Universe of Evil
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"Universe of Evil" is a classic episode of the cartoon series Superfriends. It involved a visit to a parallel universe which featured evil counterparts of the Super Friends (there called Super Enemies).
The episode begins in a small town in Central America, where a dam is about to erupt. The dam workers cannot contain the floodwaters and flee in terror. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Batman and Robin arrive and immediately concentrate all their energies upon the bursting dam. However, they do not attempt to stop the dam from erupting; they intentionally cause it to burst, after which the entire town is destroyed in the resulting flood. The superpowered characters revel in the destruction they have caused. (Even before this, some subtle visual clues exist that these are not the Super Friends we know: Aquaman has an eyepatch, Robin has a mustache, and Batman's costume is red rather than the normal blue.)
Superman - specifically his evil, rather demonic counterpart - arrives and tells the rest of the Super Enemies that he intends to cause Mount Vesuvius to erupt. He goes to the mountain and grabs it with his super strength, causing it to become extremely unstable, ready to erupt at any moment. At the same time, in the normal universe, the counterpart of the same mountain is also ready to erupt - apparently the two versions of Vesuvius, one in each universe, are connected somehow. Evil Superman's attempts to cause his Vesuvius to erupt are causing the other Vesuvius to follow suit. The good Superman arrives and tries to stop this from happening; ultimately, both Vesuviuses explode, causing the Supermen to switch places.
In the 'normal' universe, evil Superman is disoriented from the explosion. He does not yet realize that he is in another universe, but quickly becomes confused when he makes his way to what he thinks is the Super Enemies' headquarters. He is horrified to find that his 'Hall of Evil' has been replaced by a Hall of Justice. The Wonder Twins arrive and ask Superman what went wrong; Superman attempts to bluff his way out by saying that the volcanic explosion changed his skin and uniform color. Not knowing who he really is, the Wonder Twins inform Superman that a large shipment of gold bullion from a gold bank in Switzerland is being transferred to a top secret base in an armor truck; Superman is to accompany the guards on their delivery route to their destination for added security. This gives evil Superman an idea: break the armor truck in two to get at the gold shipment, dispose of the guards, and cart them all to the Fortress of Solitude for safe keeping. But before he can haul the gold away, he is confronted by Batman and Robin who try to stop him but are encased in the armor truck by evil Superman's heat vision. The evil Kryptonian promptly leaves with the gold, leaving Batman and Robin to suffocate inside due to lack of air in the truck. Batman and Robin radio the other Superfriends for help, hoping that help will arrive before they run out of air.
Meanwhile, good Superman finds himself in the evil universe. He immediately notices the differences in the Super Enemies' costumes, and the Enemies follow suit when they scan Superman's brain and find that he shows tendencies towards honesty and justice, concepts which are foreign to them. They lock him up in the Hall of Evil, binding him in Kryptonite chains....
Evil Superman has quickly realized that the 'good' universe is ripe for the picking. He holds all the world's oil reserves in Saudi Arabia at ransom and demands that the world's governments release all their riches to him. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman and Aquaman free Batman and Robin and explain to them what is happening over in the Middle East. Quickly the heroes speed off to Saudi Arabia to confront the evil version of the Man of Steel. Unfortunately, not even the combined resources of the Superfriends can stop him, and defeat seems imminent.
Back in the evil universe, good Superman has escaped from the Hall of Evil by using his freeze-breath and X-ray vision to change the water in his prison tank into acid, dissolving the Kryptonite chains. After escaping from a squad of police officers, who mistake him for the evil Superman and attack him with Kryptonite lasers, Superman makes his way to a university campus where he pleads to a scientist to help him. She is skeptical of who he is, but is convinced when he lets her judge him for herself - an act she concludes that a villain would never gamble. Superman's new friend gives him a flask of a compound which can return him to his home universe, asking only if he will one day return and free her world. However, he must open the flask at the precise location where he entered this universe; evil Gleek attempts to stop him, but Superman manages to find his arrival point and, after a short bout with the Super Enemies, opens the flask. He is immediately exchanged with his evil counterpart in the other universe; back home, evil Superman lashes out at his evil comrades, accusing them of ruining "a great opportunity for me."
The Superfriends are glad to see the heroic Superman once again, and hope to never have to see the evil one again. However, Superman says that they may have to once more; he intends to keep his promise to return "and clean up that evil universe" but he needs help to do so. The other Superfriends immediately volunteer to accompany him.
[edit] Counterparts in other media
The themes presented in this episode (a collection of evil counterparts of regular comic heroes) resemble those introduced in Earth-Three from DC Comics (and later the Crime Syndicate of Amerika).
Similarities also exist in the Star Trek universe, such as the Terran Empire (a Mirror Universe counterpart to the United Federation of Planets).
[edit] Trivia
Evil counterparts of the Wonder Twins also appear in this episode. However, they do not have any lines; they are only seen in shadow, in the opening scenes where the Super Enemies watch the impending destruction of the dam, on a computer monitor in the darkened Hall of Evil.
To make it easier for young viewers to tell which universe they were looking at, the 'good' universe is always shown in daytime, whereas any scenes in the evil universe take place at night. (This is particularly evident when both versions of Mount Vesuvius are erupting, as the scene quickly cuts back and forth between the two universes.)
Though Superman and the rest of the Superfriends vow to return to the Universe Of Evil and stop the Super Enemies, they never got the chance to fulfill the promise (in either the television series or the comic book version of the show).
