Monday, June 19, 2023

Challenge of the Super Friends: Secret Origins of the Super Friends (1978)

 




One of the best episodes.


In this episode Lex Luthor comes up with a plan for the Legion of Doom to travel back in time to stop Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman from becoming the superheroes they do become. They go back to each of their origin stories to stop them from happening. 

This is simply a wonderful episode. The basic premise is very clever. The idea of villains traveling back in time to stop superheroes from ever coming to be, is one that can still today, be used as the basis for a great story. Though given less than half an hour, this version of the story is obviously very simplistic but that doesn't mean that it isn't effective. This episode is simply a lot of fun and moves at a fast pace that never once loses the attention of the viewer. Also giving us a look into the origin stories of three of the Super Friends gives this episode a very unique feel that sets it apart from your typical Super Friends episode. Also as much as these origin stories are very familiar to all of us DC fans, they are still wonderful origin stories and to see them play out here is simply a lot of fun. It is also nice to have some time to focus solely on these characters one at a time in a show that is often crowded with superheroes. The environments that these origin stories provide are also wonderful and provide us with some great atmosphere and some more of the wonderful background art that populates Hanna-Barbera cartoons of this time period. The way in which things resolve here is also very cleverly done and seems like such a naturally logical conclusion. 

There is so much to enjoy about this episode and it should prove to be a delight to most any DC fan. 



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