Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show - The Complete Series

This complete series is a nice addition to any collection. Each dvd has it's own spot.

Loved this version of the Superfriends when it premiered during my childhood... So, of course, I didn't hesitate to buy this complete series collection when it first hit the store shelves in 2007... However, I had to purchase it again in 2025 after trying to view it and for some reason the second disc (despite being in excellent condition) would no longer play correctly...

The DVD treatment for The Legendary Super Powers show is fantastic. It was great fun watching these episodes again. Any of the old DC cartoons shouldn't be criticized for their simplicity because at the time they aired they were awesome. If you grew up watching any of the Super Friends series then you're in for a treat. This set in particular is the best out of all the Super Friends releases so far. You'll see Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and more battle Darkseid and his crew. There's a few extra featurettes and the one about the Super Powers Toy Line is phenomenal. There's a charm that these cartoons have that the new "The Batman" and "Justice League Unlimited" lack. These new animated series are of course beautifully animated and much more modern but nothing beats the Super Friends! You won't be bogged down in storylines or drama, you'll just have a good time and it'll bring you back to when you were a kid sitting on the floor watching cartoons on Saturday morning. Buy it!

Product was great, no problems.

I wish this version of the Superfriends lasted longer, as I remember it aired on the same time as wrestling and I couldn't get into this seasons' show. Firestorm & Darkseid made their TV/Movie medium debuts, the episodes were a bit longer but cut down to 2 stories, and this was the last appearance of Black Vulcan, Apache Chief & The Wonder Twins, and Aquaman wasn't even in one episode except for the opening, like wise the Flash and Green Lantern was briefly in one episode "The case of the shrinking Superfriends". I guess they didn't have time to create any stories involving them. If they was given an hour like before, it may have worked. BTW I had to buy this new disc set because a couple of episodes I can't play in my DVD player though my old set there's no scratches on it and have cleaned the discs.

Although I grew up watching the Super Friends and Challenge of the Super Friends (the absolute best!), I had never seen these "Legendary Super Powers" episodes. By the time this series debuted in 1984 I had discovered Japanese animation in shows like Robotech and Star Blazers, and the complex plots, story arcs and real human emotions of Japanese cartoons left the poor outdated Superfriends looking like the flat, colorform characters that they were.I was wild about the Super Powers action figures however, and collected as many of those figures as I could. So I always had a lingering curiosity about the animated series that had spawned the legendary figure line. This was, after all, the series were Jack Kirby's Fourth World characters made their first animated appearance. The set had to have some merit.The animation and storylines are just as bad as I suspected. Hanna Barbara was really cutting corners, and much of the animation is of the "static head with just the mouth moving" -style. At first I thought they were unwatchable, but after getting into the rhythm and enjoying the nostalgia of the whole series I started to enjoy them.Having Darkseid as the main villain is both a blessing and a curse. One the one hand, he provides a necessary challenge for the assembled Superfriends, and someone to plan storylines against. On the other hand, it is hard to take Darkseid, Lord of Apocalypse and seeker of the Anti-life Equation, as a "Curses! Foiled again" -type of villain whose main goal in life is not the subjugation of all free will in the universe but instead to get Wonder Woman to marry him. Really.Cartoons aside, what really made this set for me was the bonus features and commentaries by DC Historian Mark Waid (Kingdom Come) and some of the episode writers. The point is brought up as to how far behind the cartoons were from the comics; this was the era when the comic world was being revolutionized by Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, but the TV Superman and Batman were still sanitized and impotent "good guys." Writers for the Superfriends would try and sneak in some character development and edge, but by the time the censors were through with their scripts all that remained was the bland, flavorless product we can still see today.The ethnic characters, Black Vulcan, Samurai, Apache Chief and El Dorado, are also much discussed. I didn't realize that there was a rule that one of the ethnic characters must always save the day in each episode, while the main DC heroes of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were just constantly captured and put into peril. The writers are the first to admit that the handling of the ethnic characters was awkward, but felt that even those few first steps opened the door for other, better characters later on.

This series is different than I remembered. Of course, this is from the 80s so they were running out of ideas. Still a lot of memories and fun.