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Some Super Friends and the Eye of the Beholder....
posted Monday, 13 November 2006
During my last (undocumented) Bin Adventure I brought home a copy of The Super Friends #10 (Feb/Mar 1978) and having just read it I feel obligated to share with you the valuable lesson it taught me.
Namely that covers be not for judging.
For those of us who grew up with the second version of the series (1977's The All-New Super Friends Hour) it comes as a bit of a surprise to see that in this comic the Wonder Twins are still brand-new to the team and just beginning to get used to life on Earth. They (and their blue space-monkey Gleek) have only just taken the annoying sidekick spots once held by Marvin, Wendy and Wonderdog and are thus still learning the subtle nuances of the English language. Luckily the team has a handy way to get around this problem:
Now I realize it seems mighty convenient that all of the Super Friends can fluently speak an inter-galactic language (so convenient that one might suspect that their fluency has narrative consequences further on in the story) but there's a reason why these group of friends are as super as their name implies and it's because they don't shirk the hard work. They all knew that sometime in their travels they were going to have to talk to aliens, so they all bought and listened to the best Interlac language tapes that money could buy and within just a few months of studying they could ask any creature in the galaxy where their nearest library was.
And though Wendy and Marvin are gone, their memory lives on, as Wonder Woman gives Jayna a gift left for her by her predecessor:
With her new charm bracelet now comfortably encircling her wrist, Jayna joins her brother on a walk through the nearby woods, so they can study Earth's environment and learn of new ways to employ their transformative powers:
As tranfixed as they are by the spectacle of our planet's rodent population, the twins' soon find their attention stolen elsewhere when they hear the shouts of a young women, who they discover is being chased by a group of familiar looking monsters:
For those of you not up on your Universal horror movies, the monsters in pursuit of the blonde hottie include two vampires (one of the regular Bela Lugosi Dracula type and one of the hot Hammer vampiress variety), a wolfman, a sea creature (of the bears-no-resemblence-to-the-still-copyright-protected Universal sea creature variety), a Frankenstein's Monster (because Frankenstein was the scientist, not his creation), an Egyptian mummy and a standard white-faced ghoul.
Keenly sensing the woman's distress the twins use their powers to transform into a horse and a tornado:
Now I know what you're thinking. How can Zan turn into a tornado when his powers are supposed to be entirely water based? To which the correct answer is: it's only a fucking comic book you geek! Get a life, whydontcha?
Anyhoo, the duo are able to rescue the young woman, who decides that the company of a talking blue horse and a sentient tornado is still preferable to a septet of life-size Aurora model figures:
The three of them escape and make their way to the Hall of Justice, where Jayna uses her charm bracelet to alert the team into action. Once all of the heroes have answered her call, the young woman lets them in on what is going on:
Before you ask--no, I am not related to this young woman. I know this because a) she's a fictional character and therefore does not exist in real life and b) I've read to the end of the story and know something y'all don't.
After having heard the flaxen-haired stunner out, Wonder Woman has one question for her:
Moved by the beauty's story, the team splits up into teams to stop the monsters and find her inherited treasure in their cavernous and oceanic hiding spots, while she stays behind and ponders what will happen to her if they fail:
In the cave where the first treasure can be found, Batman and Robin come face to face with the monsters' (presumably) husband and wife vampire team, who freak our Dynamic Duo out by transforming into bats right before their eyes!
And while Bruce and Dick fight off the loathesome bloodsuckers, Wonder Woman finds herself literally entangled in the clutches of the mummy, whose bandages serve as extra appendages. Luckily she's aided by Gleek the blue space-monkey and has time to take out the wolfman before serving some Amazon style whup-ass to the ancient Egyptian:
With their foes handily taken care of, Gleek has no problem finding the treasure, which just happens to be a golden ring:
Meanwhile at the ocean, Superman, Aquaman and the twins are having a lot more trouble taking down their enemies. Superman especially has a hard time going toe to toe with Frankenstein's Monster:
Take that Doomsday, you big grey bitch! You too, General Zod! And you know what, Mongul ? You can go fuck yourself, because this white monster has been named by the Man O'Steel himself as one of the "mightiest adversaries [he's] ever tangled with!" And despite what anyone would want to believe, this comic WAS a part of regular DC continuity. Choke on that, suckers!
Ah, where was I? Right! While Superman is getting his ass kicked, the twins attempt to face the white-faced ghoul who has the ability to shoot a green flame from the middle of his chest:
Luckily for Jayna, her apparently boneheaded decision to turn into a goldfish actually seems to work:
Eventually this half of the team defeats the monsters and they find the second half of the treasure:
Having completed their mission, all of the Super Friends return to the Hall of Justice, where they decide to investigate the true nature of their monstrous attackers. Superman, using his x-ray vision, makes a startling discovery:
The white-faced ghoul is actually a member of the Green Lantern Corps! And with his identity exposed, the intergalactic hero explains why wore his clever disguise:
He then goes on to introduce his heroic companions, who--wouldn't ya know it--all speak Interlac, the intergalactic space language that was such a big deal at the beginning of this tale:
But if they're the heroes, then who is the villain?
It can't be....Ohmygawsh it is!
Yes, it turns out that Cherry Mott is actually a beautiful alien criminal named Char Ymat, who came to Earth in search of a spare Green Lantern ring and lantern set that the evil former GL corpsman Sinestro once hid on the planet before he could create an equally powerful ring of his own to aid him in his selfish rebellion against his benelovent blue masters. Knowing that Oan technology was useless against the colour yellow, he covered both the ring and lantern with gold so they could not be found. And now having rid the treasures of their plating, the vixenish villainess now possesses all of the power that any wielder of such a ring has at their command. Despite the presence of all of these heroes, it's the Wonder Twins who act first:
While one does have to wonder how an alien girl who just a few hours before was marveling at the existence of squirrels now has no problem pulling a golden marmoset out of her ass, her effort does prove to be enough of a distraction for the room's other GL ring owner to recharge his emerald jewelry and go against Char ringo-a-ringo:
Fortunately for our heroes, Char's wickedness is no match for the veteren GL's experience and he has no problem defeating her:
And thus our tale ends with our villain captured and our intergalactic heroes free to return to their intergalactic homes. As this "Justice League from another planet" ascends from our world on their way back to their own, it is up to Zan and Robin to share with us the lesson they have gathered from this extraordinary experience:
'Tis a moral we all would do well to learn .
The End
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