Super Friends: Saturday Morning Comics Volume 1

I have been waiting years for this volume and finally it has arrived. I remember rushing down the newsagents and collecting this comic on a Saturday morning. Funnily, I never saw the cartoon of this comic until I was an adult as we didn't always get all the animated stuff in the UK. So, I loved this series as a kid which was aimed at young readers and I have always had a little piece of my heart for The Super Friends comics. Volume one goes up to no.26 and volume 2 is scheduled at the end of 2020. Again, this is one of those nostalgic collections that will transport you back. This is a light-hearted series with great villains and heroes (e.g. Seraph from Isreal, Godiva from England. Rising Sun from Japan and Doctor Mist). Plus, there are cameos from JLA regulars, Red Tornado, Green Arrow and Atom to name a few. An excellent addition to any comic book collection.

The material is fantastic and finally all collected in 2 volumes, but I do wish DC would stop using these excessively hard cover spines that make it impossible to fully open and enjoyably read the pages of the book. Every Superfriends comic from the series (1 to 47) and material from the Tabloid are all reprinted in Vol 1-2 of this edition, well worth it for anyone trying to fill their gaps. I had a third of them already, but couldn't find or afford the missing issues.

The Super Friends cartoon was a part of my childhood growing up, and when the comics came out I loved them. Now they are collected and for the first time in decades I've gotten to sit down and read them again. These stories are relatively simple to follow but aren't just for children. Besides our usual Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Robin, we are joined in these stories by the famous (Hawkman, Green Arrow, the Atom) and the not-so-famous (Tazmanian Devil, Olympian, Bushmaster). They face villains you've heard of along with many you only saw in these pages. Wendy, Marvin, and Wonderdog are the sidekicks at the beginning for the first few issues, and then the Wonder Twins show up for the remainder of the run.Many stories are single-issue tales, but there are a number of them that cross over into two and three-part stories. The thing I love about these is they capture the essence of the old cartoon. They are overall fun stories that were just meant to entertain without a lot of violence or controversy. It's a beautiful collection that's been reprinted with vibrant colors and strong page stock. Looking forward to volume 2!

I've waited for this series to be reprinted and collective for a long time, so it's really disappointing to discover there are 17 pages missing! The page numbers jumps from page 384 to 401! The story from issue #21 cuts off and jumps 6 pages into issue 22! Other than the missing pages this is a beautiful volume, and issue #14 includes the back-up story from the print issue that was inexplicably removed from the digital version of the issue recently released on Comixology.UPDATEI'm returning the defective volume to Amazon and the replacement copy arrived today with all pages intact, so I've upgraded my review. If you enjoyed the Saturday morning cartoons or this comic series back in the day, this volume is an excellent collection. The bulk of the art is by Ramona Fradon and her style was perfect for this series.

Super Friends has to be one of the first comics I ever got new off the rack. I only owned three issues, but I confess that even my very young self wasn’t particularly impressed. The series started between the first and second season of the Super Friends television series and featured Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog, who were introduced in the cartoon. The three would be replaced in season two by the Wonder Twins and they made their first appearance in issue 7 of the comic with a bit more backstory. Unlike the cartoon, there was an overlap between the Wonder Twins and their predecessors, and they shared space for four issues before Wendy and Marvin left for college, having completed their superhero training.The original Super Friends only consisted of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, Aquaman and the kids. Any of the other heroes like The Flash or Green Lantern were considered part of the Justice League. I didn’t recall that the first season of the Super Friends does reference the Justice League, but the comic makes it very explicit that they are two separate groups. It’s explained that the Hall of Justice is used for training young people who want to make crime fighting their career. This is rather weird since the only young people are Marvin and Wendy and later the Wonder Twins so apparently the Super Friends raison d’etre is to train these youngsters. It was probably better for the television show not to get into the details of why the Super Friends even exist.I always imagined the Super Friends cartoon existed in a universe all its own, but the comic makes it very clear that it is part of the greater DCU. Not only does it reference the Freedom Fighters, Blackhawks, Plastic Man and Superman Revenge Squad but even specific storylines going on at the time in other comics. As the series went on, it felt less and less like a Super Friends comic and more like a Justice League comic as it continued to use heroes outside of the core 5. I don’t think that it helped the comic that it was losing its distinctiveness as it seemed more like the JLA light. It felt more like an anachronism of comics from the 60’s rather than an emulation of the animated show of the 70’s.The stories are rather hit and miss and don’t have the same nostalgia value for me as the Shazam comics from the early 70’s. It lacks some of the kitsch appeal. There are some decent stories and it was interesting how Bridwell tried to flesh out the powers of the Wonder Twins. In one story, Jayna tries to change to an elephant seal but gets it all wrong because she doesn’t know what one looks like which opens up all sorts of new questions about her powers. I’d give this one a 3 for the material and a 5 for the presentation.