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Friday, October 24, 2014

Challenge of the Super Friends, Episode 14

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Episode 14: "Doomsday"

For the Legion of Doom, every day is Doomsday, that's what makes it fun!
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This episode of Challenge of the Super Friends opens not in the murky swamp, but in the Pacific Ocean. A nuclear aircraft carrier picks up a UFO headed right for them, so they of course alert the Super Friends!

Just as Superman is imprisoning a creature he calls "the Mole Man of Planet Theta", the message comes in. Luckily, just the right member of the team is there to check out this threat:
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Green Lantern and Wonder Woman accompany Aquaman. Meanwhile, we learn that the UFO is, in fact, the Legion of Doom's flying HQ. It fires a torpedo at the carrier, but it doesn't explode. The captain of the ship is thankful it's a "dud", but little does he know the real plan: inside the torpedo is The Cheetah, who hops out and via some doohickey turns off the ship's nuclear reactor!

To make matters worse, Black Manta and Sinestro land on deck via his Manta Ship, just as Aquaman also arrives. Unfortunately, he's no match for Sinestro's power ring:
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Green Lantern uses his power ring to turn into a giant (because cartoons), causing the Legion of Doom to beat a hasty retreat, leaving their three members behind, fuming. Lantern scoops Manta, Sinestro, and Cheetah up and brings them back to the Hall of Justice, imprisoning them.

Sinestro comes up with a plan to escape: by slipping into the other dimensional planet known as Qward, the three bad guys escape their jail, leaving anti-matter duplicates behind in their place. After overhearing about a powerful new weapon created by the Army, Sinestro, Manta, and Cheetah show up, defeating The Flash and Apache Chief, with the rest of the Legion next on their list!

Manta grabs the controls of the new weapon, which luckily are size-adjustable, and blasts the soldiers with the Super Friends left stuck in a giant diamond, only able to watch:
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Meanwhile, Superman touches Sinestro's anti-matter dummies, which transports him to Qward. The Man of Steel finds him face-to-face with former Kryptonian criminal, who was banished to Qward as punishment. Back on Earth, our terrible trio find their former teammates stealing Alaska's oil (you betcha) and use the anti-matter cannon on them!

Instead of just blasting the traitors into atoms, Black Manta, who finds joy in his work, converts them all into bowling pins. He then creates a giant bowling ball, and decides to throw a few frames, giving the Super Friends time to scour the planet in a search for them.

After torturing Luthor and the rest some more, they get an alarm telling them the Super Friends are near. Toyman grabs the anti-matter cannon, and fires it into the ocean, making two giant water hands which reach up and grab the Man of Steel, Green Lantern, and Black Vulcan. Flash and Apache Chief escape their diamond prison, freeing their friends. This leads to a donnybrook, with Sinestro creating a giant rat, which Green Lantern counters with a giant cat. Clever guy, that Hal!

Finally having enough of this nonsense, Apache Chief uses the weapon on the Legion, putting them into a giant clear plastic egg carton:
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Superman makes a joke about the Legion being hard-boiled, while the bad guys squabble with each other, leading us to...The End!


After a promising start with Aquaman taking charge of the first mission, he's tossed aside by Sinestro like so much laundry, not to be seen again in the episode (except for one brief group shot). Still, better than the last couple of shows, where you didn't even know he was on the team at all.

I like the idea of some members of the Legion of Doom fighting amongst themselves, it only makes sense. We get some insight into Black Manta's personal life when, after torturing his teammates for a few minutes, he's ready to make nice with them again. Interesting guy.

This episode's Aqua-Content: Medium

 

3 comments:

Earth 2 Chris said...

This is one of those Challenge episodes that never seem to stand out to me. I wasn't even sure which one this was until I saw Manta with his headphones on. I wonder what's on his iPod?

Chris

Anonymous said...

It's things like this that led to the perception of Aquaman as lame. :P

Xum Yukinori said...

Wasn't the device called the "mental matter ray" -- which is essentially a larger version of Green Lantern's ring... only without the weaknesses?

And we never see it again... because cartoons.