Super Friends Appreciation thread:

[DrNewGod]

DC Direct had also launched a line of Super Friends figures, very faithful to the Toth model-sheets.
Sadly they never finished the line.




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Ramdom:


LOL! Fantastic.

That is Amazing Beyond Words!

[CellarDweller]

DC Universe action figures....not all officially "Super Friends" figures, but the line up is pretty complete.




1st: Robin, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman
2nd: Flash, Wonder Twins, Green Lantern
3rd: Rima the Jungle Girl, Samauri, El Dorado, Black Vulcan, Apache Chief
4th: Hawkman, Atom, Cyborg, Hawkgirl, Firestorm

[liwanag]

DC Universe action figures....not all officially "Super Friends" figures, but the line up is pretty complete.




1st: Robin, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman
2nd: Flash, Wonder Twins, Green Lantern
3rd: Rima the Jungle Girl, Samauri, El Dorado, Black Vulcan, Apache Chief
4th: Hawkman, Atom, Cyborg, Hawkgirl, Firestorm

nice collection. did they have villains for this line?

[Güicho]

nice collection. did they have villains for this line?

Yes, with more than enough to complete the 13 Legion of Doom
Here is a great archive of the DCUClassics line - https://www.joeacevedo.com/docs/figu...cuclassics.htm
(not my collection^)

Random fan art:

[liwanag]

Yes, more than enough to complete the 13 Legion of Doom

cool. the villains even have 3 big figures compared to just one apache chief.

[caj]

Other than Wonder Woman, what other female heroes would you have included in Super Friends (remembering they would have had to be created by the 1970s)

I definitely vote for Black Canary and Hawkgirl

[Güicho]

Other than Wonder Woman, what other female heroes would you have included in Super Friends (remembering they would have had to be created by the 1970s)

I definitely vote for Black Canary and Hawkgirl

Hawkgirl did appear in a few episodes.






Alex Toth model sheet:


As far as more female characters, always thought Rima was an odd choice, although she did have a DC comic (1974-75) at the time, Black Canary(joined JL 1969), and Zatanna(joined JL 1978) would have made more sense.

[MajorHoy]

. . . As far as more female characters, always thought Rima was an odd choice, although she did have a DC comic (1974) at the time, Black Canary(joined JL 1969), and Zatanna(joined JL 1978) would have made more sense.

Can't speak to the cartoon series, but they did use Black Canary, Supergirl, Mera, and Nubia in a few of the comic book stories.

[MajorHoy]

Can't speak to the cartoon series, but they did use Black Canary, Supergirl, Mera, and Nubia in a few of the comic book stories.

Oh, and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) had been seen in an issue, too!

[CellarDweller]

Hawkgirl did appear in a few episodes.

Correct!

She appeared in about 5, always with Hawkman.

Space Emergency with Wonder Woman

Time Rescue with Superman

The Incredible Crude Oil Monster with Aquaman

Revenge of Bizarro with Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman & Robin

An Unexpected Treasure with the Wonder Twins

[Dr. Poison]

Hawkgirl did appear in a few episodes.






Alex Toth model sheet:


As far as more female characters, always thought Rima was an odd choice, although she did have a DC comic (1974) at the time, Black Canary(joined JL 1969), and Zatanna(joined JL 1978) would have made more sense.

A person with close ties to the show told me they were originally planning on using Black Canary but decided to go with Rima for diversity. Why they didn't just use both is beyond me.

[Güicho]

A person with close ties to the show told me they were originally planning on using Black Canary but decided to go with Rima for diversity. Why they didn't just use both is beyond me.

Yeah, hindsight, it's hard to project backwards what they were looking at, while at the time Canary would have definitely been prominent in the JL and makes sense to us. As far as most prominent female characters, If you look at the comics they had on the stands at the time, WW was the only female with her own comic, I think runs on Supergirl, and Lois Lane had just ended and Canary never had her own book, the only other female with her own recent book on the stands had been Rima, so she probably really stood out to them at the time. While to us now she's near insignificant.

Later the only females with their own books was Isis who was created licensed from Filmation for TV, and DC had just launched a character called Starfire . Even more obscure.
As far as diversity, yeah adding more than one female would have been the way to go.
Their intent was to have the JL cast better reflect their audience (something DC has yet to achieve) Besides Black Lightning, who DC ( didn't want to pay Tony Isabella) convinced HB to just create their own, , DC didn't have (or bother to create) a single prominent Asian, Latino or Native American character to stand with the JL, so HB just awkwardly created their own on the spot.

Interesting (assuming this is legit), apparently what would become El Dorado started more with a Jaguar looking theme, which is actually pretty cool- https://www.worthpoint.com/worthoped...nal-1860159547


Edit:

Also Samurai had some wicked looking facial hair channeling a more gritty Mifune like Samurai.


And Vulcan had a slightly different color scheme

[Dr. Poison]

Thanks for sharing this early El Dorado design!

I wonder why the Super Friends creative team didn't consider using Vixen or any of the Global Guardians?

[MajorHoy]

. . . As far as most prominent female characters, If you look at the comics they had on the stands at the time, WW was the only female with her own comic, I think runs on Supergirl, and Lois Lane had just ended . . .

For the record, the last issue of Supergirl was #10 (cover-dated September-October 1974) and for Lois Lane it was #137 (same cover-date).
Those two went on to be one of three rotating lead features in The Superman Family (which continued the numbering after Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #163).

Jimmy Olsen was the new lead feature for issue #164 (April-May 1974) while Supergirl and Lois had reprinted stories for that issue.

#165 (June-July 1974) had a new Supergirl story while Jimmy and Lois were featured in reprints.


#166 (August-September 1974) had Lois in a new story and the Jimmy and Supergirl stories were reprints.


That set-up continued until 1977 with issue #182, when the book changed to all new stories for all the features.

[MajorHoy]

Oh, and from DC's Limited Collectors' Edition Issue #C-41 (December 1975 - January 1976), which featured Alex Toth art for the new framing sequences, . . .