I first saw “Sirena, Empress of Evil” as an adult with an adult’s sensibilities. “Evil is as Evil Does,” however, is a Green Lantern episode of Superfriends that I watched and liked as a kid.

What I remember from watching this as a kid: being super excited to finally see Green Lantern get a solo adventure, seeing him face off against another energy-slinging villain named Evil Star, and being generally jazzed about the short but sweet battle between the two foes.

What did I get upon re-watching this as an adult? Read on to find out.

Villain of the Week

Our story begins on the planet Oa, at the “center of the universe.” The Guardians of the Universe are troubled, says the narrator.

The source of their troubles? The “interplanetary lord of crime,” Evil Star.

Yes, that’s right, Evil Star. You see, in the 1970s, bad guys couldn’t afford cool names. This one looked up at the night sky and said, “I shall become a star…but evil.”

Evil Star’s wicked scheme? Basically a flexing contest between himself and Green Lantern. He wants to show how powerful his star bands are. To demonstrate his power to everyone on Earth, he attacks the Green Lantern’s home.

There are a couple of things wrong here. First of all, since Evil Star flies right down toward Hal Jordan’s house, it demonstrates that he knows the Green Lantern’s secret identity. Maybe it’s because Hal has a freakin’ blue-skinned alien living with him that helps him fly planes. The other problem is that there are no people around. Now maybe Evil Star’s plan is to kill the Green Lantern and drag his corpse into some news station, but usually if you’re going to give a display of your might to the people of Earth, you want to do it, you know, in front of the people of Earth.

The Punch Clock Hero

After a quick laser fight between Evil Star and the Green Lantern, GL zaps his foe with a big green boxing glove. This infuriates Evil Star, even though it seems that he didn’t sustain any serious damage from the blow. (The Green Lantern must add green padding to the inside of the glove so as to keep the damage nonlethal.) He vows revenge on the Guardians of the Universe, and then the scene cuts abruptly to GL and Kairo back in his house. Apparently, rather than drag the villain straight to prison after he’s beaten him, Hal is a real sport and would rather let the bad guy go after the most powerful beings in the universe.

Now, I mentioned this in my last rant, but here’s how the Green Lantern charges his ring. He sticks it in front of his power battery (a green…lantern…) and concentrates, usually reciting his oath. When he charged his ring before fighting Evil Star, he said, “Let those who worship evil’s might beware my power…Green Lantern’s light!” That’s the last half of the oath, which implies that the ring was charged right before the battle against Evil Star. I don’t know if he’s worried that the thirty seconds or so that he beat on Evil Star might come back to bite him or not, but if he’s planning a trip to the center of the universe, I don’t think that an extra minute or so on the 24-hour charge is going to make a difference.

But wait…the power battery dies out while GL is charging his ring! Luckily, Kairo has the perfect solution…he hits it. That’s right, he gives this arcane source of energy, one that has existed for thousands of years and that taps into the collected willpower of all the beings in the universe, a single hit and it works again like it’s some busted radio. But it’s still flickering…which means that Evil Star is already on Oa!

How fast can that guy travel? Either he just went from being on Earth to being in the center of the universe within a few minutes, or the Green Lantern spent like a week sitting around before recharging his ring. Either way, Hal and Kairo zip off to Oa. Hal could create a green spaceship or something, but instead relies on a green tube through which he flies while Kairo rides him piggyback style like the Green Lantern is a pet pony.

The Very Brief Battle for Oa

Meanwhile, on Oa, Evil Star creates a big ol’ smog cloud over the great hall. “That should take care of Green Lantern!” he smugly says. Um…sure. Sure, the hero will look at the smog cloud, which by the way covers only the building that you are in, and scratch his head wondering where oh where the dastardly Evil Star went. Or maybe he’ll just remember that you specifically said you were going after the Guardians of the Universe. By the way dumbass, the Guardians happen to be some of the most powerful beings in existence. You know those Green Lantern rings? Yeah, they created those. It’s a really great idea to go after the oldest and most powerful beings in the universe on their home turf after one of their 3600 minions kicked your sorry ass a few minutes ago.

But hey, he can’t be all that dumb. The Guardians act all surprised that he’s there, despite warning Hal Jordan that he was free. Then he starts turning them to stone, I guess, until GL pops through the wall with a comical “boing!”

No, seriously, he does.

Evil Star is promptly snags Hal’s power ring, rendering him useless. Of course, here he commits a classic villain blunder. When the most powerful weapon in the universe is in your hands, you use the damned thing. Instead, he gloats while holding the ring in the tips of his fingers, allowing Cairo, who comes out of nowhere, to jump on him and knock the ring back to Hal. Once again, Evil Star gets his face pounded by a green boxing glove. So he resorts to Plan C: he’s going to fly around and keep GL busy for 24 hours, after which the ring will lose its charge and become useless. A brilliant idea, except that he’s already gotten his ass handed to him twice in two fights that lasted less than thirty seconds. But third time’s the charm, right?

You’ve got to hand it to Evil Star, he’s a clever one. Oh no, wait…clever isn’t the word I was looking for. In his attempts to keep Hal busy, he creates a cloud of…I dunno, looks like fire or something. Except that the cloud is maybe three feet square and Hal easily flies over it. That’s like throwing one tack behind you and hoping a car runs over it and goes off the road. Evil Star has a couple more tricks up his sleeve (well, one really), but is ultimately foiled when Green Lantern uses his ring to snag his wrist and drag him back to jail. Once again, the fight lasted less than 30 seconds, and Evil Star is proven to be one of the worst villains of all time.

It’s funny how my childhood brain was so simply appeased. Evil Star posed no threat to the Green Lantern at any point, but I wasn’t there for drama. I was there to watch a guy do cool things with his magic ring. Of course, even there I should have been disappointed, because Hal almost never does anything beyond green rays and boxing gloves. But the implication that he could do more was apparently enough to get my imagination racing.

I can’t say I’m much more complex now, of course. Deadpool and Wolverine had me enthralled with a staff-swinging cajun and a masked Hugh Jackman jumping out of a bus. I guess the main thing that’s changed is that my tastes require a higher budget these days.

_{Images: Hanna-Barbera}