Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

daltonml-1 I grew up watching the "Superfriends" on Saturday mornings, and I loved it. Yet after a while, the Wonder Twins idea began to tire me out. Despite I also loved the reruns on numerous cable networks, it remained dismal. I hoped that there was a way to have a real "Superfriends" cartoon show without the Wonder Twins.Finally, in 1985, I got my answer. "Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians" premiered on ABC. The show was a true to form version of the DC Comics characters I loved: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and so forth. And no Wonder Twins in sight. Hooray!The stories were often dramatic and emotional, such as "The Fear", an excellent toned down version of Batman's origin, with a few scary moments involving The Scarecrow, who was the guest villain in the episode, and a rare appearance of Batman and Robin in their secret identities of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, not to mention Alfred, their butler. Another episode, which was sadly the final one, "The Death Of Superman" really hit a bullseye with its theme. This was aired years before the "Doomsday/Death Of Superman" comic book storyline came out. But in this case, it wasn't Doomsday that killed Superman. You have to see this episode to find out."Super Powers Team" did have two very amusing episodes I found quite funny. "Case Of The Stolen Powers" was the first. In this one, The Penguin (Batman's foe, making his only appearance in "Superfriends") accidentally gets Superman's powers after a magic spell cast by Felix Faust, enemy of Wonder Woman. Then chaos erupts. The second one, "The Bizarro Super Powers Team", involved Bizarro creating Bizarro-clones of Firestorm, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman, who are so stupid, they're just impossible to not laugh at.However, what concerned me about this show is why it only lasted one year. It would've been great to see characters such as Green Arrow, Dr. Fate, or maybe Captain Marvel to appear in this show, had it lasted for another year or two. Perhaps they could've even introduced new villains, too. This show even gave The Joker his first and only "Superfriends" appearance ever in the episode "The Wild Cards". But it never happened. We had to wait until "Justice League Unlimited" on Cartoon Network in 2004 for that to happen. Hey, it was worth the wait.Now I hear "Super Powers Team" is coming to DVD this October. I can't wait for this one to hit shelves. I'm getting it! Why? This show remains true to the "Superfriends" like no other.

voicemaster71 I voted Challenge of the SuperFriends as the best series for the SuperFriends with the All New SuperFriends Hour as second best. But the Super Powers Team beats all of them in terms of story lines and animation quality. In fact, I could consider the Super Powers Team a complete series by itself away from the SuperFriends shows because of new animation and updated character designs to resemble the Kenner toy figures as well as the current 80's look of the heroes designed by Garcia Lopez. With the exception of four shows, most of these episodes were all full half hour stories. The Ghost Ship, Bizarro Super Powers Team, Brainchild, and the Case of the Stolen Powers were shorter in length. We see more characterization in this series. I was already familiar with the newly introduced Cyborg from reading the New Teen Titans comics. Ernie Hudson did a great job as a distraught bionic being who initially wanted nothing more than to be left alone. And his friendship with recent recruit Firestorm is most memorable. His introduction in the Seeds of Doom was well done. Wonder Woman has had another change of voice again. But this time, it was for the better. BJ Ward has voiced over many heroic female characters, so it's no surprise that she would voice over Wonder Woman at some time or another and in this show, her voice actually fits the newer character design. We also get to see Steve Trevor in an active role in the Darkseid Deception. We see the return of Darkseid, Kalibak, and Desaad and we encounter the Parademons in this series. Lex Luthor makes an appearance as does Brainiac and Mr. Mxyztplk. Bizarro returns only this time he's more likable and voiced over by Danny Dark and he is known as Bizarro number one. The Scarecrow also returns and the for the first time ever, which we never saw on the SuperFriends, we see the Joker, The Penguin, Felix Faust, and the Royal Flush Gang. In addition, another element that was never seen on the SuperFriends but included in this show, were Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, Batman and Robin's secret identities along with Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, and Professor Jonathan crane (Scarecrow). In this series, there is only one flaw. While the Wonder Twins, Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief have been wisely removed fro this series, the Justice League members, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman were reinstated, but they were barely used. Flash only said some lines in one episode, but we never saw his super speed. And the others were active one episode each with Aquaman appearing in the final episode, Escape From Space City. Oddly enough, Samuraui and El Dorado (in cameo only) were a part of this series while the other ethnic players from the SuperFriends were removed. The two best episodes you'll ever find in this series are: The Death of Superman, an excellent dramatic story and the only one with every single Super Powers member present. Even the Flash and El Dorado. The other one is my all time favorite one. The Fear, which tells the origin of Batman on film for the first time. And even though we're used to seeing him play a comical campy Batman, Adam West has proved in this series that he can portray (at least in voice) a more serious, slightly grimmer Batman, whose new design has the longer ears and the cape billowing over him. I really felt Adam West voicing over Batman really gave the Super Powers Team as well as the previous SuperFriends show some real value and this series needs to be released on DVD.For the most part, the stars of the Super Powers Team are Superman, Batman, Robin, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, and Cyborg while the other heroes are merely in the background more or less. I never could understand "Galactic Guardians" in the title. The Super Powers Team is enough. It's also a shame this particular series did not run a second year. But it is still a great series in terms of animation quality and story lines. I give it two thumbs up.

Cinema_Lover Now this is how you make an animated series based on superheroes. "Super Powers Team: The Galactic Gaurdians" aired in 1985-'86 and it was the last SuperFriends show based on the Justice League of America from the 1973-1986 run. In my opinion, this was also head and shoulders the best. The animation is greatly improved from any earlier SuperFriends show. The characters act like mature adults, and a few of them even have some distinct personalities that separate them from the rest of the JLA. There were also no stupid teenage tag along like Wendy & Marvin or Zan & Jayna on this show. And thankfully, no stupid animals like Wonder Dog or Gleek. A new character Cyborg is introduced, he is an African American teenager, but he is not a silly background extra that screws up and gets captured repeatedly so Superman and Green Lantern could come save the day the way the previous non-White heroes (Black Vulcan/Lightning, Samurai, and Apache Chief) did on the other shows. Cyborg is a great character that is not a cardboard cut out of Superman. Firestorm is back from the "Super Powers" series from the previous year, and he too is in top form. Wonder Woman acts, well like a woman and we see her life more fleshed out. Superman even behaves more adult like and does not have the ridiculous God-like powers he had in the 70s. The Batman in this show is more in line with the comic book character.Here Batman behaves like a very mature grown man, a man that is tormented over his compulsion to go out and fight crime. He is also a detective in this show like he should be, and not a blundering buffoon that pulls out all kinds of stupid gadgets from that little utility belt. 'The Fear' is a stand out episode that illustrates the difference in Batman in this show from the previous SuperFriends. It is ironic that this Batman is the most serious, since he is voiced by Adam West who played the idiot Batman in the 1960s TV series. Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and Samurai don't get a whole lot of time devoted to them, but at least they don't do anything embarrassing. The JLA team primarily butts heads with the villainous Darkseid and his cronies Dessad and Kavlik, but the Joker and Scarecrow turn up in two episodes as well. I always get the feeling that the two "Super Powers Team" series from the mid 80s doesn't have the incredibly loyal Gen Xer following that 1978's "Challenge of the SuperFriends" enjoys because Darkseid and Dessad were too comic book heavy for mainstream viewers. The plots could be a bit comic book heavy as well. That and I think children were just burned out on SuperFriends by 1985, the whole thing had been around for 12 years at that point. "Challenge" was a great and memorable show no doubt, and DC comic book villains like Lex Luthor and Black Manta were there, but the Legion of Doom tended to formulate rather childish plans to knock off the SuperFriends and rule the planet. Nevertheless a kid today will probably look at this show and still laugh at it while finding a ton of problems with it (because there are problems). "The Super Powers Team" is not nearly as rounded out as the current Justice League animated series. But I remember being blown away by how far the whole SuperFriends deal had come since the stupid early years of the 70s when Wonder Dog or the annoying space monkey Gleek would hang around the Hall of Justice with those kids. A long way indeed. Watch this show, "SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Team", and "Challenge of the SuperFriends". They are the 3 best ones, with "The All-New SuperFriends Hour" and "The Worlds Greatest SuperFriends" being not all that bad and entertaining at times. The worst one remains the original "SuperFriends" from 1973-1977.

Op_Prime Along with 'Challenge of the Super Friends' & 'Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show', this was one of the best Super Friends show. The stories were at their peak, being very creative and adventourous. It was classic eighties cartoons, like The Real Ghostbusters and Inspector Gadget. Catch the reruns on Cartoon Network.