The Super Powers Team - Galactic Guardians 1985-1986!

This series broke the mold, almost literally as all of the character designs done by Alex Toth so many years before were ejected in favor of new ones with a nod to DC artist Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who at the time was giving all of the DCU a facelift with sleek modern looking idealistic presentations. Also gone were the Wonder Twins, replaced to some extent by the buddy team of Firestorm and new addition Cyborg. Much is made of Cyborg's reluctance to join the League, but within a few episodes he's on board and in most all the stories.

Those stories focused even more on Apokolips and the schemes of Darkseid and his minions. Parademons and fire pits create a dark threatening world and it takes a somewhat more determined and gritty batch of "Super Powers" (no longer called "Friends") to dispatch these threats. These shows are meant to do two things, entertain as cartoons and to promote the toy line from Kenner and to that end we get attacks on the team from such as Scarecrow and the Penguin. There's a nifty variation of the ever-changing Royal Flush Gang led by the Joker and Lex Luthor is around in his armored super-suit.

Good stuff, a cartoon fit for its time but also the end of the line for the "Super Friends". The Justice League of America would not find a way onto the small scree for many years until Cartoon Network decided they wanted to see what might be done with them.

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