sent back to Venus. Also, not really sure if he suddenly became two inches tall, he’d always been two inches tall, or if the scenes perspectives just went screwy.

With the Fearian defeated, the Superfriends go about fixing all the damage they’ve done (and which they’re still blaming the Legion for) and they’ve ALSO rounded up and dismantled all of Brainiacs androids. Off camera. I have no idea why that plot-point was even introduced.

So anyway, there’s the usual G-Rated fight scene that follows, and then Luthor turns the dome of the capital building into a rocket ship and blasts off, leaving Superman to vow that justice will never rest!

But… for how long!