Super Friends Season 2, Episode 12, Storyline C – “The Lionmen”
Original Airdate – November 19, 1977
This one is the third storyline of the episode, which means it is the bulk of the hour. Guess what? I don’t have my act together enough to do all of “The Lionmen” so rather than go two weeks without a Super Friends post, I’m splitting them up into parts 1 and 2. It is NOT because this one is particularly epic or has so much material to work with, it is because I do not have the attention span to finish it today. So, with that…
Introduction: “Deep in space, in a distant galaxy, lies a strange, ominous planet where a frightening business agreement is being made.” – Narrator
Here, we see a round table of various aliens. Their ringleader (HA HA – you’ll get it once I mention he’s a lion) is a lion man. This lionman (named Lionex) is proposing that he will split up Earth into equal sections and each representative gets something they want:
Good luck with the distribution of the separate ice and water, bros.
The best part of this whole episode (three seconds in, so it was a hard twenty more minutes) was a cameo by the Plant Creatures from a previous episode.
It was so inspiring – they seem to have learned to speak perfect English instead of grunting all the time and have obviously taken some business classes and learned to read and write. I think we can all learn something from their drive and determination.
Just to be clear about Lionex’s plan, he’s a-literally a-gonna splita the whole a-planet into a-five pieces a-like a pizza pie, mamma mia!
That means there’s shit everyone wants in every slice, which means there will have to be a bunch of swapping and negotiations like when a group has to pay one restaurant bill instead of just splitting it up into separate bills. But I’m not a fancy talking lion so what do I know.
“There is some form of lower intelligence. You can use them as slaves or eliminate them altogether. I believe they are called, ‘Earthlings.’” Lionex is ALL business, bitches.
”Later, miles above the earth in a sophisticated space station.” – Narrator
Not one of those trashy space stations where it’s all cigarette butts and strippers.
The Lionmen take over the sophisticated space station to use it to dispense their “strata ray” to split the earth up.
A note on Lionmen culture and heritage.
We don’t learn much about the Lionmen and their life back on their home planet, but I did gather this little tidbit: the leader gets to have a glorious Tina Turner-like mane of hair:
And then the underlings get underling pageboys:
Something to aspire to, I guess.
The worst kept secret
Superman just happened to be flying in space when the distress call came through. But, Lionex has done his homework, he has prepared a Kryptonite force field which prevents Superman from boarding and screwing everything up from inside the space station.
Lionex starts the strata ray up and begins the process of making individual serving sizes of Earth.
Batman says they have to figure out a way to get on the space station and Aquaman exclaims, “And that calls for a super plan!” A super plan? Well then we’re all screwed.
Phase 1 of the “Super Plan”
Superman causes a distraction by repeatedly hitting the force field with an iron shield while Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin sneak on board.
“Holy Circuses, lion men!” – Robin
“Suffering subdivisions!” – Robin, after overhearing their Earth splitting plan. Robin is on a roll.
And, in case you were wondering about the nitty gritty science behind splitting the Earth in to 5 bite-sized pieces, Batman breaks it down for us: “They’re shooting a harmless light beam through that huge gem lens, and the lens is creating the Earth-splitting ray.”
The Lion Men catch them casually milling around the gem like there’s no danger whatsoever and start trying to shoot them with freeze rays. Robin manages to get a sample of the lens and then they get out of there. That went surprisingly well.
Everyone meets back at the Hall of Justice and concludes that their superpowers are no match for the ray and the only option is to analyze the lens sample and then create like, I don’t know an antidote lens or something.
WILL they do whatever they think they’re going to do with that lens?
DOES Lionex have the power to rip the Earth apart?
WHO will screw up the most in the next phases of the plan? (Gleek)
DO you give a shit?
Until next week…
