Brainiac
develops a cloaking device that hides the Earth from Super Friends, in space.
Wonder Woman, Black Vulcan, and Hawkman respond to a distress call from a
distant sector. They travel through a black hole and end up on Toy Man’s
planet.
There,
the villain traps the heroes in a giant pinball machine, and then in a giant
doll-house, where the heroes must contend with a giant wind-up baby doll.
The
other Super Friends attempt to find their missing comrades, and battle Empress
Zayna, who immobilizes them with sleeping pollen so she can turn them into
statues and keep them in her stone menagerie.
In
one crucial way, “The World’s Deadliest Game” captures perfectly the creative
plan of Challenge of the Super Friends (1978). If I had to state that
strategy in two words it would be:
No.
Rules.
No
rules whatsoever. The Super Friends observe no rules, and neither do the
members of the Legion of Doom. It’s all pure phantasmagoria. Anything can
happen, at any time. And something that was impossible in one minute, happens
in the next minute.
Consider
what happens in this episode. The villains cloak an entire planet, all as a
trap for the Super Friends. Think of the
power required!
Then,
the Super Friends travel to a distant galaxy without any faster-than-light
drive…just by flying. And they travel through the center of a black hole, and
don’t experience spaghettification or any gravitational forces that stop them.
And
through it all, they are not wearing armor, or force-fields, or even rocket
packs.
Which
makes it very funny, for certain, when Hawkman and Black Vulcan complain, while
dealing with the giant pinball machine, that they can’t fly because of the
forces of gravity
Now
the gravity bothers them?
No
matter, a few minutes later they are flying again, with no further mention of
gravitational forces.
This
is a series that may know, broadly, the Laws of Physics, but has zero interest
in applying them in anything approaching a consistent manner. For
instance, Green Lantern protects some Super Friends in space with a green force
field. But then he leaves, when they travel through the black hole, without
protection.
So
someone writing the show knew that there should be some explanation for the
survival of the Super Friends in the void of space. But then didn’t think to
apply that explanation to survival in a black hole.
Again,
I know the counter-argument is: this is a show for kids.
Well,
as I always notes, kids are smart. For one thing, at the age they are watching
a series like The Super Friends, they are also enrolled in science classes.
So, they know -- in some cases better than adults – when a series strays from
science into out-and-out fantasy.
The
“no rules” approach of Challenge of the Super Friends makes the battle between
the JLA and the Legion of Doom completely arbitrary, a matter of luck. There is
no underlying reason for victory or defeat. It’s just a matter of what “works”
this week. It’s weird that the Legion of Doom would never
use its planetary cloaking device again, or modify it for their headquarters,
for instance.
The best aspect of this episode involves Toy Man's doll-house, which manages to be a creepily, nightmarish locale.
Long story short: Holy
Mind Bender, as Robin exclaims in this episode.
Challenge of the Super
Friends is really Short Attention Super Hero Theater. You can get the gist of
the story while you eat your cereal, get your clothes on, and start
the day. If you pay total attention to the story-lines, you will realize how
vapid and dumb the series actually is.
Next up: "The Time Trap."
Few things are as haunting as a giant toy baby crying for its mama. Or is that just me?
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