Yes, this is easily the best of all the different visions of Hannah-Barbara's "Super Friends" shows. The first with Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog was quaint but unless you were under the age of 9 just too friendly. The second version with Zan, Jayna (rrrowr!) and Gleek the Space Monkey had a darker, more edgier tone with actual destruction, but would always stumble at the last minute and go for cuteness.
This one was the essence of why kids love super hero cartoons distilled down into a raw, somewhat darkly toned vision where the VILLAINS are the key. The Super Friends were the squares here, with Lex Luthor and his 12 partners in crime stealing the show episode after episode. My favorites were always Black Manta and Solomon Grundy: They were both somewhat frightening characters with pretty nasty background stories. Solomon Grundy was some guy who died face down in the swamp and was infected by an evil energy field or something like that -- an overgrown swamp weed.
You can get the entire series on an excellent DVD box set that has the magical ability to transport you back to the age of 11, hunched in front of the set on Saturday morning with your bowl of Crunchberries. One almost finds themselves rooting for the forces of darkness in this, realizing the adage about action/adventure superhero tales that you need a good villain. The show also had some pretty morbid story ideas, my favorite being the "Swamp of the Living Dead" episode where the Legion makes a pact with a devilish sort of being who unleashes a horde of zombies to battle the Super Friends.
You also get time travel, inter-dimensional travel, background stories of both the good and bad guys, peril and destruction and doom in every episode. The lack of cuteness in the form of juvenile superhero wannabees is replaced by a sense of urgency to hurry up and save the world & you won't miss it. And the hand-drawn animation style has a kind of warmth and humanity to it that is annoyingly absent from more modern day equivalents. You only get to be 11 once, might as well do it right.
10/10
This one was the essence of why kids love super hero cartoons distilled down into a raw, somewhat darkly toned vision where the VILLAINS are the key. The Super Friends were the squares here, with Lex Luthor and his 12 partners in crime stealing the show episode after episode. My favorites were always Black Manta and Solomon Grundy: They were both somewhat frightening characters with pretty nasty background stories. Solomon Grundy was some guy who died face down in the swamp and was infected by an evil energy field or something like that -- an overgrown swamp weed.
You can get the entire series on an excellent DVD box set that has the magical ability to transport you back to the age of 11, hunched in front of the set on Saturday morning with your bowl of Crunchberries. One almost finds themselves rooting for the forces of darkness in this, realizing the adage about action/adventure superhero tales that you need a good villain. The show also had some pretty morbid story ideas, my favorite being the "Swamp of the Living Dead" episode where the Legion makes a pact with a devilish sort of being who unleashes a horde of zombies to battle the Super Friends.
You also get time travel, inter-dimensional travel, background stories of both the good and bad guys, peril and destruction and doom in every episode. The lack of cuteness in the form of juvenile superhero wannabees is replaced by a sense of urgency to hurry up and save the world & you won't miss it. And the hand-drawn animation style has a kind of warmth and humanity to it that is annoyingly absent from more modern day equivalents. You only get to be 11 once, might as well do it right.
10/10