Defensores da Terra

A quite good '80s cartoon.The music is good.Most characters are rather boring except:1)Ming the Merciless.The ruler of Mongo and would-be conqueror of Earth.Witiful and inspiring.This guy should have his own series.He always has plans to keep his opponents occupied.No defeat actually influences him much.He seems to believe he has time.2)The Phantom,apparently Phantom the 22th,practicaly the star of this series.Intelligent and mysterious.3)Jedda Walker,the Phantom's daughter and heir.Equaly intelligent and mysterious with powers developing. The episodes that revolve around the Walkers are the best.They examine some aspects of the Phantom's legend:1)Each Phantom passes his mantle to a descentant of him.What happens when they are more than one leaving?In a flashback episode we have young Phantom facing his own older brother for the right to inherite his father.His brother almost kills him.How many times has such fight among the Walkers happened?2)The Walkers are no saints.The older brother is still alive trying to kill his brother and niece in order to obtain the title that should be his own long ago,he was the strongest.To fulfil his goal he has alied with Ming.The family genes can provide super criminals as well as superheroes.3)Jedda has to make her father understand that her being a female doesn't disqualify her as the next Phantom.This son to son tradition seems to be currently based on male sobinism.4)Another issue is what kind of influence do the Walkers have on Bengala and through what means are they planning to keep it? This should have featured only the Walkers not the rest.It should be seen by anyone who is interested in The Phantom Who Walks.

This show looks really good. Its just not for me.

Its a superhero show.

The animation is great. Its just the pacing and music that gives me a headache. It has a story going on however, the pacing is really fast.

The characters are plenty, fine and very 80s like.

OVerall a nice show. Its put together real well. However, its not for me after a few episodes I'm done.

What can be learned? 80 shows are really good.

Verdict: It's the music that gives me a headache. Overall a fun show if the music doesn't harm you.

A good fun cartoon of the mid 1980s. I remember this well from my own childhood, it was one of the few US import shows I watched, and seen today I can remember why I enjoyed it: it's fun, funny, creative and fast-paced.

This show had the interesting idea of bringing together the stars of the four greatest adventure strips that were distributed by King Features Syndicate and team them with their children to fight Ming and his son. Too bad it only lasted a short time because I really enjoyed the cross generational concept. This show probably would have succeeded if it had come on perhaps during the late sixties at a time when the strips featuring the principals were still popular and at a time when super hero shows were at their peak.

Defenders of the Earth is an anomaly in superhero entertainment: it was produced during a time when superhero cinema was barely getting started (the Superman films were then still recent blockbuster smashes) and the concept of shared universes remained a strong-point in sci-fi novels rather than in regular movies or television. Defenders is oddly entertaining considering it's a superhero show that ISN'T from either MARVEL (which supplied the animation for this show) or DC Comics; these were superheroes from syndicated newspaper comic strips, not wholly comic-book oriented magazines. It's interesting that Defenders exists at all frankly; the 80s were a great time for Saturday-morning 'toons: Robotech, Transformers, GI Joe, Jem, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ThunderCats, Ghostbusters, Duck Tales, the list goes on from there. So how does a show starring Flash Gordon, The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician compare to all those classics? It's watchable; cheesy admittedly but genuinely watchable nonetheless.

I give this time-capsule of a show 4/5 stars.