Hanna-Barbera's Super Friends franchise appeared under many different names and worked in many different formats. However the format of the Super Friends that comes to most people's mind is Challenge of the Super Friends. This show (which ran 16 episodes) involves the most famous (and some not so famous) DC heroes, Super Man, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Black Vulcan (who was created for this show), The Flash, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan to be exact), Apache Chief (also created for this show), Aquaman. Samurai (also created for this show) and Hawkman fight against the Legion of Doom, a gathering of some of their most deadly villains. These villains include the Lex Luthor, Solomon Grundy, Sinestro, Black Manta, The Cheetah, Giganta, The Toy Man, The Riddler, Bizzaro, Brainiac and Gorilla Grodd. Even with the first episode, it is apparent why this version of Super Friends is so popular.
In this first episode The Legion of Doom, uses a dream machine to make our heroes commit horrible crimes in their sleep. When this gets the Super Friends out of their way, the Legion of Doom turns everyone else in the world into slaves (that look like Cheetah and Bizzaro) to do their evil bidding.
This episode stresses why I love this show so much. Though much of the episode is simply corny fun, with the Legion of Doom there is also a great sense of suspense that makes you wonder just how our heroes will save the day. Their plan in this episode is especially threatening and evil. While all the slaves looking like Cheetah and Bizzaro adds to the silly fun, there is also something quite creepy about villains who have the ability to turn the whole world into their slaves and this brings a real feeling of dread to the episode. This episode's sense of corny fun is also wonderful. I especially love the scenes involving the Legion of Doom interacting with each other which contains all of the over the top but very fun dialogue that always helps make this show such a delight to watch. The action scenes here are also excellent and there is also the wonderful background art that I love about many Hanna-Barbera cartoons of this time period.
All in all this is a wonderful start to a delightful series.
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