Challenge of the Superfriends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes which ran from September 9 to December 23, 1978, on ABC.

When the Challenge of the Superfriends season was originally conceived, it was named "Battle of the Super Friends" and featured the introduction of Captain Marvel.

The group that challenged the heroes was called the "League of Evil", led by Captain Marvel's nemesis Doctor Sivana.

and The New Adventures of Batman, which prevented the use of characters such as Mister Atom, King Kull, Beautia Sivana, The Joker, The Penguin, Mr.

Early conceptual art drawn by Alex Toth also included Heat Wave, Poison Ivy, and Abra Kadabra.

These characters were created to add racial and cultural diversity to the show (this was also mentioned in some of the episode introduction extras on the first two Challenge of the Super Friends DVDs).

Lex Luthor forms a criminal gang called the "Legion of Doom" and uses a dream-machine to make the Super Friends commit crimes.

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 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.

It is up to Superman, Batman and Robin to track down the elusive space circus, rescue the captive Super Friends, and bring an end to the poaching that has been taking place.

He nonetheless goes along with everything in an elaborate plot to trick Mxyzptlk into saying his name backwards — by using his heat vision to change the last word on the script.

The Justice League starred Batman, Robin, Captain Marvel, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Huntress, and the Black Canary against the Legion of Doom which featured Mordru leading Doctor Sivana, the Riddler, Giganta, Sinestro, the Weather Wizard, and Solomon Grundy (Superman, Wonder Woman, and their associate characters were absent due to the Superman film and Wonder Woman television series licensing the rights to them, respectively).