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by Lore Sjöberg
Green Lantern
At first glance, GL seems like the only Superfriend who's up to
Superman levels of power. He can make anything he wants just
by thinking about it, plus he has a snazzy outfit. But then
there's his weakness: yellow. A primary color, for
God's sake! "Big Bird! You have defeated me once again!"
"Lemon-scented dishwashing liquid! Lo! I am foiled!"
"Marshmallow peeps! Nooooooo!" Nice try. But it's a very
snazzy outfit. C+
Apache Chief
A typical Seventies cultural compromise: "We'll include
multicultural heroes in our cartoon series, but we're
going to give them lame powers. No, I mean really
lame." Thus, we have Apache Chief, ("Oh, and we're going to
give them stupid names, too") who can grow big. And once he
turned into a bear. That's fine for "Tall Tales of the Pioneers,"
but one would hope for something a little more riveting from
the spandex-and-superpower crowd. His saving grace was that
he had a great magic word, which various Internet sources
list as "Inec CHOCH," "Enek-CHUK," or "Noam CHOMSKY." C
Hawkman
Hawkman has a good name and a good look, but when the
Legion of Doom hits town, you have to admit that
he's just basically a guy with wings, and that doesn't
inspire a lot of confidence. Half the
Superfriends can fly already, all of them can do something
else besides, and none of them molt. C-
The Flash
I like the Flash. Granted, Superman has the speed thing down too,
but it's always nice to have a backup speedster. That's really the
problem with expanding the Superfriends; you really start to double
up on the superpower niches. Then you get eight different people
trying to capture the same bad guy, mitigate the same natural disaster,
or convince the same pre-teen not to chew on styrofoam cup edges,
and the natural jealousy and resentment that follows leads to tension
and the inevitable front-page breakup, with several of the team members
trying to re-form under the name "The 'Friends," which in turn leads
to a long drawn-out trademark infringement suit, alienating the
core fanbase, who turn to marijuana and imported porn comics as a means of
dealing with the crushing disappointment of seeing their idols revealed
as flawed human beings like anyone else, and meanwhile Gorilla Grodd
is dancing on the mayor's head and nobody's doing anything about it. So
you see. C+
Black Vulcan
Another from the Great Melting Pot of Lame Powers, Black Vulcan's
power was "Whatever we feel like, as long as we make it look
electric-like." For instance, to fly he turned his lower body into
lightning. I don't see how that would propel you, seeing as your lower body
would then be attracted to the ground or any large grounded metal
objects, but if we start questioning the physics of the Superfriends
we're going to have to start with "Isn't Robin chilly in that get-up?"
and that would take up a four-unit elective class by itself. C
Firestorm
Technically, Firestorm didn't show up until the "Superfriends"
had become "The Super Powers," but his head's on fire, so that
makes up for it. Firestorm could transform substances into other
substances, as long as they weren't organic, so again we're dealing
with someone who has no power to affect many common household
objects like yams and leather checkbook covers. It would have
been much more entertaining if his weakness was limited to organic
produce, because then we could have had episodes with titles like
"Showdown at the Farmer's Market" and "The Legumes of Doom." C+
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