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.

I, too, loved this show because for the first time, the characters on this series were far more realistic than any series previously made of this genre. All too often, cartoons of this nature tended to be far too one-dimensional to be truly entertaining. The plots and scripts from action cartoons of this genre from the 60's and 70's had virtually effort put into them by the writers. The D.C and Marvel-based cartoons from those earlier eras were really nothing more than carbon-copies of other similar shows from the Saturday morning lineups. Shows such as "The Herculoids", "Space Ghost", "The Avengers", and others were entertaining to a degree, but they all had one thing in common- they lacked realistic and good character-driven plots that could keep viewers interested from week to week. It was a pleasant surprise to many of us to see this trend slowly end with the newest incarnations of the Justice League in the late 70's and 80's. For the first time, the "Galactic Guardians" shows in 1985 were a refreshing change from what we were used to seeing from the standard fare Saturday morning shows in the 1960's and 70's. The characters were not nearly as one-dimensional, and the plots actually had some thought put behind them. For cartoon lovers like myself, it was a time to finally rejoice in watching superheroes in a cartoon that actually were "human", and had something of substance that we could, and would, want to relate to. The other thing that needs to be said, is the work of outstanding voice-over legends in the business like Michael Bell, Michael Rye, Danny Dark, and others that were the best at what they did. Without great voice talents like those, no cartoon can truly be successful and "legendary" like this one is.

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.

This was an even better season, with improved art and animation. With the introduction of Cyborg to the TV, the stories seemed to improve both in characterization and plot. For Batman, it became less about the utility belts and more about the man. For Wonder Woman, she finally got to flex her muscles (I think she did last season, too.).And some of the stories were risque for the time, most notably in "The Fear," which retold Batman's origin and the murder of his parents (The writer of this and the Fox/WB Batman series says he can't believe TPTB let him do it), and "The Death of Superman."Why they let this series end after one season is beyond me. I truly loved this show and I'm glad Cartoon Network has been rerunning them, even if they *are* on the thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.