Justice League Unlimited 2004-2006!

Justice League Unlimited is the continuation of the Cartoon Network production, but the folks making this show were savvy enough to know that changing the format would make the fans happy and the way they did it made this fanboy very happy.

They did it by taking the Justice League and dialing it up to eleven by adding in just about as many DC characters as they could get their mitts on. I was content to live out my life never seeing the likes of Captain Atom, the Shining Knight, Vigilante (Golden Age version), Red Tornado, Metamorpho, and even B'wana Beast on a cartoon, but now I have done and I am a better person for it. A young Supergirl is featured in the series and her maturation is one of the plots that moves through several stories. Green Arrow is a featured player and that means some Black Canary. Wildcat shows up and more and more and more. It's a festival.

There's Zatanna, Hawk and Dove, alongside Dr.Fate and much of the Justice Society. Even Power Girl shows...sort of. They did themselves proud and took the series out in bang!

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Justice League 2001-2004!

Cartoon Network's Justice League might possibly be the finest representation of the Justice League of America ever done for either the small or large screen. The makers of the cartoon series had honed their understanding of the DCU with groundbreaking series with Batman and Superman and this was just the next natural progression. What we get in these two seasons are detailed well-crafted stories with real adult appeal and members of the League who were specific distinctive personalities.

While it was of course the Big Three (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) who sold this show, the producers were keen to put the focus on other League members like Martian Manhunter, Flash, and especially Green Lantern and Hawkgirl who spark up a bit of a romance in these tales. In the first season all of the stories were two-parters, a pain when they first ran, but watching them again on DVD merely a nifty structure which assured a cliffhanger of sorts most all the time.

I was enthralled with these when they first ran, a time when the Avengers and the Justice League of America were the two top comics on my reading list, a time when both comics were the best things their respective companies were producing. Even the lighter-toned comic which developed from this cartoon was a grand read.

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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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Super Friends The Legendary Super Powers Show 1984-1985!

Super Friends Challenge of the Super Powers marks a major shift in the focus and tone of the series as a new Kenner toyline is now part and parcel of the storytelling decisions. It does serve to give the stories a bit more dramatic heft, most of that delivered by the appearance of new villainy.

Darkseid and his minions Kalibak and Desaad are welcome additions to the rogues gallery of the Super Friends. Darkseid here is not quite the debased dictator of his comic book appearances, but the gravity of his presence does give his threats a grimness heretofore unseen in the series. He wants Wonder Woman as his bride and queen and that is running story through the season. He's not the only villain the team faces as a new deadlier Brainiac is also on hand.

But the big shift is the addition of Firestorm, a young hero who utterly changes the way the team functions. The Wonder Twins are still around but while Firestorm is a bit goofy at times, he's not just comedy relief as had been Gleek. With the ethnic heroes Apache Chief, El Dorado, Black Vulcan and Samuari sill very much in evidence the show becomes a really nifty version of the Justice League.

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Super Friends - The Lost Episodes 1983-1984!

Apparently these episodes never aired during the original run of the Super Friends shows, but were kept back and showed up later when the Super Friends show became a staple of syndication and such. Not much change really here, more of the utterly fantastic, more of the focus on outer space and wild sci-fi themes. The Legion of Doom returns in small ways with several stories featuring them, some in very creative ways. The influence of the Superman movies is felt in the look of the Fortress of Solitude as well as the appearance of some Phantom Zone baddies. Actually one gets a feeling sometimes that the series has taken a bit of a  "World's Finest" quality with Batman and Superman often the focus of the stories. Aquaman continues his fade appearing only rarely.

One character who is a solid performer season after season though is the Fifth Dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk whose penchant for zany and somewhat less lethal threats is rather ideal for the tone of a this more light-hearted version of the League.

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Super Friends 1980-1983!

These seasons of Super Friends are all about bombastic adventure. Both years saw some new adventures added, still in the classic vein established upon the arrival of the Super Twins. But increasingly the adventures seem to deal with outer space threats, which is a natural setting for Superman and even Wonder Woman, but hardly so for Batman and Robin. The Dynamic Duo seem to spend most of their time in these adventures patrolling the solar system on the alert for all sorts of threats. Also getting less and less attention is Aquaman. The show had done a really good job of getting him screen time early on but the focus definitely shifts to the "Trinity" in these cartoons. That is when they don't feature the characters created just for the the Hanna-Barbera shows such as Samurai, Black Vulcan, Apache Chief and a new addition, the Hispanic El Dorado.

Perhaps emblematic of the wild and crazy nature of the storytelling is the episode in which Superman discovers a Black Hole (lots of nods to movies of the era too) and ends up with the Earth inside it. But the Man of Steel in a flabbergasting moment is able to push the entire planet out of the grim vastness. This kind of impossible power is hokey and fun, but makes Superman utterly invincible. Adherence to science is not something I expect in a classic superhero story but there have to be imaginative limits or it becomes whimsy and loses its dramatic edge. These cartoons verge on that narrative weakness.

Still and all they fun, because seeing comic books get off the page and come to life, even animated life, is always fun.

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The World's Greatest Super Friends 1979 -1980!

The World's Greatest Super Friends is the title of season four and to my eye it's the season in which the show begins to jump the shark just a bit, though it does it with some style and aplomb. We have longer episodes again and each one seems to have a specific inspiration. Lex Luthor returns, this time with a partner named "Orville" who is clearly inspired by Ned Beatty's "Otis" from the Superman movie, and Luthor's lair seems to owe a nod to that film as well.

(The Super Enemies)

The shows feature one with a distinct Arabian Nights feel, another borrowing from Tolkien, another in which they visit Oz, and yet another set in a variation of Camelot. The team meets up with Frankenstein's monster as well. My favorite episode provides a multi-dimensional encounter with an evil version of the Justice League dubbed the "Super Enemies". I'm a huge fan of the Crime Syndicate of America, and it was nifty to see this Hanna-Barbara variation on that classic theme.

We are getting fewer episodes each season to freshen what already exists and as I said these tales are longer. I'll take a look at the fifth and sixth seasons together next weekend as well glimpse what are dubbed "The Lost Episodes". One thing about the Super Friends I've noticed is that the show only ever gets wilder and wilder.

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Challenge Of The Super Friends 1978-1979!

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.

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Super Friends 1973 -1974!

In 1973 I was truth told probably too old for the Saturday cartoons, but I didn't let that stop me from enjoying the Super Friends. I was always annoyed that my beloved Justice League of America didn't get much of a billing in this show and instead went by the somewhat insipid title of Super Friends, but still and all in those ancient days, getting any superheroes in most any format in most any medium was a treat to be savored. So I choked down my concerns and watched the hour-long show that teamed up Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Aquaman. Despite this being a Hanna--Barbera show, aside from Wonder Woman all of these heroes had pedigrees on Saturday morning thanks to Filmation studios. Frankly I assume that's pretty much the only reason Aquaman was part of the gig. As much as I liked the Sea King, he can be a hard sell.

I mentioned that this was a Hanna-Barbera show and that is most likely why we are introduced to Wendy, Marvin and (gulp) Wonder Dog. Now since the character designer of this show was Alex Toth, the look was often pretty sleek and that sure applied to Wendy, who I always numbered among the animated hotties of Saturday morning. Marvin though hearkened back to other Hanna-Barbera types mostly notable Shaggy of Scooby-Doo fame and his relationship with the weirdly anthropomorphic Wonder Dog was certainly in that vein. H-B had that stuff in most of their shows in the 70's and even the Super Friends were not spared.

Watching these shows again after so many years, I find I don't dislike Marvin as much I once did and his hijinks with Wonder Dog are okay, and they work to fill up the long running time of the show. And that's the biggest dig at the show, the pacing. The Super Friends would become aware of a threat, most often by way of the kids and their dog and then fumble around to confront it, often spending time in offbeat denials. As most folks know, the threats were rarely if ever from super-villains, but mostly from over zealous scientists or the like trying to help the world confront some problem or other like pollution or over-population.

Television is all about formulas and they found one here that worked. The addition of another DC characters such as Green Arrow, Plastic Man or The Flash added some spice and made you want more. The Hall of Justice was an imposing building, apparently inspired by the Union Terminal in Cincinnati, so oddly whenever I am traveling that direction I get to see the "Hall of Justice" and it makes me wonder.

The first season of Super Friends has real charm and that no doubt accounts for the way it found a way into the hearts and memories of so many youngsters (and even a few oldsters) from that time. And it was just the beginning for the team, but it would be some years before that would happen.

NOTE: I represent this post here at the new Dojo for the sake of completion as this month will showcase the rest of the Super Friends shows reviewed more or less.

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