The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians - 1985

It's been a little while since the Shrine did a recap of a Super Friends series, so I thought I'd jump all the way to the end to talk about the final iteration of the show, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians!

TSPT:GG (whew, that's a mouthful even abbreviated) ran for one season, 1985-1986, in half hour episodes that, despite the image above, basically centered on five characters: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, and Cyborg.

Having been a loyal--very loyal--Super Friends viewer since I was old enough to even watch TV, I remember this version of the show came around at exactly the wrong time for me. I was fourteen when TSPT:GG debuted, and the combo of feeling a little too old to watch cartoons and it focusing so heavily on characters I wasn't all that interested in led me to stop watching it entirely. A few years earlier, Super Friends seemed as vital as air, so it was kind of a big moment.

Anyway, the first disc of TSPT:GG on DVD features the show's first four episodes: "The Seeds of Doom", "Ghost Ship/The Bizarro Super Powers Team", "The Darkseid Deception", and "The Fear."

In "Seeds of Doom", we're introduced to Cyborg and Firestorm's drive to get him to join the team. The Super Friends cross paths with Darkseid and his minions, who are hatching a plot involving burying weird seed pods on Earth.

Eventually the heroes involved (the aforementioned Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, and Cyborg) regroup at the Hall of Justice. This is our first chance to see the other Friends, including an Aquaman in desperate need of a haircut:

...this must have been during one of Arthur and Mera's many trial separations; since she would have never let him leave the house like that.

Anyway, Aquaman makes no further appearance in the show, and has no lines. Similarly, he doesn't appear in the second episode, or the third. You can see why I wasn't that in to The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians.

That's not to say the show was without its merits. While the stories were mostly dull with some odd moments thrown in (there's a sort of recurring bit about how Darkseid has the hots for Wonder Woman...no, really), its the animation that occasionally reaches for some new heights, like this nifty lighting effect from the second show when an alien woman is relating the history of her world to the Super Friends:

Its the fourth episode that the show really started shooting for the moon, content-wise. The Scarecrow is the main villain in "The Fear", and Hanna-Barbera must have been noticing how much darker Batman had been getting in the comics (this was, after all, only a year away from The Dark Knight Returns), because there are more moody, "Dark Knight Detective"-esque shots in this episode than every other SF show combined, like this one:

This episode also features a recap of Batman's origin, complete with Joe Chill gunning down the Waynes (not seen, of course), and Alfred and Young Bruce at their grave sites:

Sure, this wasn't Batman: The Animated Series or anything, but its still pretty wild for the Hanna-Barbera Batman, who was as thoroughly unmysterious as Batman ever got.

Aquaman and some of the other SFers do appear in this episode, again mostly as colorful extras. This pan across the Hall of Justice made me laugh:

...as Robin tells the Super Friends the bad news (The Scarecrow has injected Bats with fear toxin), it looks as though Aquaman, Firestorm, Samurai and the others aren't even paying attention ("Possible Straight, Possible Straight...no help...").

Not having seen many of these episodes, its kind of fun seeing them for the first time. In retrospect, I was probably a little hasty dropping the show, considering the years of entertainment it gave me. But of course fourteen is a dangerous age for nerdy kids. I still can't believe I gave away all my Star Wars toys in a desperate bid to seem grown up. *Sigh*

Anyway, I'll be checking out the rest of the Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians episodes soon!


This episode's Aqua-Content: Low