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Animated Anthem Day Crossover – Firestorm!

CROSSOVER! Everybody loves a crossover! Fifteen different blogs have combined forces today to celebrate Animated Anthem Day! We’re featuring opening themes from cartoons involving our favorite DC Comics’ characters! Now before you go checking your local Hallmark shop for Animated Anthem Day cards, the answer is “yes” we made it up. That doesn’t make it any less legitimate. While we’ll be looking at Firestorm here, every other blog in the crossover will cover their own relevant cartoon opening themes.

To represent Firestorm, we’re going to look at the opening credits for two different seasons of the seminal series Super Friends!

Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show

In 1984, the Super Friends cartoon was rebranded as Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show. With this change, they introduced Firestorm! As you can see, he’s heavily featured in the opening credits. He’s really the only team member to ever get that kind of attention in the opening credits!

The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians

The next season, the cartoon was rebranded again as The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians. I’m guessing the rebranding was an effort to align themselves with the “Super Powers Collection” brand being developed by DC Comics.

Man, I love me some Super Friends! I’ve got copies of some of these episodes I watch from time to time with my kids. My six-year old daughter is pretty confident she knows everything there is to know about Firestorm because she’s seen him in these cartoons.  :)

Animated Anthem Day Links

Hope you enjoyed the cartoon intros! As mentioned, fifteen different blogs have teamed-up today for Animated Anthem Day! While I’m featuring Firestorm here on my site, you should visit these other character-specific blogs to see how they spotlight their own favorite heroes in animation today. Visit them now, visit them later, and visit them often!

My thanks to Diabolu Frank for organizing today’s crossover event! If you’ve enjoyed this blog crossover, then you should check out some previous comic blog crossovers we’ve done. The first major blog crossover celebrated the gorgeous George Pérez/Alex Ross painting from the Crisis on Infinite Earths 1998 hardcover. The next major blog crossover was a celebration of the Super Powers Collection’s 25th Anniversary. Some subsequent major crossovers included: DC Challenge, Read This Too, Mayfairstivus, April Fool’s Day 2011, and Blackest Night to Brightest Day.

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10 Comments

  1. Frank says:

    So you’re saying “Introducing: Firestorm” was the Cousin Oliver jumping moment that killed the Super Friends a season later? But seriously, the SFs look great landing in that line-out, at least until Black Vulcan and Apache Chief get in the way of the good heroes. They’re all so damned shocked and awed over the Nuclear Man, at least until he runs into Random Giant Robot and is all “Zoinks Scooby, let’s get out of here! This looks like a job for (the aforementioned) Apache Chief!” I guess he redeems himself with the catapult at the end, but the takeaway moment will always be Darkseid shaking his fist while entering the stargate. “I’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you Super Friends.” Then Aquaman stabbed him in the face with a trident. “Make another fish joke! I dare you! I double dog dare you!”

    Wait– no El Dorado spotlight moment? Boo! Hiss!

    I prefer the Galactic Guardians version, with its incredibly Jose Luis Garcia-Lopezzy figures and smooth action moves. Firestorm phasing through the robot and blasting him in the back was something Martian Manhunter could have done if anybody gave a solitary turd about him in 1985. It was impressive enough that I wish my guy could have done it, is what I’m saying, and three with one blast to boot! Even Cyborg comes off okay, and even Samurai gets in there with the TIE Fighter. W! I! N!

  2. Ben says:

    Yeah, everyone can’t believe their eyes . . . “Introducing Firestorm” . . . but as soon as he sees the robot, the OTHER heroes push ahead of him. “Excuse us, Ronnie, let the REAL heroes do some work.” Poor guy.

  3. Hero Supreme says:

    Firestorm is awesome! I remember when he joined the Super Friends and I have had a special place in my heart for him ever since. Its a shame he never made the cut on JLU, but I am still holding out for an appearance on Young Justice.

  4. So after his special “introducing Firestorm” moment what does the new kid do…? He takes the captured Luthor, Brainiac, and DeSaad and….throws them away? I can just imagine Batman saying, “No, you idiot, we *wanted* to capture them!!”

  5. Shag says:

    Thanks for all the comments! Fair points about Firestorm’s actions after his big logo-introduction. Poor, poor Ronnie. He never seems to get things right.

    My thanks also to the following sites for supporting this blog crossover:

    Bleeding Cool:
    http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/04/03/book-on-bendis/

    Superhero Shows:
    http://superheroshows.blogspot.com/2012/04/superhero-shows-supports-animated.html

    Mail it to Team-Up
    http://mailittoteamup.blogspot.com/2012/04/animated-anthem-day.html

    Thanks! I hope everyone enjoyed the event!

  6. outburst says:

    Despite its time-bound awesomeness, the show has generally not aged well, though my young son is mesmerized by it even today. Galactic Guardians was a step in the right direction with better stories and animation, and less hokey-goings-on.
    But as a young kid in the 80s, seeing Firestorm get big billing as part of the Justice League, Super Friends and Super Powers toy line definitely had a part to play in my adoption of him as a character to follow and idolize.
    I hadn’t noticed exactly how much screen time he got in these openings when you consider that other more prominent members like Hawkman and Green Lantern were largely ignored for many years.
    Thanks for sharing.

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