Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 8, 2025 | 17 comments

AN ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION: 13th Dimension powers — activate!

By CHRIS FRANKLIN

For a generation of fans, Hanna-Barbera’s Super Friends animated television series was their introduction to the DC Universe. Even if they knew Superman and Batman from various other TV shows and media exposure, Super Friends provided their gateway to the wider DCU, via a kid-friendly version of the company’s flagship team title, Justice League of America. Over the course of 15 years off and on ABC’s Saturday Morning lineup, Super Friends evolved from a very benign, pseudo-educational series that taught moral lessons to the youngest of children, to what cynics may call a half-hour toy commercial, aimed at a slightly more sophisticated audience.

1973 Whitman color book featuring the first season cast.

From Hoyt Curtain’s rousing theme songs, to Ted Knight’s and William Woodson’s breathless narration, to Alex Toth’s deceptively simple but evocative designs, the legacy of the show endures, as evidenced by this summer’s Superman film. Writer/director James Gunn established the Justice Gang’s headquarters as the Super Friends-created Hall of Justice… filmed at the real life-inspiration for the structure, Cincinnati’s Union Terminal/Cincinnati Museum Center.

DC Direct’s Super Friends action figures in front of the real-life Hall of Justice, the Cincinnati Museum Center.

On the anniversary of the show’s debut (Sept. 8, 1973), let’s tour that Hall of Justice, and take a look at 13 GREAT EPISODES across the various incarnations of the show. If your favorite episode isn’t on this list, don’t worry. It’s all subjective. Like our heroes, we can remain Super Friends.

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SUPER FRIENDS (1973)

The original iteration of the show featured hour-long stories and focused on the heroes usually encountering misguided villains who often wanted to better mankind and end societal woes. But they always went about it in a disastrous way that only made matters worse.

This was in response to parent groups complaining about violence on children’s television in the late ’60s and early ’70s, resulting in earlier superhero cartoon series going out of fashion. A “kinder, gentler” version was found in Super Friends, as Superman (voiced by Danny Dark), Batman (Olan Soule), Robin (Casey Kasem), Wonder Woman (Shannon Farnon) and Aquaman (Norman Alden) trained young, non-powered heroes Wendy and Marvin, and their pet Wonder Dog.

The kid and dog combo were leftover elements from the original pitch for the show, teaming Hanna-Barbera’s breakout star Scooby-Doo and his mystery solving teen friends with famous comics super heroes. The most popular episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies had seen Batman and Robin join the Mystery, Inc. gang. Several guest stars from the DC Universe appeared in this first season, including Flash, Plastic Man, and one we’ll get to shortly. Although it is fondly remembered by those who watched it initially, most fans tend to prefer later seasons that shifted the focus to more super-heroic action, albeit usually of the non-violent variety.

“Gulliver’s Gigantic Goof” (Originally Aired Dec. 8, 1973)

Misguided scientist Dr. Gulliver (I told you there was a pattern) decides to solve the world’s overpopulation and hunger problems by shrinking the entire population of Earth, while he stays at full size to oversee things. The Super Friends of course intercede, but this time they have help from another Justice League member, Green Arrow. This is the first appearance of the Emerald Archer outside of comics. Alex Toth’s model sheets were closely based on the recently revamped Neal Adams costume design, complete with mustache and beard.

Green Arrow is voiced by Aquaman actor Norman Alden, and there’s barely any difference between the performances beyond GA’s exclamations of “By Robin Hood’s beard!” Flash would join the Super Friends in future seasons, and Plastic Man would get his own animated series from Ruby-Spears by decades’ end, but this was comic fans’ only chance to see Green Arrow on TV until Justice League Unlimited and Smallville added the character to their shows in the mid-2000s.

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THE ALL-NEW SUPER FRIENDS HOUR (1977)

After seasons of reruns, Super Friends was revived, albeit in a new format, with new junior heroes, and less emphasis on social issues and morality plays. The shape-changing Wonder Twins, with their space monkey, Gleek, became the new sidekicks. They seemed to have been inspired by the stars of ABC’s hit variety show, Donny & Marie.

In addition to a 22-minute-long segment with all five of the original Super Friends and the kids, this season introduced shorts and interstitial segments, such as safety tips and activities kids could do at home. There were team-ups between the regular heroes, as well as the returning Flash, and other DC stars like Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and the Atom. Rima the Jungle Girl, then published by DC but created by W. H. Hudson for the 1904 novel Green Mansions, was also brought aboard.

New heroes were created to broaden the cultural appeal of the show and were introduced in these team-ups. Often referred to as the “ethnic heroes,” Samurai, Apache Chief and Black Vulcan may seem a bit ham-fisted now, but they were created with good intentions at a time when heroes of color were few and far between on TV. Black Vulcan was a substitute for DC’s recently introduced Black Lightning, as a way to have a similar character, but pay no character participation royalties to creators Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eden.

“The Ghost” (Originally Aired Dec. 10, 1977)

The Super Friends take on an actual villain from the comics, Hawkman foe the Gentleman Ghost, aka Jim Craddock. Unlike his appearances in the comics at the time, there is no question as to whether “Gentleman Jim” (as this episode calls him) is a true ghost. He is revived from his tomb by an underling and sets out to seek revenge against Superman and Wonder Woman who placed him there.

Along the way he not only turns a good chunk of the United Nations council into ghosts, but he also does the same to the Man of Steel and the Amazing Amazon! The sight of the ghostly Superman and Wonder Woman, eyes empty black sockets, their mouths hanging lose, haunting Craddock’s mansion is one that tends to stick with you! Not sure how you become a ghost without dying, but kid-logic plotting aside, this is a spooky episode with a great villain.

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CHALLENGE OF THE SUPER FRIENDS (1978)

For many, the greatest iteration of the series, pitting nearly all the established heroes against their foes from the comics, assembled as the Legion of Doom. Led by Lex Luthor, the team consisted of Brainiac, Bizarro, Toyman, Solomon Grundy, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Giganta, Cheetah, Sinestro, and Black Manta. The stories were much closer in style to the classic Justice League of America comics than the previous seasons, and many elements from those stories made it into the better episodes, as well shall see.

The show ran for an hour, with one segment being the full team vs. the LOD, the other more of the standard five Super Friends with Wonder Twins adventures, carried over from the previous season’s longer segments.

“Attack of the Vampire” (Originally Aired Oct. 14, 1978)

One of the segments with the classic five-hero team, this story sees Dracula wake from a long sleep and nearly turn all of Europe into vampires! Along the way both Superman and the Wonder Twins succumb to the Prince Darkness’ influence.

The Super-Vampire creates a lot of havoc and even more minions before the other heroes figure out a way to reverse the curse. The vampire Superman, clad in shades of gray, with darkened, red eyes looks toward a similar design in the next season, and he’s legitimately frightening. Even more disturbing is the show’s take on Dracula, who has an unsettling, almost asthmatic sound, deeply breathing and gasping between each line delivered in his raspy voice. Since network standards wouldn’t allow bites and blood, the vampires are created by magic dust and laser eyes, but the scenes of common people turned into mindless monsters are no less chilling.

“Secret Origins of the Super Friends” (Originally Aired Oct. 28, 1978)

The Legion of Doom goes back in time to stop the origins of Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern from happening… and they succeed! Erased from history, the other Super Friends forget their teammates, until the Justice League computer points them toward evidence of their existence. They then of course work to set history right. A highlight of this one is seeing the origin of Green Lantern translated into another media for the first time. Lex Luthor takes Abin Sur’s Power Ring instead of Hal Jordan… but rather than wield the most powerful weapon in the universe, he just chucks it. There’s a reason Lex always loses!

“Super Friends: Rest In Peace” (Originally aired Dec. 16, 1978)

This episode begins at Batman’s funeral. No, really! Batman is dead, killed by the Riddler using the deadly element Noxium, created by a one-time Legion of Doom member, Dr. Natas (read that backwards). The Legion of Doom tops that by killing first Wonder Woman and then Superman in similar fashion. The Justice League seemingly turns tail and abandons Earth, but of course the heroes triumph, and reveal the Legion only killed robot duplicates. But the trauma was real for a throng of kids who tuned in to see the three big DC heroes bite the big one on screen, while they were eating their Fruity Pebbles.

“History of Doom” (Originally aired Dec. 23, 1978)

If the death of the Super Friends wasn’t traumatic enough, how about the end of the world? Three alien visitors come to what’s left of a desolate Earth, only to learn via the Hall of Justice memory tapes that the Legion of Doom had destroyed it years earlier by creating a massive solar flare. Intrigued, they comb the files and learn of the origins of Lex Luthor and Giganta, among other things. Lex’s tale is straight out of the classic Silver Age Superboy comics, with Luthor becoming insanely jealous and enraged when the Boy of Steel blows out a fire in his lab, and Lex’s hair falls out as a result. The aliens pull a deus ex machina, undoing the events of the episode, and the Super Friends are none the wiser, in this the final episode of this season.

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THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPER FRIENDS (1979)

This was a short, eight-episode season, mostly consisting of stories which dropped the Super Friends into literary classics and legendary tales. Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz, and Arabian Nights were among the tales adapted. There were two outliers that stuck to a more comic book-approach. One featured the return of Lex Luthor and worked as both a pseudo sequel to The Challenge of the Super Friends, and incorporated elements from 1978’s Superman: The Movie. The other we’ll discuss after our first entry from this incarnation.

“The Lord of Middle Earth” (Originally Aired Oct. 13, 1979)

Super Friends do Tolkien! The Wonder Twins follow a small creature into the very Earth, and find its civilization enslaved by the evil Mal Havoc. The Super Friends intervene, but are transformed into hobb… er, I mean, trolls. To stop the evil sorcerer, the heroes must quest for a magic ring. Sound familiar? Not sure how the Tolkien estate didn’t send a cease and desist on this one, since unlike the other literary subjects, this one was still protected by copyright. But it’s a very fun episode, and Mal Havoc is a legitimately scary villain, looking something like a glam version of Marvel’s Morbius. He was voiced with deep, evil tones by Stanley Ralph Ross, who had played Gorilla Grodd the season before, and wrote for both the Batman and Wonder Woman TV Series, the latter of which he also developed for television.

“Universe of Evil” (Originally Aired Oct. 20, 1979)

This episode begins with shadowy, strangely hued versions of our heroes destroying a hydroelectric dam, and flooding a nearby city! When the lights come on, we see these are not our Super Friends, but a group of Super Enemies! Yes, it’s the evil doppelganger episode, but this was way before it became a trope. Only Star Trek’s “Mirror Mirror” had really gone there before.

Like that episode, there is a swapping of good and evil, with our Superman sent to the aforementioned “Universe of Evil,” and the evil Superman coming to our world to wreak havoc. Highlights are the designs of the Super-Enemies: Batman all in hues of red with longer ears; Robin with goatee and pencil-thin mustache; haggard looking, darker garbed Wonder Woman; Aquaman with an eyepatch; Superman, clad in black instead of blue, with permanent red eyes and Alice Cooper make-up around them!

The Hall of Evil has an image of the devil in the building’s logo, and Superman actually exclaims “Great Satan!” at one point. These guys make their comic book inspirations, Earth-Three’s Crime Syndicate of America, look like a church choir by comparison! The only downside to this exciting adventure is we never got the sequel promised at the end, where Superman returns to that twisted other world with his friends, to free it from their counterparts’ tyranny. Written by prolific Super Friends writer Jeffery Scott, this episode still resonates today, as evidenced by the recent release of action figures of the Super Enemies from both Figures Toy Company and McFarlane Toys.

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SUPER FRIENDS (1980-83)

This version of the series lasted three seasons, but the last one did not air on US television until many years later. The format changed to three, 7-minute shorts each episode, featuring team-ups with various members of the Super Friends. El Dorado joined the team, rounding out the made-for-TV diverse characters.

“The Evil From Krypton” (Originally Aired Oct. 10, 1981)

Superman loses his powers when a satellite beam changes Earth’s sun from yellow to red. Green Lantern and Aquaman help him investigate the cause and find that the satellite launched from Superman’s own Fortress of Solitude! There they find Zi-Kree, an escapee from the Phantom Zone out for revenge.

Aquaman, who rarely got a chance to shine in these later seasons, tricks Zi-Kree into destroying the satellite, therefore restoring Superman’s powers. The two Kryptonians have a pretty violent tussle for the series, and of course Superman sends him back to prison with the Phantom Zone Projector. The real kicker here is Zi-Kree is very clearly based on Terence Stamp’s General Zod from Superman The Movie and Superman II. Why they couldn’t use the Zod name, which originated in the comics, is unknown, but for fans of one of cinema’s greatest villains, this is a real treat.

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SUPER FRIENDS: THE LEGENDARY SUPER POWERS SHOW (1984)

After several years off US airwaves, Super Friends returned to ABC with brand-new episodes, a new hero, and a set of new comic book villains. The title change also referenced the impetus for the show’s return; to tie into the recently launched Kenner toy line, the Super Powers Collection.

Around this time, US broadcast laws changed, allowing children’s programming to be based around established toy lines. Most of the glut of toy-related animated series were in syndication (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Transformers, etc.), with Super Powers being a rare example broadcast on one of the major networks. Many of the talents involved in this and the following season would go on to create later DC animated projects, developing what fans refer to as the DC Animated Universe, or DCAU, which began with Batman: The Animated Series.

“The Bride of Darkseid, Part I & II” (Originally Aired Sept. 8, 1984)

In this season premiere, Firestorm joins the team and becomes the focus for many of the episodes, effectively replacing the Wonder Twins as the audience’s POV character (although the Twins were still around in a few episodes). Jack Kirby’s Darkseid and his minions of Apokolips also make their debut, becoming the primary antagonists on the series and in the toy line, as the Lord of Darkness sought not only to conquer Earth, but to make Wonder Woman his bride.

Live-action Batman actor Adam West took over the voice work on the Caped Crusader, while Olan Soule moved over to be the voice of one-half off Firestorm’s dual alter-ego, Professor Martin Stein.

“Darkseid’s Golden Trap, Part I & II” (Originally aired Oct. 6, 1984)

When a chunk of Gold Kryptonite goes up for auction on the intergalactic black market, both the Super Friends and Darkseid race to acquire it. Darkseid prevails and uses it to rob Superman of his powers for good. Or does he?

Writers Alan Burnett (more on him later) and Jeff Segal comb deep into DC lore and base this episode on a version of Kryptonite well-established but rarely used in the comics. The threat to Superman and therefore his team seems very real, and it seems like Darkseid may actually win this time. The seedy, interplanetary underworld seen here reminds you of the influence of Star Wars, but it helps flesh out the universe these characters inhabit.

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SUPER POWERS TEAM: GALACTIC GUARDIANS (1985)

The final season of the series saw not only the end of the Super Friends title, but a complete redesign of the show, now based on the DC Style Guide work of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (Praised Be His Name). Cyborg joined the team in anticipation of his addition to the action figure line in 1986, which proved to be the final wave of that series as well.

“The Fear” (Originally Aired Oct. 2, 1985)

Written as a pilot for a potential Batman spin-off series by future Batman: The Animated Series writer/producer Alan Burnett, “The Fear” presents Batman’s origin for the first time outside of comics.

Batman is stricken by crippling flashbacks to his parents’ murder when the Scarecrow’s fear transmitter activates in Crime Alley. Amazingly, the creators were able to powerfully suggest the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne without a single image of a gun or the sound of a gunshot. Adam West gets to a voice a traumatized Batman who must fight through his grief to save both Robin and Wonder Woman from his old foe. Surprisingly sophisticated and nuanced for its time, “The Fear” showed how the grimmer version of Batman could be presented in way that was still appropriate for children. For many (including this writer) it’s the single greatest episode of the entire Super Friends/Super Powers run.

“The Death of Superman” (Originally Aired Nov. 5, 1985)

The series goes out on a high note, in this, the final new episode aired. Inspired by the “Imaginary Tale” of the same name penned by Superman’s co-creator Jerry Siegel in the 1960s, this episode in many ways presages the later, more famous “Death of Superman” from the 1992 comics.

On an alien planet, Superman is accidentally killed by exposure to a massive amount of Kryptonite. Firestorm blames himself, while the galaxy mourns the loss of its greatest hero. Darkseid makes his move to finally conquer Earth, but a trip to the Fortress of Solitude to put their friend’s affairs in order gives the other heroes the hint that all may not be lost. Firestorm’s grief is palpable, and the moment when Superman returns (you knew he would) is a real fist-pumper.

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MORE

— Dig These 13 Beautiful Original SUPER FRIENDS Animation Cels. Click here.

— The Secret Origin of the SUPER FRIENDS Comic Book Series. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor Chris Franklin is a graphic designer, illustrator, writer, and podcaster, who co-hosts and produces several shows on the Fire and Water Podcast Network, including JLUCast. Check out his illustrative and design work at chrisfranklincreative.com.

He would like to thank the folks behind the Super Friends Wiki and Will Rodgers, author of The Ultimate Super Friends Companion volumes (with Billie Rae Bates) for the invaluable information they provided.