Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Justice League Week: Legends of the Superheroes (1979)

Sometimes, you have to take the good with the bad.

A few years ago, I was able to acquire a VHS tape that collected both halves of a 2-part miniseries, Legends of the Superheroes, which, for some strange reason, ended up on then-moribound NBC, instead of ABC, home of Super Friends. The biggest lure was the reunion of Batman co-stars Adam West & Burt Ward in live-action (they'd initially reunited in The New Adventures of Batman 2 years earlier) and Emmy winner Frank Gorshin, reprising as Riddler for the first time in 11 years.

This was the intro to the first half, "The Challenge":



Sure, the special effects were cheesy, and while Hanna-Barbera had dabbled in live action over the previous five years (i.e. Korg: 70,000 B. C.), their SFX were Krofft-level bad. The supporting cast included Charlie Callas (ex-Switch) as Sinestro, William Schallert as the Scarlet Cyclone, aka Retired Man, posited perhaps as an analogue for the Golden Age Flash, and Jeff Altman as Weather Wizard. Alfie Wise (ex-Uncle Croc's Block) turned up in "The Roast" as Atom. Character actor Mickey Morton had the thankless task of portraying Solomon Grundy as being about as intelligent as the Incredible Hulk, which at the time wasn't much.

Not long ago, Warner Bros. decided to release this on DVD, probably through their MOD (Manufactured on Demand) service. You'd only want to taunt your friends. I'm surprised this hasn't shown up on [adult swim] after all this time......

Rating: D.

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