Green Lantern Filmation: The Guardians Order Take-Out!

Meanwhile, on the Planetoid Sargasso….!

Equatorial rings are SO 1990s.

Which is "grim and forbidding". Because authoritarian announcer Ted Knight said so. Which is pretty much the final word on any factual matter.

Hal Jordan, having been hit in the head with a radar-guided space-owl, is dragged off

Which looks like this, in case you've forgotten.

by the Freakish Bat-Creature Minions of Sirena, Empress of Evil™, who is now free to initiate her attack on Oa.

The Sargassonian Fleet. Or four hotdog carts in Dubai. Hard to tell.

So, what’s the motivation to attack Oa, anyway? Perhaps we’ll find out soon. Meanwhile, the Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures do the logical thing: lock Green Lantern up in a windowless cell deep with the bowels of the earth behind many secure doors and seal his power ring in a steel box and bury it miles and miles away.

BWaahaahaha! Just kidding! This is Filmation, folks, so they do no such thing. They dump Hal like a rag doll on the floor of a Rapunzel-tower in their Magic Kingdom Castle, plop his ring on a wooden table right in front of him, and sit down to glare at him menacingly over that table with their improbably red eyes. Well, not sit, really, because there are no chairs. For that matter, I’m not sure the Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures can sit; another triumph of martini-guzzling Cartoon Evolution. Anyway, the whole set up is nearly foolproof and nothing could possibly go wrong, unless, I dunno, Hal gets the chance to grab his ring or something.

In fact, being a clever and resourceful superhero, I’m betting Green Lantern concocts some clever subterfuge to distract the Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures. Like suddenly shouting, “HEY, FREAKS! WHERE ARE YOUR FRICKIN’ HANDS, HUH?” Then, while they stare stupefied at the mysteriously empty points on the end of their wings and try to remember who dressed them in these blue unitards (I’m guessing Sirena, which would have been a sight; “No, you fools! First you must step INTO the leg holes, and then wriggle your left wing through the---arrgh! Very well, I’ll do it MYSELF!”), Hal knocks over the table so that the ring falls his way, while he does a Kirk-roll, slips it on his finger and then melts the whole shoddy castle in "a bath of green heat", while announcing every action out loud to no one, in as clear a voice as his TBI-addled brain can muster.

Bwaahahahaha! Just kidding! This is Hal Jordan, folks, so he does no such thing. He lies there in a heap, until Mr Schienman, er, I mean, one of the Guardians of the Universe sends a glowing ghost-o-gram to Hal’s Venusian helper, Kairo...

And on the way back, bring me a blintz. Wait—what’s that, Murray? Okay! Alright, make that two blintzes.

...telling him to stop arguing with the space-owl that hit GL in the head and go save Hal, because Hal’s his ride home.

And, oh, what a ride he is.

In other words, “Get off your ass and back on to Hal’s”. What the Guardian actually says, by the way, is "Green Lantern and his ring are in the topmost chamber of the castle; go; help him!" To which any normal person would reply, "Um, if Green Lantern and his ring are in the same place, why the heck does he need help from Eddie Munster in a jumpsuit?" But Kairo is not a normal person, he's a Venusian helper with a space-owl.

A space-owl?! Yes , in the time that it took the All-Male Horde of Freakish Alien Bat-Creature to haul Hal’s ride-able butt off to the Rapunzel tower, Kairo has inexplicably befriended Sirena’s space-owl and is treating it like it’s been his dog for the last five years: “Cut it out! I don’t have time to play with you now, Beefy! Green Lantern’s in trouble!”

Duck, Kairo, DUCK!

To which my official reaction would have to be: WTF?! This thing is the crazed predator that willingly flew head-first into the back of Hal Jordan’s skull

Which looks like this in case you’ve forgotten.

When and how did it become Kairo’s pal? When did it get a name? Did Kairo name it, and why? 'Cuz I'm having a hard time imagining that Sirena, Empress of Evil (tm), would name her killer space-owl "Beefy".

Kairo, why would you name the alien creature that just knocked out your friend? And name it "Beefy"? It's like watching a thug clobber your friend with blackjack, and then hanging out with him; "Hey, you're kind of cute; I'll call you Beefy."

Why the hell would you call a space-owl “Beefy” rather than “Raptor Redfeather”? And just what kinds of drugs did Filmation employees use, anyway? Really, this makes about as much sense as cutting back from a scene where the Joker and Harley Quin capture Batman to discover that, during the commercials, Robin became Harley’s boyfriend and started calling her “Betty”. “Cut it out! I don’t have time to play with you now, Betty! Batman’s in trouble!”

Anyway, logic be damned, Kairo and Beefy -- or Beepy (really, it’s hard to tell what Kairo is calling him, so thick is his Venusian accent, and it never sounds the same twice)-- climb the Rapunzel tower to rescue stupid, stupid Hal...

"I may be stupid... but I'm really, really good-looking."

...and, in the process, make evident exactly why Sirena is so motivated to conquer Oa.

Oa is a pretty shiny planet that would make a fabulous earring, the kind one might wear to a Klordny party at Legion Headquarters.

Sargasso, on other hand, is a crappy planetoid that looks like it was made out of mashed potatoes, sorghum, and food coloring.

But with a lovely view of the river, according to the real estate ad.

Oa has pretty shiny architecture that looks like something little Helen Frankenthaler would have made in crafts class at Color Field Elementary out of cellophane, frosting, and jimmies.

Or like C’thulu’s really pretty sister. The one who used to pick on him all the time.

Sargasso has a warped and bent castle that looks like somebody dropped Victor Von Doom’s birthday cake.

“I will have my revenge on gravity for this outrage! Curse you, RICHARDS!!!!!”

Geez, no wonder Sirena spent all her resources building a fleet of ships with which to conquer Oa. Rather than, say, creating a nice low-profiled neo-urbanist community for her and her All-Male Horde of Freakish Alien Bat-Creatures. Why build when you can “borrow”? Plus Oa already comes with its own All-Male Horde of Identical Alien Creatures: The Guardians.

Looks like somebody should have taken their Metamucil, like the nurse told them to.

And the only thing that could possibly stop her invasion is a precariously perched Venusian helper, a fickle space-owl, and a semi-conscious Hal Jordan.

Guess who wins?

NEXT UP: Sirena’s Final Hissy-Fit!