Ringers on 'Super Friends'?!
Question: The last version of 'Super Friends', which featured a small army of villains, the "Legion of Doom," also featured a number of "heroes" who could be regarded as "ringers" since they had never appeared in comic books or on any other venue than 'Super Friends', but were presented as if they were part and parcel of the DC universe. I'm thinking of characters like Black Vulcan, Super-Samari, Apache Chief, El Dorado and others. What did you think of these ringers? Did they seem incredibly lame, or was there one or more of characters who were created expressly for the cartoon series who actually appealed to you? I'll admit that I thought that El Dorado had some potential to become an actual comic book character, if that helps (but I don't care if anyone else agrees with me on that point or not).
Answers: The last version of 'Super Friends', which featured a small army of villains, the "Legion of Doom," also featured a number of "heroes" who could be regarded as "ringers" since they had never appeared in comic books or on any other venue than 'Super Friends', but were presented as if they were part and parcel of the DC universe. I'm thinking of characters like Black Vulcan, Super-Samari, Apache Chief, El Dorado and others. What did you think of these ringers? Did they seem incredibly lame, or was there one or more of characters who were created expressly for the cartoon series who actually appealed to you? I'll admit that I thought that El Dorado had some potential to become an actual comic book character, if that helps (but I don't care if anyone else agrees with me on that point or not).
Each of those characters was created in order to make the Super Friends more multi-cultural. Both the Super Friends and the Justice League's line-ups are exclusively white. With the Politically Correct movement of the 70s and 80s, it was felt that some representation from other races was needed, so they weren't mere "ringers". Thus, you got Black Vulcan (African American) Apache Chief (Native American) Samurai (Asian) and El Dorado (Hispanic). The first three were added in 1978-9 during "Challenge of the Super Friends". El Dorado came a few years later in "The Super Friends Hour".
The only one of these to make it into the comics was Black Vulcan, reborn as Black Lightning who's become a regular of the JLA. Apache chief was re-invented as Manitou Raven during Joe Kelly's Obsidian Age arc on JLA, along with his wife, Manitou Dawn. Apache chief and Black Vulcan made notable appearances on an episode of the satirical Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law "Very Personal Injury"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Har...
There was also an episode of Justice League Unlimited "Ultimatum" which featured a team named the Ultimen comprised of re-imaginings of the Wonder Twins, Apache Chief, Black Lightning and Samurai. They are renamed Downpour, Shifter, Long Shadow, Juice and Wind Dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimen
You can watch the full JLU episode here
http://www.broadcaster.com/clip/27852
Hey there! Black Lightning Apache Chief, Rima, el dorado and Samurai were created to add "diversity" to the waspy Caucasian roster of Super Friends, even though the group included a Kryptonian, whatever the heck the wonder twins were, a golem (wonder woman), an Atlantean, and a Thanagarian
To answer your question in no particular order?
Rima the Jungle Girl is a totally different sort of ringer- as she started out in an ACTUAL BOOK! yeah- Rima came out of a Victorian adventure novel. Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by W. H. Hudson and predates superfriends by 70 years or so- she also had a short DC comic in the 70's. Rima also got a Movie made about her around 1960 with audrey Hepburn. Take that Gleek!
Black Vulcan sorta was a DC character - Black Lightning (Hanna Barbara didnt want to pay the larger licensing fee required to cover the royalty due to creators Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden, so HB decided to create its own version of the character)
Apache Chief has made a sort of appearance in the modern DCU as the character Manitou Raven- both are Native American Mystic types who say Inuk-chuck to cast spells- yeah it took a while to get him to a page... and samurai popped up in a group shot in the infinite crisis hardcover
If you want to see some interesting stuff about this group of ringers - look at the dvd boxset for this season where they talk about the various "ringers"