Of all the bad shows I loved as a kid, none were dearer to my heart than Superfriends. It was where I learned to loved Green Lantern, he of the cool costume and even cooler power ring. Nowadays, I recognize it as very schlocky, basically thrown together because folks figured any bright lights and weird noises could keep school-aged children entertained.

In my case, they were right.

Looking back at Superfriends, it’s like McDonald’s food: terrible, but I still get a craving for it every now and then. Thus, I am happy to share my thoughts and commentary about certain episodes, beginning with my favorite Superfriend Green Lantern taking on Sirena, the so-called Empress of Evil.

The Yellow Impurity…that Never Comes Up

“Sirena, Empress of Evil” opens with the titular villain, the evil green-skinned queen of the planet Sargasso. Her minions are yellow bat-like creatures that you might expect to cause trouble for Green Lantern because his ring is ineffective against the color yellow. You’d think that he’d be quiet about his one weakness, yet he often talks aloud about his powerlessness against the color. It makes me wonder why the bad guys just don’t assault him with a spray can or a crate of bananas.

Regardless, the creative team seems to have forgotten about the weakness for this episode, because Green Lantern repeatedly uses his ring’s beams to directly affect his yellow foes. It’s like that episode where Superman wasn’t weakened by kryptonite, except that episode never happened because everyone remembers Superman’s weakness. Green Lantern’s vulnerability to part of the color spectrum, on the other hand, is so silly that folks just pretend it doesn’t exist.

Introducing Kairo

Sirena’s evil plan is to capture incoming space ships with some sort of weird ray in an attempt to lure the Green Lantern into her trap. I don’t know why she’s going after Green Lantern alone, since beating him would undoubtedly draw the attention of Superman, the Flash, Batman, and the rest of the Superfriends. But whatever. Her plan actually works, because she brings down a ship carrying Kairo, the Green Lantern’s Venusian sidekick.

What…you’ve never heard of Kairo?

Well, prior to this cartoon, neither had I. That’s because Kairo never showed up in any comics. He’s presumably a replacement for Tom Kalmaku, Hal’s Inuit mechanic who was unfortunately called “Pieface” in the comics. I presume that having a character with that nickname made the creative team hesitant to use him in the cartoon, so rather than simply call him “Tom” someone thought it would be easier to give Hal Jordan a blue-skinned alien who serves as his mechanic and who also rides Green Lantern like a pony.

I don’t know why Green Lantern tries to keep his secret identity as Hal Jordan while keeping a blue-skinned alien as a sidekick, but no one seems to suspect anything. People in comic land are dumb.

Hal is in communication with Kairo as the Venusian’s experimental spacecraft spins ouf of control and crashes on the surface of Sargasso. He immediately runs outside, exclaims, “No time to recharge my power ring!,” and recites the last half of his Green Lantern’s oath. Now, to recharge the ring all GL has to do is recite one more sentence while holding his ring in front of his green lantern. But there’s no time! No time for a few extra words while preparing for an intergalactic journey that could mean life or death!

Sirena’s Stupid, Stupid Plan

Up until now, things have been illogical but not outright dumb. Then the story takes a swerve into true zaniness. Kairo escapes Sirena’s clutches. How? We don’t get to know; he slips away off-screen and is ready to help Green Lantern as he arrives.

Sirena doesn’t care about Kairo, because she’s sure her plan will draw Green Lantern to her. It does actually work, but it’s pretty sad that her “brilliant” scheme relied on one person millions of miles away noticing what was going on instead of being occupied with another disaster…especially since many ships have crashed on Sargasso without Green Lantern batting an eye.

Green Lantern arrives on Sargasso and immediately finds Kairo…which is a pretty big coincidence considering that it’s an entire planet and he happens to land in the one place where his sidekick is hiding. What’s more, Kairo has found a satellite dish that is conveniently within view and is instantly identified as the thing that’s been pulling down all those ships. That damned Venusian must be some sort of rocket scientist.

So Green Lantern melts the dish. He could do it in any number of ways, but he chooses to zap it with a green energy beam. Oh yay…that’s fun. He could have created a massive green Godzilla to melt it with radioactive breath, but instead goes with a boring old laser beam. At least he’s being efficient.

Sirena of course instantly knows that GL is on the planet, despite the fact that she’s sitting her ass on her throne. “Only Green Lantern could have destroyed my electronamagna wave apparatus.” Oh yeah…Green Lantern or a guy with a flame thrower! Sirena goes up to the window and reveals her devious little plot to capture Green Lantern. She has a special device attuned to GL’s brainwaves that will locate the hero. Then she sends a red bird out after GL. All this time, GL is hanging around with Kairo, apparently patting himself on the back for a job well done. Then the bird flies up and smacks him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious.

Let me review…the villainess’ evil plan is to have a bird hit the hero in the back of the head. Her goons then drag GL away. Meanwhile, Sirena yells for them to take his ring. That’s right, she yells. GL was right outside her window. She could have thrown a frikkin’ rock and beaned him, but no, she had to use a special ray attuned to his brainwaves. But you can’t argue with results, I guess.

Seizing Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Now, you’d think that Sirena would want to shackle Green Lantern or at least restrain him, but she doesn’t. Instead she leaves him in a room with two guards and leaves his power ring lying on the table in front of him.

Come on, Sirena! The ring is the source of all his power!!! Forget the fact that she doesn’t take the nigh-unstoppable ring for her own evil designs, but she leaves it on the table in front of him!!! An he’s completely unhindered the whole time! Then she goes off to face off against the Guardians of the Universe.

For those who don’t know, the Guardians are the ones who give the Green Lanterns their power. That’s right, their power. There are 3,600 Green Lanterns in the universe. So she’s gloating about how the Guardians are defenseless, conveniently forgetting that there are 3,599 other loyal defenders, each equipped with an all-powerful ring of their own.

All this while, Kairo wanders around wondering how to save his boss. One of the Guardians shows up to tell Kairo where Green Lantern and his ring are. Once again, the ring is in the same room!!! And apparently the castle is incredibly poorly guarded, because besides the two people in the room with GL and the ring, there’s no one else around to stop Kairo from sneaking up the wall.

But the window is too small for him, so he sends in the bird that KOed GL in the first place. That’s right, this is the most disloyal evil alien knockout bird ever. Or maybe he’s realized how dumb his original master is and wants to switch sides. At Kairo’s bidding, he slips into the castle and attacks the guards, knocking one of them out and allowing Green Lantern to pick up his ring. Once again, the ring is right in front of him! He calls the bird by name, implying that he already knows the bird. So apparently it’s all an elaborate sham. The crazy alien knockout bird is a double agent.

Now free to save the day, Green Lantern flies off to Oa with Kairo and knocks out Sirena’s minions with green boxing gloves. He doesn’t exactly have to work hard to do it, because wave after wave of the alien baddies fly right into the boxing gloves and get knocked out. Then Green lantern wraps them up into a massive ball of bodies for some reason. I guess he cares about efficiency or something.

Green Lantern sends Kairo away to release all the prisoners and return to Earth in the test ship…the test ship that crashed into the planet!!! Apparently Hal Jordan is such a fearless test pilot that he likes to hop in busted ships and fly through the vacuum of space in them. Or, at least, he enjoys having others do that in his stead.

Green Lantern goes after Sirena alone, and she is surprised that he escaped. For some reason it doesn’t occur to her that she should have fettered him, killed him, or at least not left his ring in the same room as him. Since the color yellow apparently doesn’t affect Green Lantern’s power in this cartoon, he easily overcomes Sirena and her foes. Sirena screams in fear as Green Lantern carts her away to the planet Oa and the Guardians of the Universe, where she was going anyway. The Guardians sentence Sirena to galactic confinement. Hopefully she’ll be locked away better than Green Lantern was.

Back on Earth, Green Lantern lets Kairo keep the treacherous bird, saying that he’ll make “a fine mascot.” Hopefully his days of knocking out Green Lantern by hitting him in the back of the head are over.

As a kid, I watched this nonsensical mess and said, “More!” As an adult…well, I can see how nonsensical it is, but I still want more. And that’s why I’m going to spend more time in the future making fun of Superfriends.

_{Images: Hanna-Barbera}