Soaring To Super Heights.

Now my thoughts on a superhero who was a big hit with the masses: Birdman.

Birdman was another H-B superhero who grew on me big time. I thrilled to the sight of him, Avenger, and later Birdboy flying off to take on supervillains after being alerted by Falcon 7. More often than not, these bad guys were employed by FEAR. I've always believed FEAR was an acronym for Foreign Enemy Agents Reserves, since that's the only one that makes sense. Birdman spent so much time out in the sun, that it's a wonder he never had sunburn or skin cancer. Most of the time, the villains took advantage of the fact that he'd weaken whenever he was away from the sun. Another weakness I observed was his refusal to harm women.

I often wondered about Birdgirl. Since she wasn't truly evil, she should have joined Team Birdman. Sure, her mechanical wings were destroyed, but he could have easily built her some new ones. I can just picture it: "Bi-i-rdman!" "Bi-i-rdgirl!" "Bi-i-rdboy!" "Squawk!"

I really liked the episodes with recurring villains like Dr Millenium, Vulturo, and of course Number One and the FEAR agents, all of whom wore the same uniforms.

But don't ask me what I thought of "Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law." I never saw it even when I got the series on DVD. No offense, Dave. It's just that I have a tight schedule that keeps me from playing them.

Now for my thoughts on "The Galaxy Trio:"

Vapor Man, Gravity Girl, and Meteor Man almost always landed on planets, including Earth, to deal with alien threats. This included adversaries from their home planets, which I consider outstanding. I also liked the ones with Computron, especially when he became a human good guy in the end. So again, there were heroes I enjoyed watching.

But I wonder about one thing. Since "Birdman And The Galaxy Trio" was produced during the Vietnam War, and had an antiwar theme in several shorts, is it possible the series was Hanna-Barbera's way of protesting the war? I don't know about anyone else here, but I take that thought very seriously.

Good question. The Vietnam War years were divisive for the whole country, including the media. Although Hanna-Barbera Studios produced these cartoons, I'm not sure how much politicking the studio believed that it could get away with. A lot of the studio's funding still came from sponsors and networks, which routinely gave push-and-pull to story ideas. As usual for America, those with the money get to pull the strings. So far, I can't find any real political leaning in either Bill Hanna's biography A Cast Of Friends nor in Joe Barbera's My Life In 'Toons. Let me point out that "taking sides" in issues like this tends to alienate about half of one's audience. Hanna-Barbera Studios pretty much needed all the audience they could get in order to stay solvent. Therefore, I believe that whatever Joe and Bill's personal views were, they would tend to stay carefully neutral, unless sponsor funding depended upon one particular slant.

Birdman's backstory, although never revealed on the show, was that he was police officer Ray Randall. Randall gained his superpowers from the Egyptian sun god Ra, and became Birdman, after the god saved him from a fiery death. He did, however, mention Ra's name in one episode.

You're most certainly welcome.

Trivia Question 66: The Galaxy Trio discovered that due to its structure, they could destroy the planet Plastus by: A. Imploding it. B. Disintegrating it. C. Splitting it in half. D. Puncturing it like a balloon.

Trivia Answer: D. Gravity Girl's density meter revealed it was like a gas-filled balloon, so....