The BEST episodes of Challenge of the Super Friends
Every episode of Challenge of the Super Friends ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Challenge of the Super Friends!
Banded together from remote galaxies, 13 of the most sinister villains of all time - the Legion of Doom! Dedicated to a single object, the conquest of the universe! Only one group dares to challenge this inter-galactic threat - The SuperFriends! Challenge is a sequel to the two earlier Super Friends shows. It drops Zan and Jayna from the previous incarnation and makes several "guest stars" full members of the Justice League, giving us a membership of Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, Hawkman, Flash, Green Lantern, Black Vulcan, Samurai, and Apache Chief. Pitted against them are some real villains - the Legion of Doom: 13 of the most powerful supervillains from "remote galaxies" (well, 12 + Black Manta... :) ). Who are they? Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Solomon Grundy, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Bizarro, Cheetah, Black Manta, Giganta, Gorilla Grodd, Sinestro, Captain Cold, and the Toyman. Okay, everyone but Brainiac, Sinestro, and Bizarro was from Earth (most of the ga
#1 - Sinbad and the Space Pirates
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 9/30/1978
Traveling from space, three pirate ships make their way towards Earth. When Captain Sinbad and his Space Pirate crew reach Earth they start stealing treasures from South America. After receiving a message on the Justice League Trouble Alert, Superman and Wonder Woman confronts Captain Sinbad and his Space Pirate crew.
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#2 - Invasion of the Fearians
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/16/1978
Captain Cold strikes a deal with the Fearinans that involve tricking the Super Friends into converting Earth's climate to something closer to Venus'. In return the Fearians take on the Super Friends. They suceed in trapping the Super Friends but Green Lantern tricks them into dropping the field by making himself and his comrades invisible.
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#3 - The World's Deadliest Game
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 9/23/1978
The Legion lure Wonder Woman, Black Vulcan, and Hawkman away from Earth by cloaking it and get them to the Toyman's artificial planet within a black hole. While they try and avoid the Toyman's deadly games, the Legion has the Riddler lure the Super Friends to a deathtrap in the Grand Canyon, then to a planet in Orion's belt where a tribe of women try to petrify them. The Riddler's last clue leads them to the black hole planet which is about ready to close for good. Green Lantern and Superman combine their powers to escape and return to Earth where the Legion is collecting a ransom on the missing Super Friends, but the Legion escapes thanks to the cloaking device.
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#4 - The Demons of Exxor
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/16/1978
The Wonder Twins agree to help Exxor defeat Darkon, a conqueror who has taken over Exxor and made its inhabitants his slaves. With the Wonder Twins captured by Darkon, Batman & Robin must free the twin heroes as the other Super Friends tackle Darkon and his troopers.
#5 - Battle at the Earth's Core
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 9/23/1978
While sailing with Captain Pierre Marcel, the Wonder Twins and Gleek get sucked in a whirlpool. After receiving a distress call from the Wonder Twins, the rest of the Super Friends search for the twins only to get pulled in the whirlpool themselves. They emerge in a Wonder Land that is below the Earth’s crust. The Super Friends must now search for the Wonder Twins and rescue them
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#6 - Wanted: The Superfriends
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/9/1978
Lex Luthor uses a dream machine to control the unconscious minds of the Superfriends and make them commit crimes. Not knowing of Lex's influence, the heroes surrender themselves to the authorities. Bizarro and Cheetah have taken the place of the police and paralyze them and send them toward the Sun. Given free rein, the Legion takes over the Hall of Justice and use the Justice League satellite to transform all of Earth's inhabitants into duplicates of Bizarro and Cheetah to steal for them. The SuperFriends escape the trap when Superman spots a meteor and Wonder Woman telepathically controls her lasso to direct the cell's paralysis projector into the meteor's path. While the SuperFriends try to thwart the worldwide crime spree, Batman and Robin try to figure out how to reverse the transformation but are sent off a cliff by Bizarro-Alfred. They manage to escape at the last minute and finish their computations and reverse the polarity of the satellite and untransform everyone. They ambush
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#7 - Rokan: Enemy from Space
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/9/1978
From the edge of the Milky Way, a winged creature named Rokan speeds toward Earth. Superman confronts the beast and realizes it’s Rokan, a beast from Krypton which was thought to be extinct and since Rokan is from Krypton she has the exact same powers as Superman. Escaping, the creature wreaks Havoc on Earth. The Super Friends attempt stop to stop Rokan by chasing her and her babies away with Kryptonite.
#8 - The Time Trap
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 9/30/1978
The Legion use Grodd's new time-travel device to loot the past and trap the Super Friends in 70 million BC (Black Manta and Giganta vs. Aquaman and Apache Chief), Arthurian England in 500 A.D. (Sinestro and Captain Cold vs. Green Lantern and Samurai), and Ancient Rome (Solomon Grundy and Gorilla Grodd vs. Batman and Robin). Aquaman buries his communicator in the past on the site of the Great Hall of Justice to activate it in the present and contact the Super Friends, and Superman breaks the time barrier to rescue them and then travels through time with a geiger counter to locate the other missing heroes. Then the Super Friends confront the Legion at Sutter's Mill in 1848 where they are planning a gold heist. The heroes easily defeat the villains who make a hasty escape with the pre-programmed time travel device.
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#9 - Monolith of Evil
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 10/14/1978
The Legion find out about the Monolith of Evil from Solomon Grundy, who reveals it brought him to life. The Legion trick Superman, Black Vulcan, and Hawkman to go to the center of the Earth and recover the Monolith. The rest of the Super Friends battle the Legion equipped with the Monolith. However, it is neither good nro evil, but influenced by whoever holds it. Wonder Woman telepathically controls it long enough for the Super Friends to gain the advantage.
#10 - Attack of the Vampire
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/14/1978
In the remote heights of Transylvania's alps, Dracula awakes after a 100 year sleep. Dracula starts havoc by releasing a strange glowing powder that turns people into vampires. Meanwhile, Batman & Robin receive a distress call and speeds off to Transylvania. They search Dracula's castle only to get captured by Dracula himself. Later Wonder Woman and Aquaman arrived in Transylvania after the Wonder Twins reported it was taken over by bats only to be attacked by dozens of mindless vampires. Another report of vampire attacks was made and this time Superman went to Vienna to stop them.
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#11 - The Rise and Fall of the Superfriends
Season 1 - Episode 31 - Aired 12/23/1978
The Super Friends are visited by Mr. Mxyzptlk who comes complete with a script for a movie that he wants the Super Friends to star in. The imp uses his 5th dimensional mind control to cause the Super Friends to act out the script...but Superman is not affected by the mind control but he nonetheless goes along with everything in an elaborate plot to trick Mxyzptlk into saying his last name backwards. In one scene a zombie Lois Lane shows up in a wedding dress wearing a kryptonite wedding ring.
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#12 - The Beasts Are Coming
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 10/21/1978
After an experimental satellite from Kennedy Space Center falls back to Earth it breaks releasing deadly radioactive energy. The Super Friends then receive a distress call from the west coast saying Death Valley is being overrun by giant desert beasts. Wonder Woman and the Wonder Twins stay behind to check the Justice League computer for more information while the rest of the Super Friends head to Death Valley.
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#13 - Terror from the Phantom Zone
Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 10/28/1978
Three Kryptonian villains from the Phantom Zone escape and expose Superman to Red Kryptonite causing him to age rapidly. The rest of the Super Friends get trapped by the villains and must now escape from the Phantom Zone. Meanwhile, the Justice League Computer tells Superman the only possible antidote for his rapid aging is Blue Kryptonite. Since Blue Kryptonite is harmful to Bizarro, it may have an opposite effect on Superman. Superman must take the Supermobile to go to the site where Krypton blew up and get the Blue Kryptonite in time to save the other Super Friends. Using the ray device the three villains stole from Superman, he sends the Kryptonian villains back to the Phantom Zone.
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#14 - The Anti-Matter Monster
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 11/4/1978
In this story the Super Friends have to stop an energy draining monster which exists on computer tape and can appear anywhere at anytime. Wonder Woman and Superman, during one scene, go undercover as a science expert and Clark Kent, in an attempt to learn how the energy creature can be destroyed. One of the scientists working in the lab turns out to be the culprit responsible for unleashing the energy creature. The story borrows heavily from the national headlines of the time during the concerns of a looming energy crisis.
#15 - World Beneath the Ice
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 11/11/1978
The Super Friends must stop the plans of a conqueror named Torhana who seeks vengeance on the people of the surface world by freezing everything in his path. Torhana and his crew travel by ship, freezing oceans and continents and people...Aquaman uses his telepathy to summon sword-fish to cut him out of the ice and take him to Atlantis. Torhana and his crew appear to have the upper hand but by episode's end the Super Friends regroup and come up with a clever plan to melt all of the ice that's engulfed the planet. This is one of the few episodes in the series that features Aquaman at his usual base of operations in the comic books: the undersea city of Atlantis.
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#16 - Invasion of the Brain Creatures
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 11/18/1978
While in space Batman and Superman become possessed by brain creatures. The brain creatures ultimately take over the minds of Wonder Woman, Robin, and Aquaman when it appears that the Wonder Twins are successfully defeating Batman and Superman's asteroid attack of Earth. Batman and Superman, while under mind control, continue to attack the Earth by firing huge asteroids on the surface.
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#17 - The Incredible Space Circus
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 11/25/1978
A crooked space circus proprietor, Zarnum, uses a device to turn protected animals that have been illegally captured into beasts to boost attendance at his space circus. Sensing that the Super Friends are onto his scheme he uses the device to change Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins into space creatures. It's up to the rest of the Super Friends to track down the elusive space circus, rescue the captive Super Friends, and bring an end to the poaching that's been taking place. NOTE: Zarnum's name is loosely based on circus legend P.T. Barnum.
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#18 - Batman: Dead or Alive
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 12/2/1978
Batman and Robin head off to a planet named Texarkana after receiving a distress alert that a local villain, The Capricorn Kid, is terrorizing the planet. After defeating the Kid and putting him in jail the Kid vows revenge. He and his group of outlaws travel to Earth, break into the Hall of Justice, and plot their revenge on all the Super Friends. The Kid's group successfully places each of the Super Friends in dangerous situations and they deliberately force Batman and Robin into freeing each person...but the catch is that each trap is timed and the object of the game is to free all the Super Friends from the various traps before it's too late. In a show-down Batman and the Kid meet up in an old-fashioned shoot out.
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#19 - Battle of the Gods
Season 1 - Episode 27 - Aired 12/9/1978
At the start of the episode the Super Friends are involved in an intense outer space battle. Moments into the battle Wonder Woman gets a telepathic message from Aphrodite to help save the planet from a disturbance. Afterward all of the Super Friends show up and Aphrodite praises them on their great work and good will. An envious Hera gets into an argument with Aphrodite on Mount Olympus which triggers the wrath of Zeus.
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#20 - Journey Through Inner Space
Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired 12/16/1978
Aquaman is exposed to a radioactive substance that turns him into a prehistoric sea creature from which he evolved. In order to cure him, Superman and Wonder Woman, inside the Super Mobile, are shrunk down to microscopic size and sent within the creature's veins to attempt to give it another dose of radiation in the hopes that it will reverse the effects of the radiation and return Aquaman to normal. In the meantime the rest of the Super Friends have to do whatever they can to limit the creature's destructive nature all over the city.
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#21 - The Pied Piper from Space
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/7/1978
Traveling from a distant corner of the universe, a fleet of unidentified ships head towards Earth to hypnotize all children and gather them to Monument Valley, AZ. The Super Friends start to take action after the Wonder Twins became hypnotized and a call from the Justice League trouble alert. After the Super Friends tried to stop children from entering a spaceship, a UFO arose to destroy a nearby city. Batman & Robin stayed with the children as Superman and Wonder Woman stopped the UFO and the disasters it caused only to get trapped inside the space craft as it heads to the Anti-Matter Universe.
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#22 - History of Doom
Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 12/23/1978
Three aliens come to a ruined Earth. Travelling to the Great Hall of Justice, they find a series of memory tapes chronicling the Superfriends and the Legion of Doom. Although they find some origin tapes, they find nothing on the calamity that destroyed the Earth. They find the Legion of Doom HQ and discover that Luthor unleashed a solar flare that interacted with the Superfriends' planet-protecting shield, devastating all life on Earth. The aliens go back in time and alter the timeline with an eclipse so that the flare never makes it to Earth.
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#23 - Superfriends: Rest in Peace
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 12/16/1978
The episode opens with...Batman's funeral! We soon find out that the Legion of Doom have a substance, Noxiam, that allows them to kill any Superfriend. In flashback we see Lex trick Superman into opening the krypton-steel box. Then the Riddler lures Batman into an ambush in Gotham City and kills him, leading to the funeral at the beginning. The Legion then takes the Daily Planet, Perry White, and Lois Lane hostage and kill Superman, and Paradise Island hostage to force Wonder Woman to confront them and be killed as well. The other Superfriends flee Earth but come back and are killed. Luthor then tosses the Noxiam into the sewer, its use at an end. A protectively garbed figure recovers it and shoots the crystal into space--it's Apache Chief. It's all a ploy to lure the Legion out. The dead Superfriends were actually robots.
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#24 - Doomsday
Season 1 - Episode 28 - Aired 12/9/1978
The Legion of Doom launch an attack on an aircraft earlier. Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Apache Chief battle their Legion counterparts Sinestro, Black Manta, and Giganta and capture them when the other Legion of Doomers leave their comrades to their fate. Sinestro manages to escape from the Hall of Justice with the others and substitute anti-matter robots. When Superman touches them he is briefly transferred to the anti-matter universe of Qward and fights an anti-universe Krypton knight. Meanwhile, the three renegades steal a matter-transmutation device from the Flash and Black Vulcan. They use the device to gain revenge on their Legion of Doom comrades by transmitting them into bowling pins and billard balls before deciding things are even. With the aid of the device they manage to defeat most of the Super Friends but Superman manages to get to the transmutation device and stop it, leaving the Legion to be captured once more.
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#25 - Fairy Tale of Doom
Season 1 - Episode 26 - Aired 12/2/1978
The Toyman devises a way to transmit people into books. The Legion uses Brainiac, Cheetah, and Giganta to lure Superman, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman respectively into the storybook tales of Gulliver, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Alice in Wonderland, respectively. In each case the villains lure the heroes into some danger and then disappear. The other Super Friends figure things out and manage to open the portal just before the books would be sealed for good and defeat the Legion.
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