SUPER FRIENDS #17 (1979)
by E. Nelson Bridwell & Ramona Fradon
The Super Friends series occupies a strange spot in the pre-Crisis universe. It’s not strictly part of pre-Crisis continuity, but writer E. Nelson Bridwell tried his hardest to integrate it as much as possible.
Basically what happens in the DC Universe shows up on Super Friends, but what happens on Super Friends has no impact elsewhere.
However, it is somewhat historically significant. For example, Justice League member Fire technically has her first appearance in this series… and it has a connection to the Legion of Super-Heroes.
We begin with the Super Friends investigating the disappearance of the Wonder Twins, as explained by supporting character Not Professor Potter.
Professor Nichols is not just a random character. He’s actually a Golden Age character (he’s from 1944!!!), and is the scientist who sometimes sent Batman into the past with hypnosis.
That’s a deep cut for a 1979 story, but Bridwell tries his hardest to continue integrating the series with DC by dropping a reference to DNA Project, the predecessor of Cadmus that we encountered several times in the Jimmy Olsen retrospective.
There was an explosion at the time machine Not Professor Potter was working on, which sent the Wonder Twins into the past. And the culprit is a familiar face… well if he HAD a face, that is.
Yep! This is why I reviewed Wonder Woman #101, because it turns out Ty M. Master has actually been the Time Trapper all along.
Not only that, but since this is a 1979 story it means that he’s acknowledged as being a Controller as revealed the previous year.
Surprisingly enough the Legion gets namedropped. It’s a bit weird to see Superman acknowledge a Legion story as happening “last year”, since for him it happened back when he used to be Superboy… but he’s right: part of the last Time Trapper story DID take place in 1978.
Wonder Woman asks her mother to tell her where the Wonder Twins are (because I guess Hippolyta can do that), and one of them is on Krypton.
Notice Bridwell’s attention to detail: it’s surprisingly rare for writers to remember that Krypton has an extremely high gravity.
Since both twins ended up in systems with a red sun it means Superman can’t just fly there… but luckily he’s been working on his own time machine.
Why does everyone keep visiting Krypton the day it exploded!? Isn’t there something better to do in other days!?
Well considering what happens when people travel to earlier days, maybe it’s for the best.
Don’t think Bridwell forgot the gravity thing.
He even remembers that Kryptonians don’t speak English!
He’s even referencing Lyla from Superman #141, which is one of the most often refenced Superman stories of the entire Silver Age.
I wonder about the circumstances of Superman talking about her to Wonder Woman, but at this point I’m convinced he’s talked about Lyla to EVERYONE since she’s brought up so often.
There’s an extremely minor retcon regarding her last name, which was originally spelled Lerrol but is now Ler-Rol in accordance to the Kryptonian naming conventions we’ve learned since then.
She’s remarkably chill when learning the planet is about to explode within the hour. Just imagine how she would react if she learned that she’s already banged Jor-El’s son.
Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine!
Saving Superman’s parents is out of the question since, in pre-Crisis times, you couldn’t change history. But since we don’t actually know what happened to Lyla, the possibility of bringing her to the present is not entirely out of the question.
That’s not the last dip into continuity, because Bridwell also reminds us that Mon-El visited Krypton once.
The fact that Mon-El just left Krypton also checks out. I’m trying to find any minor mistake made by Bridwell, but he’s REALLY done his homework.
The Kryptonians don’t come off very well from this story, from their very xenophobic reaction to their trigger-happiness.
They’re also the sole reason Lyla doesn’t leave the planet. Because I guess FOUR superheroes couldn’t escape without the help of an actress. (WTF!?)
RIP, Lyla. Despite not having a lot of screen time, you were an awesome character.
So that’s one of the Wonder Twins saved. The other one is in the future, on a random planet guarded by water monsters.
Zan can turn into water, so you would expect the resolution would have something to do with that… but nope! The fact that Aquaman’s wife Mera is from another dimension is more useful.
SOMEHOW.
In case you’ve never seen an episode of Super Friends (LUCKY YOU), Zan had a rotten deal: while his sister can turn into any animal, he can just transform into water… which often meant he was completely and utterly useless.
And even here he can’t catch a break!
But even if the ship can’t fly anymore, it can still travel through time. Which Superman uses to go SO far into the future that the red star collapses into a white dwarf star!!!
That’s great stuff! But unfortunately, out off all the things to reference, there’s a shout-out to the absolutely idiotic idea that EVERY SINGLE ALIEN gets superpowers under a white star!!!
Yep. This has precedents in Jimmy Olsen #25 and Jimmy Olsen #39.
Was it REALLY necessary to drop a reference to the issue where we learn English is the most efficient language in the universe!?
The Super Friends take the Wonder Twins back to the present, but there’s still the matter of fighting the Time Trapper. Superman could ask the Legion to help… but instead we’re going to fix this with hypnotism!
Well that never made ANY sense, so why start now?
And that’s were we’re going to stop for now. Next time we’ll see the Time Trapper fight the Super Friends… kind of.
Historical significance: 0/10
Like I said this is not technically in continuity. I wouldn’t really want the Time Trapper to be the goofy character from Wonder Woman #101, though the Time Trapper has been ridiculous before. But the thought of Time Trapper’s first appearance being in 1958 is fascinating!
Not just because it would predate his first actual appearance by six years… but if we take at face value his origin as a Controller, he would ALSO predate the Controllers by nine years.
If THAT is not enough of a Time Trapper thing… the Controllers will eventually be revealed to be an offshoot of the Guardians Of The Universe from Green Lantern… and THOSE guys didn’t show up until 1960, making Time Trapper predate not only himself but his own two retcons!!!
Legion significance: 0/10
Silver Age-ness: 7/10
Despite the idiotic inclusion of the time traveling hypnotism and alien suns giving everyone superpowers, the efforts to make all the little details work means the score is somewhat lessened.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Wow, that was A LOT of continuity. Bridwell obviously put a tremendous amount of work into this, and it works surprisingly well!
It’s a very uneven story… it’s obvious way more effort went into the rescue of Jayna than the rescue of Zan, plus both Wonder Twins don’t get to do much of anything.
People visiting Krypton just before it explodes has been done to death, but this is one of the times it’s put to good use.