In
“Secret Origins of the Super Friends,” Lex Luthor hatches a new plan to stop
the Super Friends. He will use a time machine, and travel back in time to undo
the creation of Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman, three of the most
powerful super friends.
First,
the Legion of Doom travels to Paradise Island of 1941, and Cheetah defeats
Diana Prince in an Amazon tournament, thus becoming Wonder Woman herself.
Next,
Lex Luthor replaces Hal Jordan when he is visited by the Green Lantern Corps.,
and Abin Sur, on Earth.
Lastly,
the Legion travels back to Krypton of the past, and diverts young Kal-El’s
rocket away from Earth, to a different planet with a red sun. There, the boy
grows up as just another citizen, unaware of his destiny as the man of steel.
With
these powerful Super Friends out of the way, the Legion of the Doom captures
the other members of the Hall of Justice, and makes them fight one another
using a “Hypnotic Anger Ray.”
Fortunately,
while in captivity, Batman and the other heroes learn from the Legion of Doom
memory banks that there are missing Super Friends, ones whom they have no
memory of at all, because of the altered timeline.
Batman,
Robin, and the others launch an attempt to bring Superman, Wonder Woman and
Green Lantern back into existence.
Although
“Secret Origins of the Super Friends” features many of the same lapses of logic
and dramatic consistency that frequently plague this 1977’s Hanna-Barbera
series, it nonetheless must count as one of the better episodes of Challenge
of the Super Friends.
The
reason is simple. For the first time, we get some background info on members of
the Super Friends, and the way they came to be superheroes. The origins of
Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Superman are all explored in depth here, and
the audience even gets to see the great Jor-El, as he argues about the impending
destruction of his home world.
These
sequences are fascinating for how they depict the beginnings of these heroes,
and, in dramatic fashion, showcase how the Legion of Doom undercuts and
subverts them. It is terrible, in particular,
seeing deceitful Cheetah adopt the Wonder Woman mantle, defeating Diana. It is bracing, and alarming, as well, to see
Lex Luthor in the uniform of Green Lantern.
The
mechanics of the altered time lines are kind of dodgy here, but it hardly
matters, as Batman restores his friends to the timeline and corrects the
universe in the process. However, I couldn’t help but think, while watching
this installment, that the most powerful origin to undercut in the story would
have been Batman’s.
Imagine
if Bruce Wayne’s parents hadn’t been murdered. Batman would have never come
into creation, and Bruce would have grown up happy, with both parents alive and
well. This fact would have created a real bind for the other Super Friends.
Could they alter time if it meant killing Bruce’s parents, and taking away the
boy’s happiness? What a fascinating that story would have made!
Next
week: “Revenge of Gorilla City.”
"What a fascinating that story would have made!" - That's what you think!
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